Sunday, June 7, 2009

Study on Maajgaun Chatturale Village





The journey to Chatturale village started from the Heart of Nepal, Basantpur, at around 10:30am on 4th February, 2008, Wednesday with three friends, Gopal, Raju and Sambhu. A half an hour walk from Basantapur to Balaju chock, we were able to catch a bus to Rani Pawa which was about 30 km and took us one and half hour. After having some food at Rani Pawa we started our walking journey at 1:10 pm. Stumbling and rushing down the stony and dusty mountain was not an easy journey for all of us. 2 hours walk down the hill reached to our destination.

 

As we were entering the village, we walk by a school which was named Shree Brahmayani Primary School. Since Gopal had already been to the village before and knew couple of friends made us easy. We stayed one of the Gopal’s friend house. The house was typical village house with domestic animals and chickens. After resting for about half an hour, we decided to visit school to know more about school’s condition. As we enter the school’s area, we say a small dusty ground. One of the teachers could see us entering and asked us for the reason. Gopal introduced himself as one of the member of Mysmallhelp and we have come to understand the school. The teacher introduced himself as the principal of the school and welcomed us into his office.

 

As he started talking, he sound frustrated with school condition and Nepal’s political condition. Few things which he pointed us were, the school is run by Nepal Government and they have grades from 1 to 5. Only 3 teachers were being allocated in the school where they need at least 5 teachers to run the classes at the same time. He pointed toilet as the main problem. The badly build current toilet is very small with no proper water system and door luck. Though they have 2 small toilets but they were compel to use only one for the children because of the lack of cleaning and water. Even with the lack of door luck, 2 children need to go once for 1 child to use. The other child blocks the door so that no other children can open accidently.

 

Another problem was proper water tank as children hardly have any water to use. Badly build school building, class floor, furniture and worn out blackboard clearly showed us how bad the school condition was. The teacher suggested if we can build new toilet at different place with proper water system for the school. Raju noted all the problems and the suggestion principal was telling us. After taking few pictures and understanding the problem we head back to Gopal friend’s house where we were staying for a night.

 

The sun was setting down the hill, Gopal and his friend suggest Raju to buy a chicken for a dinner. We all found a good idea so we headed down to buy a chicken. Finally we got one at Rs. 500 which we thought was abit expensive. We had a good dinner with Dal, Bhat, fresh vegetable and children. After some interesting talks with house family we headed for a good sleep. We all three had a very good sleep.

 

In the morning, after having a good tea we headed down the village market to meet some of Gopal’s friends. After talking with his friend for a while we walked down to see a beautiful place where we could see high hills all round with big open space. Taking picture and listening to mobile music for an hour we headed to school to meet the principal. The principal had estimated the budget which he though could be helpful for us to estimate what we exactly can do and what not. Some of the villagers as well as constructor of the village joined the talk. Along the talk they though it will be a good idea to see the water source. So we all headed up hill to understand how the water is being mobilized in village and how can the water can be used.

 

Understanding the water problem and predicting the solution we all walked down. We three headed house to have lunch. After having lunch, it was time for us to leave the house and get back home. We entered the school to say good bye to the principal and children and convinced the principal to see what we could do for the school.

 

Climbing high up to reach the bus stop was not an easy task for all three. Finally we reach the bus stop climbing 2 hours of steady hill and reach our home at around 5 pm in the evening.

 

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