Janice's first few weeks...

A blog from Janice

My first two weeks with PoD has definitely been a stunning experience. I'm glad to have finished my training which wouldn't have been possible without my two amazing mentors Sarah and Chrissy.

My training was divided into two parts, one was the paper work which required quite a lot of reading and questionnaires and the next was placement visits.

I got a chance to attend Hilary's farewell dinner last Wednesday at a very nice restaurant down in lakeside. We were all sad to see Hilary go; she has been a wonderful volunteer and contributed much over her time here.

The next few days were about visiting placements so Sarah and I went around Pokhara to have a look at how things were and to formally introduce myself to all the places. While we were on the run we did our quarterly donations at Annapurna Primary School andPrabhat Primary School. The teachers and the other officials were very welcoming to me which made me feel grand.

On  Saturday morning, Sarah and I went to SOSBahini where she taught her Conversational English class and I was with other girls getting to know them and also doing arts and crafts. Some of them were enjoying some dance with Bollywood songs playing on a big speaker while rest of us were watching them, painting and making origami.

After we finished up with SOS we quickly had our lunch and went to pick up our three volunteers, Edwina, Jade and Yasmine from the tourist bus park. It was an easy job to spot them in that crowd. We took two taxis back to the hotel where they had some time to relax and settle down, have a chat with us with some tea and water. We all then headed down to lakeside in the evening and went to a restaurant called 'Maya', which means love in Nepali, for their welcome dinner. It was great fun getting to know each other while looking over down to the streets of lakeside with lights and listening to the live music in different restaurants around.

I did my first induction with them before taking them to see their placements which went much better than I thought it would be. Also all my volunteers were very lovely and patient as it was my first induction and my colleague Sarah helped me out on bits and pieces that I missed out.

The first stop we had to make that day was Children Development and Rehabilitation Center (Ward 6) where we introduced our volunteers to the head teacher and the little kids who all were very adorable. After which we took the local bus up to Mahendrapul to get the materials for their Kurthas, a traditional Nepali outfit, to be made; this is a lovely tradition which has been set up by PoD in that all new volunteers receive a Kurtha of their choosing, this is so they can wear it to their placements if they choose to, something which is really appreciated by the local staff here. They all got a stunning Kurtha each for the workplace. We had some samosas with spicy tamarind sauce at an Indian Restaurant for lunch. We then all went back, and our lovely volunteers took a well earned nap. In the evening, they came to see me sing; I perform with a band at local restaurants around Lakeside. It was lovely to spend time socialising with them, and they enjoyed hearing my band!

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