Today we returned to Aandhimul, this time to meet with the committee members and discuss their roles and the renovation plans in more detail.
With the weather so beautiful, we again decided to do the 2 hour walk to the village, to freshen our minds and take in the beauty of the nature around us. On that note, I do hope this blog will tempt many of you to visit Nepal, because I can say it would be an experience you would never forget, and of course if you did decide to come I would arrange for someone to take you to visit the village, and you can experience what all these pictures and video show, for real! Seriously, if any of you do wish to visit Nepal, please don't hesitate in contacting me.
In Image 1 you can see Mon talking with a lady we met on our way to the village, as it happened she had studied in the same year at school with Mon and they hadn't seen each other in 7 years. She's now a teacher at a school very similar in size to Aandhimuls and her English is quite good, she was a little shy in speaking with me, but did say how much she enjoys speaking English and is sad that she can't speak it more often as no other teacher or person in her village can speak it, and foreigners very rarely travel this way.
She made us aware of how her village is also quite undeveloped, especially in education, she being the only person to pass her SLC (A-Level equivalent). This confirms to me that there are so many places like Aandhimul that, whilst the government is still falling behind, need the help from NGO's like us and many others. So if you're getting itchy feet, you know what to do!
Once in the village, we congregated with the committee members and a few others in a building in the South of the village, the school being in the North. Actually, it is the only other building apart from people's houses and the school, and was originally built as a church, one of the families being Christian. However, it is rarely used, and on our previous visits both Mon and I have had many ideas for the potential of this building. Such as, a before & after school extra curricular activity centre, where the children can go to learn new things, be creative, or catch up on studies, even a potential place for volunteers to go in the future and help. It can also be used in teaching vocational skills to adults, and much, much more. Of course we cannot also deny the use of the school building for similar activities too. So it is great the we have the potential of using buildings on both sides of the village. You can see the church building in Images 2-5 and in the video as well.
The meeting went well and all of the committee positions were voted for and delegated and we put forward a written proposal and costs for the school's renovation. We want the committee to comfirm our proposal, or give an edited version if neccessary. Most labour where possible will be found from within the village, and the committee and us also stated that as many of the villagers where possible could volunteer a day of their time to help in manual labour.
To finalise things, because of an upcoming festival (Tihar-Brother & Siter festival) in the following week, we plan to meet again at the beginning of November and hopefully secure plans for the renovation, and it is also my intention to stay in the village for a few weeks, before having to sadly leave the country on the 25th November.
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