First Musings from the Orphanage

Namaste again everyone! So life in Nepal has become a lot more comfortable within the past two days mainly due to the fact that my schedule is progressively becoming more specific and I'm starting to get a routine established. I want to talk a lot about the orphanage that I will be working at for the remainder of my time here. So, yesterday I went to the orphanage for the first time and my wonderful new friend showed me the way to the orphanage from the volunteer house. It's about a 20 minute walk and It's quite nice because you feel more intertwined with everybody else as not just some ordinary tourist. And this part of the city is in a section where not many tourists go to so it makes a better cultural experience. Anyway, the orphanage is a small house that is owned by one woman. According to my friend, this woman grew up in a higher caste (castes are big in this part of the world) meaning that she grew up in a relatively wealthy lifestyle. However, she decided to end that lifestyle, throw it all away to open up an orphanage for underprivileged children without a family. From hearing this, I immediately gained an enormous amount of respect for someone that was so humble to start up this orphanage. It's really sad thinking about the present circumstances regarding the orphans. Okay so the big thing is (that sort of pissed me off) is that public schooling in Nepal is not subsidized by the government. Because schooling can be expensive, the caretaker of the orphanage can only send certain kids to school while others are left to stay in the orphanage while the others go to school. And that is basically where the volunteers come in. Our job is to act as a teacher for them since they are unable to access the education without the necessary funds. My fellow volunteer and I start off the day with basic English lessons. Topics ranging from colors, animals, body parts, days of the week, etc. are covered on an everyday basis. We also teach them some math problems which I thought was really interesting because I only expected to be teaching English while here in Nepal. I'm actually pretty surprised at the English level of some of the students. They seem to know a lot of words in English. For example, we had them write animals on the board and they constantly were coming up to write new animal names on the board. It's a strange concept for them to be so young learning a second language. Sometimes I wish America would adopt a similar early language emphasis since the younger you are the easier it is for you to learn a new language. Anyway, after a few hours of English lessons we move on to my favorite (and definitely the kids favorite part): Play time! They seem to be constantly looking forward to play time so sometimes that makes them overly anxious causing them to not pay much attention to the teaching. But I guess with a firm hand, you can convince them to wait. That's one of the things I feel like I'm having a hard time with: disciplining. But I'm sure, with time, that would get better. A lot of the kids are at that age where they have so much energy that they just always want to release that energy. I can already predict they will be handful at times. But for that they make up in adorableness. The first day we played a number of different games during play time. From paddle ball to coloring to an interesting game one of the kids taught me, we kept ourselves occupied. Ok so I wear sunglasses all the time to the orphanage because it's always hot and sunny out and the kids just love to wear my sunglasses. I'll make a note to try and get a picture of the sunglasses on one of them. They look so hilarious when they have my sunglasses on because it looks abnormally huge on them. They always seem to be motioning to wear my sunglasses and love to run around with them on. Also, I thought it would be a great idea to bring my iPad to the orphanage and download some games I thought the kids would like. It turned out to be a huge success. Their favorite game? Angry Birds of course! One of the kids actually had an Angry Birds shirt on so was excited to see that I brought it. I guess Angry Birds just seems to be that universal game that everybody loves. They also played fruit ninja, temple run, this fun punching game, and others. I'm feeling really inspired to go even further with teaching via iPad sometimes. I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of great learning apps for children that would be a great interactive way for the children to learn without me just lecturing. There were some problems though. We tried to make a time chart for each person to have their allotted time on the iPad but that was quickly forgotten and some tension broke out since it was supposed to be so and so's turn. I'll have to make sure next time to be a bit stricter when letting them play with my iPad. I also let them play around with my camera. My friend brought bubbles today too for the kids to play with and it was an amazing idea. They loved blowing bubbles and equally loved blowing them directly into my face subsequently burning my eyes haha. They also seem to love taking pictures. In fact, the majority of the pictures that were taken today were thanks to the kids themselves. Really being with the kids makes me feel like a kid again and is really therapeutic and rewarding considering the volunteers are the reason they are getting an education. I hate to me cynical now but I just keep thinking of what happens to these kids once they leave the orphanage and I get really emotional while thinking about their possible futures. I talked to my fellow volunteer and she explained to me that at the age of 15 the children are supposed to leave the orphanage. But I wonder, without a family where do they go? Where will they live? I just see so much joy in their eyes that thinking about where they'll be after 15 is a hard thought to swallow. Positively though, I think I'm already establishing a connection with the orphanage that it might prompt me to donate in the future. They certainly need it. The kids have to share beds and contributions to the orphanage play a huge role in the food that they eat. There are also a number of apparent infrastructural problems with the orphanage itself. I just really would love to help in any way I can to the welfare of this place. I can't imagine where kids would be without orphanages like this. I sincerely hope they can find prosperity in their future lives. But anyway, I would love to plan a trip with the children because I was recently told you can do that. I think it would be great for the kids to get outside from the same monotonous place for a change! I'm also looking forward to seeing how creative I can get with teaching styles with them and all. Anyway, here are some pictures from the orphanage (courtesy of my buddy Koran). enjoy!