Peg dolls, Periscopes and Parties...

We are still on the school holidays here and so have been working hard at our childcare placements. We began the week by decorating tshirts with the children from Street Kids. They loved the opportunity to make something completely for themselves that they wouldn’t have to share and they embraced the freedom of doing whatever design they wanted to do on it! We had all sorts of different pictures, from Mickey Mouse to Buddha to rainbows to butterflies! It was great to watch them be so enthusiastic and engaged with            an activity!

Also at Street Kids, Asmita has been in her element practicing her mehndi (English name is henna) designs on lots of willing volunteers! She has a real talent and creates beautiful patterns.

It has not been, however, all play and no work at Street Kids; Bijay and Shreeram were set the task of creating a periscope for their holiday homework. Early on they asked for some help and this had stumped us! After some sheer perseverance (and a lot of googling!), our wonderful volunteer Hilary and the boys managed to create a real, working periscope! Three cheers for them!

At Asha Foundation, there has also been much fun and games. We had a great time making peg dolls; the children loved the wool that we brought to create the hair and were soon making beards and wigs for themselves! We also took along face paint one day. Kate, one of our lovely volunteers agreed to be the guinea pig and the children had a great time decorating her face in as many different creative ways as they could!

Sadly this week we have had to say goodbye to Kate and Roshni. Both of them have been such wonderful volunteers and it was sad to say goodbye. They have contributed so much in their time here and brought some fun and creativity to the placements!

Lastly, it is Tihar festival here in Nepal and so we have been celebrating in style! There have been lots of street parties, street dancing and people walking around giving people tika’s and blessing’s, (tika is where red powder is put on your forehead and sometimes the rest of your face). Even the cows can’t escape…

If you would like to join the team here in Nepal please email Gemma on gemma@podvolunteer.org

Rice flour, bracelets and Spider-man...

As ever we have been busy, busy, busy this week! At Asha Foundation we gave making rice flour a go – they are planning to make a special sweet bread which is traditional during Tihar, a festival that will be happening next week. Hilary, one of our volunteers had a real knack for it, but the rest of us were quickly substituted!

Our new volunteer Kate arrived this weekend. She has begun working at Ward 6, one of our childcare placements as well as at the Street Kids centre. She has really enjoyed her first few days and is settling in really well!

 

As it is still the holidays here and the children are not back at school yet, we have been working hard to provide fun activities to keep them entertained! At the Street Kids, the volunteers have taught them how to make bracelets and they love this. They all now have arms full from wrist to elbow! One of our volunteers also brought out with them some fabric paint and so we are also planning this week to take a plain white tshirt for each of the children and they can decorate. Here they are planning their tshirts…

Ramesh, one of the boys at Street Kids, decided to turn his tshirt into a Spider-man outfit and made himself a mask aswell! He looked great and spent the rest of the day ‘being’ Spider-man!

Two of our volunteers are currently working hard at SOS Bahini. Hilary is running conversational English classes with the children as they are not at school – the children love these classes and the fun activities she comes up with! Tania, our other volunteer at SOS Bahini, is here on a Film and Photography placement. She is busy creating a professional promotional video for them as well as taking beautiful photos. Here she is in action photographing Hilary’s lesson…

If you would like to join the team here in Nepal please email Gemma on gemma@podvolunteer.org

Dashain in Pokhara...

Celebrating my first Dashain in Nepal was a wonderful experience. It is such a special time of year here and it feels a privilege to be a part of it.

Myself and the volunteers decided to have our own Dashain celebrations and chose the day to go to Sarangkot to watch the sunrise. We got our taxi up there at 4.30am; we were tired and grumpy but it was well worth the effort! The view was spectacular and watching the sunrise together as a group had a lovely, magical feeling about it. The only thing that would have improved the whole experience for me would have been a hot mug of tea and a bacon sandwich, but you can’t have everything I guess!

The schools are still closed here and so the volunteers are working hard at our childcare placements. They have been doing lots of fun activities with the children from sports to bingo! At Dashain it is traditional for swings to be constructed all over Nepal; these swings are constructed by the local community and traditionally represent community spirit working together to create fun! We had great fun with the children (and just for ourselves reliving our childhood!) playing on the swing!

The children from Dashain had been visited by a volunteer who had worked with them some years ago and had kept in touch and she had bought all the children a Dashain gift of a new outfit for each of them. Freya, who is here on a Film and photography placement, brought out their model side and they spent lots of time posing for the camera having lots of fun!

Sadly, today we had to say goodbye to Freya! She has been a wonderful volunteer and we cannot wait to see the rest of the photos and videos that she has gathered.

We have a new volunteer, Tania, who arrived this week. She has been getting to know the local area and exploring. Pokhara truly is a beautiful place to visit or live in. There is so much to see and do and just walking down the street you are greeted by so many sights and sounds that are mesmerising! 

If you would like to join the team here in Nepal please email Gemma on gemma@podvolunteer.org

Kites, festivals and celebrations...

The Dashain holidays have officially begun here! Everyone is in great spirits especially the children from Street Kids and Asha Foundation whom we have been spending plenty of time with.

Firstly this week we had to say goodbye to Ged, he has been an wonderful volunteer and contributed much over his time here. We spent his last day at Street Kids playing with sports and board games with the children. As you can see the children were very sad to say goodbye to him!

Over the weekend, our new volunteer Roshni arrived. We were lucky that when we went out for dinner on Saturday night, we stumbled across a big street party! It turns out that Saturday was World Tourism Day. We were treated to traditional dancing in the streets, local music, speeches and the Nepali national anthem. It was a brilliant welcome for Roshni and a really nice experience for the volunteers as well as myself!

This week the volunteers have been busy at the placements. On Monday the volunteers used their AMAZING arts and crafts skills and made kites. Kites are a big part of Dashain and so the children loved the opportunity to make their own. 

The winners of the best kite was… Bidan and Ramesh! They were so proud of themselves and it was lovely to see them all working so well together.

At Asha Foundation as well we have been having lots of fun. The children made Dashain posters! On behalf of all here in Nepal, HAPPY DASHAIN!

As the holidays continue, we are all having fun planning more exciting activities to do with the children!

If you would like to join the team here in Nepal please email Gemma on gemma@podvolunteer.org