Mitrataa Hostel Madness

To say that today was absolutely amazing would be the understatement of the century. Today was meant to be a normal school day which would mean we would visit the school at 9am and meet the teachers and students but as there are elections coming up on the 19th of November the country has had rolling strikes. Today though was only a partial strike and so we had half the day to explore Thamel. We all navigated our way along the narrow busy lanes to find Durbar Square. I imagined Durbar to be like any major city centre; lots of shops, tourists and office buildings. I was of course, completely wrong. Durbar Square is full of so many different ancient temples and market stalls. We got to see the Living Goddess; an 8 year old girl who is considered sacred in the Hindu religion. I found this a rather confronting situation; a local guide explained to me that this young girl is chosen because of her beauty and is taken from her family to live in a temple in Durbar Square with a caretaker who appeared to be a 70 year old man. This girl seems to be extorted and displayed for tourists and religious followers alike. Her family is allowed to visit on occasion but I still feel for her; it seems like a sad, lonely existence for her.

Me in Durbar Square

After some tea at a local cafe, we had word that we could visit the school as the teachers would be there, so we all jumped in some cabs (which are super tiny) and headed out to the Riviera International School. We were greeted by the principal who was a very friendly and enthusiastic man and he took us on a brief tour of the school. I will be teaching year 1 and 2 and I was surprised at how very small the classrooms are compared to how many students they have. The classes would be the size of a medium sized bedroom but handle a capacity of up to 40 students at a time. I got to meet the year 1 and 2 Maths teacher that I will be working most with. Her name is Kanchan Shrestha and she is only 19 years old. Kanchan's father passed away only last year at only 36 years old and so with her mother, they both support her two younger sisters. Along with this she tutors other children outside of school hours and is in her 4th year of studying a full time science degree at university. That to me is truly remarkable and I take my hat off to her for what she does.

The name says it all. 

 After visiting the school we walked down to Boudhanath Stupa which is a world heritage listed Buddhist site. It is also the home picture on this blog but it does not give the site justice as it is massive. We enjoyed lunch at a rooftop restaurant (I had Vegetable Korma) and took in the beautiful sites of both the Stupa and the amazing mountains in the background.

To end the afternoon we all jumped at the chance to visit the Mitrataa Foundation Hostel.The hostel is home to displaced children either due to being orphaned or due to bad home situations. The foundation has a focus on empowering the education of women therefore the majority of the children are girls (there are four boys here that came along to remain with their sisters). I strongly recommend taking a look here at their website. When we all got there we sat in a circle in what I am guessing was their main living space and we took turns in introducing ourselves along with something that made us happy today. After this we played games. The games were good old fashion group school games and the children had an absolute blast (and so did we). We were all laughing so hard and the kids were really warming to us all. They were trying to teach us the words to a traditional Nepali song; one of the little boys was trying to teach me and I will admit I was struggling big time.

I found being in the hostel rather emotional; in a good way more than anything. It was so wonderful to see all these children acting as one big happy family. The hostel just had this fantastic, happy, hope-filled energy that was just insanely contagious. I already feel like I just want to come to the hostel on my days off and help out around the place.

I don't know how today can be topped; it truly feels like we did a weeks worth of stuff in one day and I feel like this blog entry doesn't do justice to the actual experience.

Some of the kids in the Mitrataa Hostel.