Smiles and tikkas

Hardy and I + our giant tikkas

Hi everyone! 

I hope you had a great Christmas, wherever you are on the planet :) As far as Hardy and I are concerned, Christmas Eve consisted of a warm arrival at the Sydney Airport, a few quickly swallowed prawns and smoked salmon slices (which I had ordered online to be delivered to our hotel room on the 24th - clever right? ;), followed by 15 hours sleep, it was perfect :)

So now for the long overdue Humla update!

Let's be honest: life in Humla is tough. After a 40 minutes scary journey from Nepalganj in a non-identified flying object, you land in Simikot which is the main town of the district. It is set in a breathtakingly beautiful location but unfortunately has lost the benefit of electric power more than 3 months ago due to landslides ; houses are made of hay and clay which provides decent insulation but the temperature still dropped down to 8-10 degrees in our bedrooms at night ; the communal fountain provides freezing cold water for as many purposes as you can think of, including doing the dishes and laundry, quenching the thirst of tap licking cows and horses as well as shower and teeth brushing for humans (with the presence of mesmerized audiences.

On the bright side, as I already mentioned the surrounding mountains are awe-inspiring, the air is pur, people are extremely warm and generous and... they grow delicious apples. Oh, and they even have a communal volley-ball field which was hosting a district tournament whilst we were there, it was a bit surreal!

After a few days of acclimatization in Simikot (which is just above 3000 meters) we made our way (4 hours of tough-going trekking) to Bergaun where we worked hand-in-hand with the teachers of Ralling Secondary School, training them to English teaching methodology, observing, demonstrating lesson, and more generally sharing the little knowledge and experience we had, to try and make English lessons a more exciting prospect for the students. When we started we were unsure about what we could achieve given our own lack of teaching experience but once we had assessed the level of English of the teachers and students we knew than even the smallest improvement we would implement would make things better.

Working with the teachers, seeing them open up little by little after an unsurprising phase of suspicion and fear of judgement, and witnessing them apply the teaching methods we trained them to use was extremely rewarding. Seeing the kids enjoy coming to their English lesson and having fun learning new things was priceless.

Of course there are lots of things which were beyond what we could hope to change during the little time we had: teachers not showing up to school because they have business to do in Simikot which brings them more cash than teaching, students not doing their homework because they have to work in the field after school, etc. But when you work in such a remote place and the locals are so grateful that as a foreigner you care about them, you know than anything you can give them will go a long way.

The most memorable part of this experience are the moments we shared with people with whom we could barely communicate verbally and whom yet welcomed us as friends, opening their houses to us, offering food and tea and showing us what life is like in Humla. This is truly the most eye-opening and humbling thing I've done in my life so far.

After a few weeks of fighting with the cold and mild boringness of having nothing to do after 8pm, we were ready to go back to the craziness of Kathmandu. After a very moving send-off by the whole school, including the longest tikka ceremony ever (which is a benediction given by applying red pigment to someone's forehead) which left us completely covered in red powder, we left with very heavy hearts and with the promise, which won't be hard to keep, to "Never forget Humla".

To get a better idea about what life in Humla looks like, check out these videos