Weeping for Joy

I went up to one of the daycares that I work with today. It was intense.



The children are AMAZING. They are all so adorable, and some of them are sharp as anything. They smile and laugh and play and it warms your heart.




And then you look around.


The daycare they attend used to be a stable for horses. I say 'used to be' because they tore it down last week. Before it got torn down, there were three classes: one for 2 year olds, one for 3-4 year olds and one for 5/6s. Each classroom was a 3x3m concrete block with a window. The children in the 3/4 and 5/6 classes gathered around lowered coffee tables, one per classroom. On one wall in each room hung a chalkboard. The two year olds sat on worn pieces of carpet and played with dirty stuffed animals.



That was before the demolition.

The tearing down is actually a good thing - they're putting up a new 6 room school house in its place. Three rooms for the kids, one room for a women's training program, and one room for a kids with special needs program. The sixth room will be an office.

When they tore it down, they said the new building would be in place in six months. Nepali time-wise, that means we'll be lucky if the kids are in a new school this time next year. Extremely lucky.

In the meantime, the daycare has been moved to two closets (one's about 1mx4m, the other is about 3x2) and an 'outdoor' classroom for the older kids. The outdoor classroom consists of four pieces of metal normally used for roofing. There's three walls and a cover overhead. Think stable-without-the-hay and you get anidea of the set up. Devastating.

There's 30 kids who attend the school. The program funding them is actually one of the success stories here (yes, this is what success looks like in a third world country). The kids are all given uniforms and school supplies, they are provided with vitamins every other day, medicine when sick and they get a meal at school each day. The parents, in return, have to make sure they go to school every day. End of story. Every child is sponsored until the age of 16 (donors commit to a minimum of 10 years funding a child), so there's the assurance they will finish high school. Inspiring.

Nepal is a country of constant contrasts.



One where you can bask in the glow of a program that provides hope and a future to dozens of impoverished children, while simultaneously raging at the conditions that hope and future have to exist under.