Home visit

On Wednesday I went out into the beautifully peaceful country side with a group who run a school for special needs children. Their main facility is pretty good sized, with two floors with class rooms and workshops where they teach the kids to sew, make envelopes, candles and other things like small stuffed animals.

So on Wednesday myself and an employee of this volunteer organization went out in the country side to do some home visits for a couple of the special needs kids. The main school in town has so many kids enrolled that not every child can attend school in town. Another factor playing into the need for home visits is the fact that some of the children live so far away from the school that its just simply not possible to go to the main school. I say main school because there is a smaller satellite school run in the country side in-which about 9-12 children attend.

The home visit took me about and hour out of town, and the area we were at was pretty remote. I was about half a mile or less from some mountains that are only visible from form a great distance at the children's home where I usually spend my time.

Aside from the mountains there were rice patties every-where you look, as rice is the main staple food in Nepal. There were only dirt roads and a little market at the edge of this village. All the houses were pretty weather worn and some of the houses were made from branches. Many of the houses were made of brick and plaster. Some of the houses had corrugated steel roofs and others had ceramic tile shingles.

Most people of this village are subsistence farmers or small time merchants. Most people here and elsewhere grow their rice or vegetables then sell what is left over at the market. I notice a woman in her house weaving a basket which I assume she will later sell.

This little village in particular struck up an image of a border town reminiscent of sometime long past. To me it seemed that this village could have been from the early 1800's, with the way the homes and roads looked.

This is not meant to take away from these people, all of whom are extremely hard workers and very kind. The homes we visited, all the families were very cordial and offered us water and food. At one particular house we had some water and chopped cucumber, which was great as the sun was beating down on us and showing no mercy.