Khokana
Our visit
included the three
cities of India's Golden Triangle Delhi,
Agra,
and Jaipur.
In
Nepal we enjoyed the city of Kathmandu,
the
village of Khokana,
and a flight over Mount
Everest.
and
throughout the trip we
enjoyed seeing the bright colors of saris
the ladies wore.
The pictures on these pages
are the
result of the combined efforts of the
photographers who agreed to share their pictures.
Their
contributions are very much appreciated since we each captured our own
unique view of the trip.
My sincere thanks to Don
Fischer,
Dorota Kotowska, Patricia
McCleaf, and Don Sledz.
Nancy
and I decided
to take an excursion on our own one morning.
We set out by car to see a farming village beyond the city of
Kathmandu.
Near Khokana the road led along some hills where we could see people
tending fields
below.
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.
As we
left town we
saw another school in the valley below us.
The kids were outside singing and doing calathentics.
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