NEPAL PROJECT REPORT April 2007
April 2007
This time the flight stops at doha, in qatar, small but very rich state on the arabic sea. At 3.50 in the early morining, the group composed of 20 people, between volunteers and travellers, get into the luxury hotel offered by the rich emirate air company. We cannot believe our eyes! It seems to be inside a dream made of emotions which for ten days have moved us with sounds, colours, music, dances, smiles, sweet questioning children’s eyes, hugs and tears which were many at the time of our departure.the protagonists of this adventure can’t hide their emotions and they go to their rooms in silence, without making any noise so as not to break this magic sensation which will last longer in their minds.
It is not so easy sorting ideas once back home from the big adventure which hunamam people live and help others to live, every time we go to nepal.
Emotions are so strong and diverse that we are always impressed by the magic atmosphere of gratitude and spontaneity of the people who are around us, in spite of the fact that we have being travelling for 20 years the magic paths of a country which struggles to build its own future.
During past years we never hesitated to land in the nepalese capital, neither at the time of 2005 golpe, nor during the violent army fights between the army and maoists. At the time of long strikes and circulation bans, we challenged fighting factions to carry our message of peace escorted by the army,we reached the villages in the kathmandu valley(benighat, bungamati, etc) to carry our mission through to the end. Year after year, we have been present there, even now, april 2007, one more time here for the opening celebrations of 2 schools and to meet 26 children adopted through our association with the educating children project.
This last allows these poor children to continue their studies in a country where school is still a luxury for the majority of the people.
When we arrive at kathmandu, our local friends and the just born hanuman onlus nepal welcome us with a big surprise: a big banner and the flower neckaces welcome all hunaman onlus friends. Many hugs and kisses and we do not have enough time to say everything we would like to say. While we are arriving at the hotel lai lai, we can see a quieter capital. People on the streets have a different look and blocks have disappeared. We ask many questions to the nepalese friends who answer with enthusiasm about their country’s future and about what they are rebuilding. A country full of hopes, open to a new future.for this result we are doing our best. The diffusion of schools is the first step in the growth of a country, and we believe in it.
We arrive at benighat and the sun is high in the sky and its rays hug us.the welcome is always great. At the shree chandroya lower secondary school, the first school we built, children are waiting for us in line with flower neckaces. We recognize every child of the educating children project. In the next days we will meet them to spend together moments of comparison and play. We decide to visit the classrooms of the younger children, where volunteers, divided in small groups, are teaching italian songs to the pupils, who in turn try to teach to them nepalese traditional songs. In the oldest children’s classrooms, the atmosphere is more serious: geography lessons to tell them of italy and then.. All in the courtyard to play together. In the meanwhile, hunaman members with village people, will verify work done on the restrooms in the new scholastic building and the maintenance status of the building, today coloured with a deep light blue.
We go to the shree chandrodaya higher secondary school, where, after the rebuilding of the school, we finished the work on the new restrooms..after having verified the building status, we talk with the community representatives to confirm the opportunity to enlarge the school, which, at the moment, can host 700 students and, thanks to our work, has become a college.
An enthusistic atmosphere surrounds us as we watch the match of the century: soccer match nepal vs italy! Rules are new and improvised, with two goalkeeprs in one door and bizarre throwings of the ball, bitten with heavy shoes which give a strange effect to the launch of the ball.but the most strange thing to see is our nepalese friends playing in bare feet!!!!At the end: nepla 0-italy 5.what an effort!
Ravi’shouse, hidden by tall rice plants, is waiting for us with the usual lively atmoshere. All the people are busy to find out a place to sleep for us, we are 30 with the nepalese friends but at the end they succeed:someone on the terrace under the stars, some others in the rooms, some others in the granary with bees and mice and some others above the stable with the automatic alarm clock of the buffalos at 4 in the morning. The dal bat, a typical nepalese dish, has been served to us still hot while the sun is gong down.all the village people are around us, made curious by our presence. Slowly the village children come to ravi’s house and in half an hour everybody is here. In a small piece of ground we would be almost 100 people. Nepalese songs rhythm draws all the people to dances and sing, till late night. At the end of the evening the village mayor, very tired, shakes my hand and, smiling, he tells me: hanuman, it’s late, sleep, sleep!!!- and with the cigarette in his mouth, he will go lost in the night darkness. It is time to go to sleep for all the others.
Today we have to leave very early for a long 2 hour walk.we go to open the shree basanta primary school, that we call “of middle hill school”. A difficult intervention, decided last october, has been made, to give a better situation to the pupils because they were forced to study in an old, small and dark building. The school, l shaped, is on the promotory where the light blue of its walls disappeared among the big green trees that, with their branches, shadow the building in the hot summer days.