My experience in Khumjung has been a real mix of emotions. Interesting, lonely, fun, boring, funny, difficult, COLD and so much more. I have been staying in a tourist lodge making my stay more comfortable than it would have been living in the school hostels, and I was especially lucky having such a wonderful host called Pen Futi, who was always there to cheer me up.. even if we could barely communicate. My lodge was comfortable; I had a soft bed, an indoor toilet (although no running water), and most importantly, a fire place in the dinning room. I have had all my meals excellently cooked by Pen Futi and it was quite luxurious being looked after. However, there were some interesting meals/drinks that I won't be rushing to have again anytime soon, mainly 'Chongul', a thick soup made up of yak cheese, rice beer, fried egg, beans, sugar, butter... Having said this, I also had some excellent dishes of Sherpa stew, Dahl baht and noodle soup. Of course, I can't ignore the tea; the favourite past-time of Sherpas is to drink copious amounts of very sweet tea, it was delicious and very warming and is something I am going to miss a lot!
During my time in Khumjung I was teaching in the village school, which was founded by Sir Edmund Hillary (the first man to summit Everest!). It's a reasonably well equipped school for the Himalayan villages, and one of only two secondary schools in the region. What I found the most interesting was that, unlike in the UK, there wasn't a specific age related to each class. In one class that I was teaching I had 12 year olds alongside 16 year olds. This didn't affect the teaching much, the children seemed to be approximately the same levels and it worked well. What did affect the teaching was the hugely relaxed take of the school, it was quite normal for teachers to take leave through the term leaving their classes unattended for several weeks at a time. Or for children to go back home for a few days and miss classes. Not to mention the numerous national holidays!
In order for the school to compete against some of the Kathmandu schools they have decided to turn to English medium teaching. This means that the majority of the subjects are taught in English. Of course this has been a big challenge for the school, where the teachers have the very difficult task of teaching in a foreign language. There English is passable in conversation, but having to teach a subject such as science in English is a whole different story. However, I was impressed with how well the students coped with this challenge, and seemed to understand most of the language. The children were very lovely and lively, and I enjoyed teaching there despite the lack of resources making it difficult to have varied lessons every day.
The cold did add to the challenge, as there is no heating we were taking classes from 9.30 to 4pm in temperatures below zero. It gets very difficult to stay focused and write in that temperature. So when the sun was out you would see most classes been taken outside to make the most of the heat. What really impressed me the most was the school displays, each classroom would be full of wonderful displays, and they had a dedicated art gallery to show off pupils' arts to tourists as well as locals.
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Class 7 working hard outside |
The teachers were very welcoming, as were the rest of the community, everybody would always insist on me staying for a cup of tea, and make their best effort to speak to me in English and make me feel at home. I had the opportunity to experience some of the local traditions. There was a week long ceremony (Puja - which is held when someone has passed away), this involved Bhudist lamas, lots of drumming, loud horns and praying; and on the final day, the whole village gathers at their house to receive a food package, tea or rice beer and money. As well as this I experienced Losar, which is the Sherpa new year, where Pen Futi had lots of people around to eat lots of food: traditional breads, biscuits, Dahl batt, homemade yogurt. Everyone was being force fed until you really really begged her not to feed you anymore. I later found out it wasn't just a Pen Futi thing but a Sherpa thing. Every time I went to someone's house, there was always a huge battle to not be given more food or tea.
I also got to dress as a traditional Sherpa on two occasions, and would go to the Saturday market with Pen Futi in Namche to get our weekly groceries (5 hour round trip!!), I helped with the water hauling from time to time, and also tried to hand wash my clothes on rocks (this was particularly amusing as I'd never hand washed anything in my life, the locals were giggling whilst watching the only tourist trying and failing to do her washing, luckily, as they are all so kind, I got lots of help and managed to complete it eventually)
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Sherpa Florrie with Class 1 |
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Sherpa Florrie with Class 5 |
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Returning from the Saturday market |
On the last week before I head off on my trek, it snowed a huge amount lasting several days. The snow was so deep it was impossible to get to classes, so school was closed. This really showed how isolated the village is, there are no roads, so the only way to get supplies or water is by walking, and when the snow is deep it makes it impossible to get anything. When the water freezers the whole village runs out of water, and there was a real scarcity of water at the end of my stay, meaning that pupils who usually stayed at the school had to return to their homes in other villages and miss classes.
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Khumjung school under the snow |
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Pen Futi clearing the way to the toilet |
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My friend, Sam |
I walked quite a bit on my days off to explore the area and enjoy the views. It really is a spectacular setting, especially having so many mountains (Ama Dablam, Khumbila, Thamserku) surround the small village. Of course I had some difficult moments where I felt incredibly lonely, and sometimes I was very bored but mostly I enjoyed my time in Khumjung. I had a lot of time to relax, read and appreciate the people and culture of the village, and even got the chance to go skiing.
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Khumjung village in the snow |
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View of Ama Dablam and Thamserku from Khumjung |
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Kongde peak and a Stupa |
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View from my bedroom: Thamserku peak |
Next step, off to Lukla to meet dad and begin the trek to Everest base camp...