Volunteer Stories  |  Josephine and Lars

The minute we arrived at our placement - the village of Thulo Bharku in the Langtang region - we knew this was going to be exactly what we expected or probably even more. We had chosen Langtang looking for a placement in a mountainous and remote area where we would meet as few foreigners as possible and where we could for three weeks “dive into” the life of the local people.

We wanted to work with children, so teaching English at the local school and in the library was the perfect volunteer task for us. We were supposed to be at the library in the morning before school and in the evening after school to help the children with their homework and teach some English while playing with them. In Thulo Bharku the children seemed to have no difficulties with their homework – at least no child arrived at the library with homework, but all of them with the joyful expectation to play with us. So we played with picture cards, read books and let the children draw colourful pictures to ask them what they drew afterwards.

There were only three days of school left before winter vacation when we arrived in Thulo Bharku. Therefore, our time of teaching at the local school was very limited. But the headmaster of the school was relaxed about that. He just sent us into different classes and we tried our best to teach the children little sentences in English in line with their level of knowledge. In the afternoon and during vacation during the day we went on short hikes around the area, helped our host family to do the chores or did some errands in Thulo Bharku or in Dunche, the next bigger village half an hour bus ride away.

Before our trip to Nepal we had fundraised money in Europe to buy school materials and clothes for the children. Although we already spent a fair amount of it in Kathmandu and brought a lot of stuff to Thulo Bharku, we still had some money left to have a look what is needed on the spot and try to get it in Thulo Bharku and Dunche. Doing so, we bought for example a mat for the children to sit on and to cover the cold floor in the library and some more exercise books for the school. We also ordered benches for the school from a smith and a wood carver as one class was not equipped at all. There is still a list of things the school needs which the headmaster wrote down for us. But most of the things are better to get in Kathmandu, so we could not buy them anymore. We are more than happy to pass the list on, if anyone going to Thulo Bharku in the future is planning to do the same.

Organizing these things we were blessed to have our host father with his never ending readiness to help and to answer our questions and needs. He brought us to the families who were most in need for help. He brought us to the smith and the wood carver. He showed us the local monastery and the most beautiful natural hot spring we have ever seen. Luckily for us he also is an official trekking guide, so we could take him as our guide on a 6 days trekking tour up the Langtang valley. We had a lot of fun on that trip and since December-January is off the trekking season we could enjoy the beauty of the Himalayan nature without other tourists most of the time.

Above all it was the Nepali people who made our stay such a wonderful experience. We received so much help everywhere we went, from the host family in Thulo Bharku and from the T2T contact persons in Kathmandu. Their open, uncomplicated, natural, relaxed, happy and kind attitude is a pleasant antipode to the stressed, anxious, pretentious people we so often see in Europe.

We could see this sweetness on the children as well. They never cry, even if they hit their head or fall in the middle of the run, they just get up and continue playing. They have only a few toys, but they are very creative with only as much as a string and sticks to build a bow and arrows or to bundle firewood. They receive help from their parents when they ask for it, are most of the time free to do whatever they want and are provided with the confidence that they will do things well. This is what we received there as well. And this was a great experience.