Nepal
A school visit at the top of the world
The clouds that are there one minute and gone the next. The soft golden glow of sunlight dancing across shallow rice terraces. The never-ending twists and turns of a road carved into a mountainside meant for goats. The snow-capped peaks that reach the sky, where clouds kiss the earth and rest in vertical troughs between the mountains.
This is what it is like to be in Nepal.
To travel main roads that feel like back roads but that cut through villages and towns, to always be in the shadow of the highest peaks in the world. To drive through mountains so high you feel that you’re soaring over the world, and yet when you look up, you see peaks higher still.
And still we climb. Over rubble-strewn roads, over bumps and crevices and round hair pin turns so tight I close my eyes.
We pass through small villages and watch life happening on the side of the road. People don’t hide in their homes behind locked doors here.
Life happens. Everywhere.
Kids getting ready for school, hair being brushed, teeth being cleaned and breakfast being eaten. We watch it all unfold in the streets as we drive through small town after small town on our way from Pokhara to Bhulebhule.
We bump and bounce over the roads in the back of our Scorpion 4WD as our driver carefully picks his way over uneven roads.
Now sealed, now unsealed. Ticking off the villages as we drive Khagate, Chhap Besisahar…
From up here we look down on a marshmallow of clouds hiding the valley below as kids in school uniform carry oversized backpacks and girls wearing their hair in long pigtails and even longer plaits tied in brightly coloured ribbons make their way to school.
We reach a tea house, our home for the night, and drop our bags, share a pot of tea and some biscuits while we wait for a new vehicle, a local 4WD jeep.
And then we start again.
We climb higher and higher still, into the hills where the villages drop away and those that are here are even smaller than those we passed previously. Timber shacks dot the landscape, hidden among thick scrub, dust and rock.
The road narrows and the bumps grow as we climb to a school decorated with flags and posters.
We are here to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the school and the opening of a toilet donated by Aussie Action Abroad.
But we’re late.
The speeches have started, the dignitaries, including half of our Aussie Action Abroad volunteer party, are on the stage when we walk across the school oval.
Everyone turns to stare, to see who this new group of outsiders might be.
We slink into the crowd, try sitting up the back where we can hide.
We’re trying to be inconspicuous. Trying to downplay our lateness, hoping not to be noticed or to disrupt the gathered crowd. But our efforts are futile as the six of us are pushed along to the front.
The children are intrigued. They sit on mats in front of the stage, craning their necks to see who we are. New people in town. New people to talk to and to take selfies with.
They wave to us and pose for our photos, ask to have photos taken with us, even as the speeches continue to play out on the stage in front of us.
The speeches last for hours. First one dignitary, then the next. And all the while we sit entertained by and entertaining the kids. They watch us, they take our photos, they smile at us then inch over and ask us questions. How old are we? Are we married? Do we have children?
And finally, when the speeches are done we all traipse around behind the stage to see the bathrooms and the new toilet donated by Aussie Action Abroad and hundreds of Australian supporters.
It is just a toilet, and yet it is also so much more.
We look around at the crowd, the wide smiles tell a story of unity and hope, of nations working together but most of all of friendship and support.
As khadas and mallas of marigold are handed out, and kids pose for still more photographs with us, we feel an overwhelming sense of pride and joy as we celebrate with this small community high in the hills of Nepal.
Want more adventure?
Read more about our adventures in Asia here.
Read more about volunteering in Nepal here.
Read about volunteering in Uganda here.
Fast Facts
We travelled to Nepal in 2023/2024.
We stayed at a local tea house about an hour from Bhulbhule.
We volunteered with Aussie Action Abroad in the photography/content creation team.
We were here for one night and spent about three weeks in Nepal.
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