A weekend wander out of a town

I've been told I'm slacking on the blog front and so here's a quick overview of a trip out of town Roshan and I took last weekend...

Roshan and I had decided, well I decided and he agreed, that we needed to go out of KTM for a walk where the air was cleaner. So we took what we had expected to be two buses, but which was actually four because one driver said yes when the answer should had been no, the bus wasn't going to Changu Narayan Temple (all great amusement for everyone on bus no.3....and I thought my Nepali was getting a little better!).

The bus winds up the hill, frequently on single track. Lonely Planet advice to bikers is "it is a wonderful downhill run on the way back (30 mins) but quite a steep climb on way there!" Yes quite! But worth viewing another world heritage site in the KTM valley - Changu's history is said to date back to 3rd century AD. Hard to comprehend!


I knew from my list that there were schools in this area and the biggest, a government one, was in the buildings around the main temple, with classrooms above sheds of carts and furniture. On this occasion, as I had not made prior contact, I didn't investigate inside the school so I'm unsure whether students calling to us were standing by the windows for air, through boredom or because of shortage of desks. I suspect all three. Certainly with a metal roof, as many schools here have, there are problems with heat. I will return another cooler day to spend some time in Grade 1 and the ECD class, perhaps with my colleague spending time with the older children.


As we returned to the bus we spotted children in this brown and white uniform and all with shoes and socks. It would be a private school and from the board outside likely that most of the teaching would be in English medium. The Department of Education Office (DEO) has responsibility for monitoring government and private schools so am likely to return to both.


Oh and just to confuse you, I am now working for the Department of Education as well as the DEO. I am working in the ECD section at the DoE and am likely to much more busy! It is really exciting to see the national plans for Early Years, community based and school based, and these are to include training for facilitators, consideration of young children's holistic development, well equipped centres, inclusion and parental education...and the implementation will be the fun part - I'll keep you posted!

Sheila x