People, knowledge and now language!!!!

The countdown to our new departure date of July, 9th, has already begun. Before leaving we wanted to set up our blog as a contact point with all our friends and family. We have been amazed at the interest it's generated having had over 300 views in the first couple of weeks. Not quite going viral but beyond our expectations. A spin- off has been that we have made contact with other volunteers who have worked not only in Nepal, but also in Jumla. Our conversations with them have been packed with useful hints on what to expect, from the need to take warm clothing to meet the challenge of the cold nights, the usefulness of vegetable seeds and the likelihood that we will be sharing our accommodation with a few rats!!!

All these people, and VSO, have stressed that learning Nepali will enable us to create those links that will build confidence not only with our local community, but also in us. English language is commonly taught in schools, so some will want to try their skills upon us. However, with such low literacy rates in our local area (10% in girls and 20% in boys), to speak Nepali will help, we hope, with building trust and acceptability.

All this very is fortunate since we both feel that learning another language is one of the many benefits of our placement. VSO provide some on-line training and we have eagerly thrown ourselves into the task, as the following video clip shows.




There are over ninety different languages spoken in Nepal, lets hope we are learning the right one! Fortunately, we will be getting up to 150 hours further language training in Kathmandu, which will be accompanied by an induction into Nepali culture, before we fly on to Jumla.