The village of Khokana was little more than this main street and a couple of other minor streets. 
We found the hammer and sickle on the flags a bit disconcerting.
Especially so after reading in the newspaper about the Maoist party making trouble in other parts of Nepal.
Several buildings had impressive carved doors.
There was a stupa in the center of the street.


People were tending sheep and goats while chickens, dogs and ducks wandered about.


These guys were loading the truck with sheaves of wheat.
When they tossed one clear over the truck I picked it up and tossed it to where I thought the fellow on top could catch it.
I couldn't see him but it didn't come back down and there was no startled yell so It must have been OK.
 

We saw women getting buckets and cans of water from this tub.
At the other end of town the source was a pipe sticking out of a building .
 

Some of the folks we saw as we walked through town.


This woman had just performed some sort of short ritual at the bell.


We ventured into a couple of shops along the street.
No one seemed to mind.

This was an oil press that we found in one. 
Dust in the air (lit by my flash and very out of focus) looks like bubbles in several of the next pictures.


Rice hulls are stripped off with this machine and the product is weighed on this balance.
It looked like someone had been grinding some rice in the flat bowl but we didn't see them working on it.
 

This woodcrafter was making frames.
In the back of his shop was a table, not yet completed.
    

These women were sitting along the street making yarn.
The first was carding it.  I gestured that I wanted a picture of the combs she was using and she obliged.
A simple spinning wheel produced yarn much faster than I would have guessed.
The other women were unwinding the spindles and wrapping the yarn on the square frame.
The skein of yarn they produced would be dyed or left natural for later knitting projects.
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We saw a school and just walked in.
They had a phone but no electricity.


The kids didn't seem to mind.
There was a play yard with several grade levels playing games.


Many of the rooms had no doors or windows that could be closed. 
We picked a random classroom and walked in.
When we entered all the students immediately stood up.
We didn't realize that they expected us to say it was OK for them to sit down.
When we finally realized it there was a little laugh at our somewhat embarrassed looks.
It was a biology class being taught in English.
They looked younger than I was when I learned the details of cell division and I didn't learn it in a foreign language.  
 

Take note of the kid directly behind me. 
Apparently adding horns to someone in front of you in a picture is universal.

Another room we selected at random happened to be an  English class.
The teacher took advantage of the opportunity  to have us say the words that they had been using to learn English pronunciation.
He then asked us to explain which sounds were palatal, alveolar, fricative, etc. so that he would be able to better explain to the class how they were formed.
Neither Nancy or I were able to do more than say the words over and over and try to feel how our tongue moved.
I'm afraid that we weren't very helpful.
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This girl was composing a letter of application to a journalism school in her notebook.
In it she described herself as "a confident and energetic young lady"


I took this picture as we walked past the window of a classroom.
I don't know what they were studying but it is clear that nearly all of them were focused at the task at hand.


We briefly visited a math class that seemed to be more than one grade level. 
I took a picture of a page of one of their notebooks. 
The first problem was to calculate the volume of a cube with a surface area of 24 square centimeters.
The second problem was to figure out the surface of a cube with a volume of 125 cubic centimeters.
I'll give you a few minutes, you can use a calculator but you must show your work.
The textbook in front of the girl in the last picture was open to a page of analytic geometry problems using matrix notation.
I was impressed with the level of their work.


These kids were in the yard as we went to the next class.


Here is the preschool. 
It was cold in their room so they were bundled up.

We also passed the Little Gems Girls Hostel,  a boarding school.
It is for girls from poor families who otherwise would be working long hours making rugs or in a brickyard somewhere.
You can find out more about them at http://www.help2educate.org/

E-mail Nancy and Alan