Orchid Garden Nepal

I've now had time to properly settle into both of the pre-schools at which I'm volunteering. This post is about the charity school, Orchid Garden Nepal (not Orchard something, as I reported in a previous post). I'll write more about MotherCare another time.

The first time I went to the school I was surprised because it was physically a nicer place than I expected.  There's a reasonable sized front courtyard which is used as a playground and washing area, made colourful by the laundry hanging to dry.  There are some garden areas, but filled with weeds, not orchids, as the name so promisingly suggests.  The school house consists of two main rooms - a large room for circle time, indoor play and napping and a smaller room which is used as a classroom for the older kids.  The rooms are colourfully decorated and have some cartoon pictures on the walls.  The smaller room has an alphabet along one wall.

I've already written about the founder, head and sole teacher at the school, Bina, and her warmth and affection. I've also now been able to witness her enthusiasm and dedication, not just to the school as it is, but to expanding it to accommodate more and older children (using the currently weed-filled land). Since new buildings will have to be constructed to house them, that's a substantial task and at the moment something of a pipe dream, financially speaking. Most of the money raised goes straight to educational scholarships for the students, who are all from incredibly poor backgrounds and cannot afford school once they leave Orchid Garden (in fact, several families cannot afford to feed the children, let alone educate them). £175 or CAD$300 provides enough for one child to study at a good school for a year (including uniform, books etc). Unfortunately, however, given their socio-economic background, the kids often face discrimination from both students and teachers when they move on. That's part of the reason for wanting to expand Orchid Garden Nepal (OGN).

I spend Mondays and Tuesday at OGN. I arrive at about 10am and play outside with the kids until approximately 10:45. There are a few toys scattered around the playground. Actually, other than three rocking horses and a small slide, all the toys in the playground are broken - a couple of punctured balls, bits of toy cars and lego blocks that have been so bashed around or chewed that they no longer fit properly together. Yet it's amazing how easily some of the kids can amuse themselves with these bits and pieces and whatever else they find lying around. I say 'some of', because others never seem to play at all - Sapna speculates that any kind of play is forbidden at their homes and they just don't know how to do so. That said, I always have a group of kids around me to give me with whatever they're playing with - somehow I can always find the enthusiasm to be pleased with a present of a doll's head. On my second day there, I gave a boy a piggyback and ever since then, whenever not playing with toys, I seem to have at least half a dozen kids grabbing hold of me, attempting to climb up any available limb.

Then there are the really little ones to hold. You can guarantee that at any time, at least one of the babies will be crying and in need of comfort, particularly the ones who are new to the school. And there are always a multitude of noses to be wiped. The combination of the poor nuturition and sanitation condition at these kids' homes means that many of them are permanently ill. Also, I spent a lot of time pulling up trousers. Most of the kids have clothes that are far too big for them (I presume from older siblings, or else the parents can't afford to keep replacing clothes and buy bigger ones that the kids can grow into), so I'm often chasing after kids with their pants around their ankles and dressing them again. 

It seems to me that what the school does best is look after the physical well-being of the kids. They range from about 9 months to 4 years old, but few of them look their age. Several of the young ones who are new to the school weigh about half of what they should at their age. At OGN they are fed a couple of times a day, a banana at snack time (about 50 of them suddenly appear and I run as far as possible in the opposite direction), and lunch. For the babies, there's milk and a mushy egg/rice/milk mixture available throughout the day. One of my highlights of my entire time in Nepal so far has been feeding a little girl, about a year old, though you'd never guess it she's so small.  Once I got over the grossness of the mush that I was spooning into her mouth, I couldn't help but wonder at how much and how gratefully she ate.  There is something marvelous about being able to satisfy such a basic need for a child completely unable to fend for herself and so obviously not getting what she needs at home.

As well as being fed, the kids are also given toilet training, washed all over, groomed and their clothes laundered (although they're all so stainted that washing makes little visible difference). These are all totally necessary services.  It also gives the staff an opportunity to spot any other physical problems.  There was one case, soon after I arrived, of an 18 month old boy who was found to have a horribly infected growth coming out of his belly button.  When Bina checked with the parents, it turned out he'd had this problem since he was just three days old.  Just let that sink in a moment - he'd had this growth a year and a half.  It could have been cleared up by a simple operation but his parents couldn't afford it.  Bina notified Dr Pradhan (from Sewa Kendra) and Sapna and between them they organised for the operation to go ahead and the cost to be covered.  But here's the sobering part.  The cost of this operation that was so prohibitive to his parents and had allowed this child to suffer for so long was 5000 rupees, which is equivalent, at today's rates, to about £45 or CAD$75.  I had spent that much on a pair of running shoes the day before.

Back to a day at OGN.  Around 10:45, the kids go into the bigger of the two rooms for circle time. This is my favourite part of the day, around 50 kids in a big circles, the littlest ones crawling or running inside as they see fit.  Bina leads them first in various songs, both English and Nepali, accompanied by various movements or dances.  The older children then recite days of the week, months, the alphabet and numbers up to 20 in English, though it's not entirely clear that they understand what they're saying.  They may also learn other little bits of vocabulary like 'open and shut' or 'rough and gentle'.  I have a little problem with the latter.  They are taught this difference first by hitting one hand into the other and being told 'rough', then stroking their arm and being told 'gentle'.  However, there didn't seem to be any value judgement attached to the relative merit of these types of behaviour, resulting in several kids coming up to me in the playground, whacking me and proudly declaring 'rough! rough!'  I have raised this with Bina.  What they cover in circle time varies, but it may end with somersault practice, one kid coming into the middle at a time and trying their darnedest to flip their legs over their head to the encouraging chants of the others.  It is utterly adorable.

After circle time, the inside toys (mostly stuffed animals) are brought out and the kids play with those.  Then the eldest half of the kids are taken into the smaller of the two rooms for a class.  The volunteers are then usually left alone with them.  There are three of us, but there's only once where we've all been there together as one of us always seems to be ill.  This class is chaos.  We just can't seem to hold the kids' attention - maybe we'll get them just long enough to go through the alphabet, or identify some colours or body parts, but that's about it.  We may bring out the school's half a dozen jigsaws, but the kids have done them so many times that they finish in a couple of minutes.  Or we may get them to do drawing (there's no paper so they scribble on newspaper scraps) but there are usually fights over the stubby and broken coloured pencils.  Resources are minimal.  Throughout the class, the kids are climbing all over the furniture and up the walls.  There's usually at least one kid in tears over something.  As I said, chaos.

That lasts about 45 minutes and then, thankfully, the kids go out to play again.  Then they're fed lunch and put down for their nap.  The emerge again at about 3:30 and play outside until they are picked up, which may be as late as 6.  I usually leave around 4.  

So that's a day at Orchid Garden Nepal.  I love it there.  I think what gets me the most is despite the daily hardship that these kids face they mostly come across as very happy.  There's nothing quite like walking through the gate in the morning and being greeted in the typical Nepali way, a chorus of 'Namaste' with hands together, bowed heads, by all these adorable, smiling children so pleased to see me.