The Martlet

“Dinner’s ready!” That was my cue for a 9 a.m. breakfast at my home stay in Deusa.

The peculiar ways of the remote, hilly village in eastern Nepal aroused a certain curiosity tinged with dismay. The local lifestyle was almost medieval. The people lived without electricity, flush toilets and sustainable garbage disposal sites. Yet their children grew up sturdy and full of hope. Shy but candidly receptive to new things, they welcomed foreigners like a breath of fresh air.

My days as a volunteer ESL teacher started with pestering cockcrows and spine-tingling, coldwater washes out in the open. Hot water was a luxury I could not bring myself to demand. I made do with wet wipes and plenty of ingenuity. A cup of hot milk tea, boiled sweet potatoes, taro and a warm “Namaste” (hello and goodbye in Nepali) greeted my 6 a.m. wake-up calls.

I traversed the early mornings half-awake and dazed by vividly recalled dreams that made no sense: eating hotdogs, indulging in hot showers, meeting strange men or rehashing scenarios from my past that bore no relation to the actual memory.

With the absence of a watch, I gauged time by the rooster’s incessant, nerve-jerking cock-a-doodle-do and the lightening sky.

My nook in the attic blocked little of the healthy breeze or sudden gush of wind that easily slipped through the cracks between the shingles.

I sometimes woke to drops of rain on my face or the sight of insects, crawling life forms and buzzing unknowns that flitted across my makeshift bedroom.

My window, practically a rectangular cutaway, boasted an opaque piece of plastic tacked on the clay wall. Boy, was I glad it was summer. Still, the benign weather did not stop me from donning winter-grade underlayers.

I spent about two hours in lesson planning or journal writing before early brunch — a repetitive medley of steamed rice, lentil soup and vegetables such as eggplant or potatoes sautéed in turmeric, garlic and spices. Dhal baat (literally lentils and rice) is Nepal’s all-you-can-eat meal. My stomach could only accommodate one serving of the heaping cupfuls.

I skipped the hefty gruel during supper, a late-night gastronomic exercise that would only keep me awake until morning. Fried eggs were my most sought-after item on the menu, and my only steady supply of protein. On one rare occasion, I sampled porcupine meat, tougher and leaner than beef, smothered in salt, curry and spice.

My home stay was a 15-minute uphill walk to the school. Stair-like stacks of uneven rock lined the path, winding through farmland and mud-brick homes.

Such was my daily route that I became a familiar face to the chirpy children who liked to hang out on the front yard. They lined up by the trees, clasped their dimpled hands together and greeted me “Namaste” in a high-pitched chorus. I often returned a greeting in Nepali, but I sometimes slipped and said “dhanyabad” (thank you) instead. The disconcerting reply coaxed only the barest hint of a smile from the elders.

I was often mistaken for Nepali (being Asian with dark skin), but the moment I opened my mouth I was undoubtedly alien.

Classes lasted from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with a half-hour break in between. No one brought a packed lunch.

Amazingly, students played volleyball or a local game that involved running and sweating without a morsel of food passing between their lips.

As much as I wanted to fit in, I refused to abstain from my midday meal and came to school armed with coconut biscuits and water.

Spontaneity was the order of my day. Ironically enough, I spent so much time in lesson planning because I was never sure which grade level I would teach that day. The head teacher spoke minimal English, and he could not be bothered to learn or direct me to someone who could assign tasks. Left to my own devices, I ran my classes by trial and error.

My first week teaching Grades 8 to 10 was a heady, nervous, finger-tapping, frustrating rush. ESL was not my forte. But there I was attempting to elucidate the finer points of grammar to students who had better things to do. Instead of wrinkling their already weather-beaten foreheads trying to make sense of my gobbledygook, they could be helping their parents till the land or babysit younger siblings.

I went on and on about using for/since and present perfect tenses to the dead-silent Grade 8 kids. I would eventually realize they could not even tell the difference between a noun and a verb. I backtracked pronto.

The Grade 10 students were a tricky lot. A well-spoken English teacher from India employed by my volunteer agency explained that they were the toughest class to teach — not because they were rowdy and rude, but because they were just plain slow.

I wondered at his assessment. The teachers could often be partially responsible and, truth be told, some government-employed teachers slacked off and got away with it. They came to classes late or stayed absent for days without a substitute teacher in place. I filled in the gaps during the day, and sadly this meant two English classes for some students. It must have been harrowing for them, if not slightly tedious.

Still, teaching brought on unexpected surprises. As the weeks passed by, I spotted bright faces among the wide-eyed, blank stares. A few more ventured to raise their hands or laughed at a joke I made. One particularly daring girl cornered me during lunch to ask about a lesson she did not understand. What impressed me the most, were the students’ discipline. I sympathized with their plight.

Sometimes after hours of lectures and waiting for a tardy teacher, they walked home (a hike that took an hour for some) only to pick up the plow or the bamboo-woven baskets to gather corn leaves for cattle feed. I even spotted Grade 9 girls in my class lugging loads of sand from the river, a steep descent through labyrinthine rice fields.

Volunteering in rural Nepal is not for the faint of heart. But the pleasure of seeing a student smile with understanding eclipsed my fears and vexations. My one-month stint in Deusa was one of the most profoundly rewarding experiences of my life.

For information about Rural Assistance Nepal, see pa-nepal.org/ran. You can also find them on Facebook under Volunteers for Nepal.