Another Himalayan challenge

By TIM WATKIN in Nepal

The narrow paths between the dry stone walls are as rough as riverbeds. Behind the walls, the fields are green with potatoes and wheat; above, a steep path that has led us down 1000ft into this hidden valley at the foot of the Himalayas.

And around the next bend, dreamlike in this most remote region, is a red arch of welcome and 288 uniformed Nepalese school children waiting in two snaking rows. They're standing in what could loosely be called their playground - bare dirt about the area of half a rugby field.

As we come into view, led by the principal of Chaurikharka School, Biruman Rai, they start to clap. We pass under the timber and cloth arch and each pupil in turn steps forward to wrap a khada or silk scarf, around our shoulders, just as we've seen given to Sir Edmund Hillary over the years.

They - and we - are here because of a conversation Hillary had in 1960 with climbing and Sherpa friends around a scrub fire on a Himalayan glacier.

He asked the Sherpas what he could do for them, and they agreed that what they really wanted was education opportunities for their children.



The next year he built a school at Kumjung. It was to be a new start for both Hillary and the Sherpas.

"People came from villages miles and miles away, days away and kept coming with petitions saying, 'Can you help us build a school or medical clinic?"'

In the years since, the Himalayan Trust, which he set up to coordinate his work, has built 27 schools, a dozen medical clinics, two hospitals and an assortment of fresh-water pipelines and bridges. All because he was brought up in that great New Zealand tradition of giving something back.

"I felt that even though I was a relatively poor New Zealander, I was still so much better off than they were that I felt I had a responsibility to give them a bit of help," he says.

Hillary came to Chaurikharka in 1964 and built a primary school, which has expanded over the years.

The pupils are aged from 5 to 18 and their presence is daily testament of determination. Despite the poverty of their country, their isolation from the hustle of world centres and a woeful lack of resources, they come to learn.

For many children, attending school in the Solu Khumbu region means walking the same track we've just come down, which drops 1000ft. Imagine the walk home at the end of the day.

Some walk for two hours from villages up to 12km away, and others are boarders, having journeyed for three days from their villages.

Their exam results suggest it's worth the effort. For the past 10 years, Chaurikharka has had the best marks in the national School Leaving Certificate in the district.

THEY start the day with five minutes of exercise. Heavy drumbeats blast out from a distorting stereo as the Nepalese pop singer, with an even heavier English accent, says "shake it, shake it".

A girl perched on the top of a rock leads the school in a series of stretches. Afterwards, they count off military-style and march into class.

Biruman Rai, a teacher here for 22 years and principal for the past 12, takes us on a tour of the classrooms.

In the new entrants' class, the pupils are between five and seven years old. It depends on when their parents can afford to send them. Six years of schooling is compulsory in Nepal, but the rule is unenforceable and unenforced.

Just like in a New Zealand school, the children's art hangs on the wall. Just like in a New Zealand school, they are learning the alphabet, copying rows of letters. Entirely unlike New Zealand, the classroom is dark - no electric lights - and the books are dirty and dog-eared. The children are squashed together on long benches, reminiscent of a Victorian classroom.

Next door, the year-twos and threes are learning English. That's unusual because in Government schools, English begins only in year four. Thanks to books provided by the Himalayan Trust, the Chaurikharka children get a head-start.

It's an example of what the school committee chairman Dawa Tshering Sherpa repeats earnestly on several occasions: we are trying to do things better.

The work of the trust in the Solu Khumbu region, at his school and others, is crucial, he says. Perhaps the Government could do more, but the Government is always busy, he adds with a smile and a shrug. To be fair, they are also always poor.

In the year-four class, Wendy Pye books from New Zealand hang from strings along the windows. The Tiny Woman's Coat, by Joy Cowley, and Richie the Greedy Mouse, a favourite of an excited girl in a purple jersey, seem at once hugely important and jarringly out of context here. But they, like everything else here, are tatty and covered in grime. The children need new books.

The year sevens are doing science, measuring the weight of a rock on a rusty scale. The science equipment is pathetically limited to a few flasks and tubes, four microscopes, several jars of chemicals and a skeleton.

Despite their poverty, the children are unfailingly polite and enthusiastic about their studies. They are shy and hard-working. Such efforts deserve better. Yet the strongest feeling I get here is not one of indignation or injustice, but of righteous hope. Already Hillary's schools have turned out students who have gone on to fly jumbo jets, get PhDs and become executives.



AS WE tour the school, I understand why Hillary says he's now focusing on maintaining and developing existing projects, rather than adding new ones.

The dry-stone buildings are crumbling. The only cement used is round the window frames and that is worn.

Yet the need here is growing. Because Lukla is home to the region's airport, the one-street frontier town is developing as its tourism hub. Rai says local villages are growing as more people move to the area, and the school is getting up to 30 new pupils a year.

Asked how he will accommodate them, he just shakes his head and shrugs.

Nearly 40 years ago, such need sparked Hillary into action. Now it is our chance. This week the Herald, as a way of celebrating Hillary and the 50th anniversary of his triumph on Mt Everest, is asking you to help raise money for this school, these children.

The school committee has a list of priorities for the next few years - a library room (400,000 rupees/$9000) a multi-purpose hall (800,000 rupees), a new classroom (750,000 rupees). To that, I would add new books and pens.

But their first priority is a computer room. Some of the older pupils get lessons on two Samsung computers donated last year by a French non-Government organisation.

"Computers are the most important because this is the computer age," says Rai.

Tsering Sherpa says he doesn't want the pupils surprised by technology if they move out of the area.

"They used to say that without an education you are blind. Now, if you don't have a computer education you are blind."

Although the computers run from a water turbine generator, there is power for more. And the Government has promised 150 phone-lines in Lukla over the next year.

Imagine what the internet could teach these children, Rai says.

So when we asked, just as Hillary did all those years ago, what we could do, the request was for a computer room. It would cost just 400,000 rupees.

Before we leave, we are treated to some traditional Sherpa songs and dances. The children stomp and chant, they move their arms in flowing arcs and their wrists in delicate twirls. It is a mix of grace and stoicism that expresses perfectly the way of life we have observed in this remarkable hidden Himalayan valley.

THE EVEREST APPEAL


To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the ascent of Everest and in recognition of the life's work of Sir Edmund Hillary in bringing education to the Sherpas, the Herald is running a campaign to raise money for one of the schools he helped to build in Nepal.

Chaurikharka school, nestled at the foot of the Himalayas, has big dreams but few resources. Its 288 pupils range in age from 5 to 18, and some walk two hours to its small, crowded stone buildings.

Sir Edmund told the Herald that he had always had great sympathy for the conditions under which the Sherpas lived, and in the years after his climb had asked them how he could best help. "They all agreed what they wanted was the opportunity for their children to get an education."

Chaurikharka hopes to build a computer room and another classroom.

APPEAL DETAILS

Donations can be sent to:

The Nepalese School Fund Appeal

Editorial Department

New Zealand Herald

PO Box 706, Auckland