Team Tambo made it to Kathmandu, Nepal on the 16th of October. Our contact met us at the bus station and came up to the squad with energy and a huge smile and yelled, “I am Megh!” Me and my teammates were stoked. We are staying in a village called Balambu, Kathmandu in his house with his wife, Vhim, and son, Subash (who is 20 yrs old). It’s a small house so us 6 girls are staying in Subash’s room all lined like sardines on the floor. I love it! Vhim is such a servant, always cooking us homemade meals and teaching us how to cook. She taught me how to make rice donuts…it takes skill…and I made her laugh a lot at my attempts to not make a funnel cake but a donut shape.
Every evening we do worship (Subash plays the guitar and is in a band), prayer, and a Bible reading with our Nepalese family. Vem is the only one out of the 3 that cannot speak English so we are learning a bit of Nepalese. Our most popular words are ‘teekcha’ = good and ‘amma’ = momma.
Our ministry this month began on Tuesday, working at an English school for kids ages 3 to 14. We go to school from 10:30 am until 3:45pm and rotate between different classes. I’ve taught math, science, English, and just played kid games and taught songs like Old McDonald’s farm to 4-6 yr olds, teaching them animals in English and the sounds they make. The entire school is taught in English. These kids are fast learners and its amazing to see things they’ve been trained in. For example, when we enter the room they stand and enthusiastically say, “Goooood mooooorning teeeeaaacher!” and they remain standing until you tell them to sit. When they leave the room to go to the toilet they come back, stand outside the door and rapidly ask, “”May I come in teacher?” It puts a smile on my face every time. Other than that the young ones can be quiet ornery as any small child.
It’s been interesting to compare the way these kids are learning and the way American children learn. These kids are very smart but at the same time, they are pressured to learn so much and at such a young age and by learn I mean regurgitate. Their creative skills are minimal. There are no decorations or color on the walls. Their love for education is greater than God even, because this is how they get somewhere in life. (We learned this while sitting in on a poetry contest they did last Friday.) The older kids have great responsibilities…they were teaching the younger kid’s classes today because the teachers had a meeting. In the end, they are all kids (also found out at the poetry contest as one 7th grade boy and one 7th grade girl sang Justin Bieber, “Baby, Baby, Baby, Oh”) just with different emphasis and different cultural pressures.
