Namaste to Kamlaris: One Teacher's Story: Telling Our Stories; Living our Lives

By Jodie K. Scales

Follow one teacher's journey inspired by something as frivolous as the classic rock song, “Kathmandu” by Bob Sager, a passion for traveling, and a combined love for teaching and writing, as her life is changed forever. “One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things” Henry Miller.
Two organizations to support teacher professional development are very much responsible for this story: Indiana Writing Project a part of the National Writing Project, and The Lilly Foundation Teacher Creativity Fellowship Grant program. Without either of these wonderful organizations this story might not have been told. It is to Michael Hess, Volunteer Nepal and Nepal Orphans Home that I lovingly dedicate this story and any proceeds made from it to.

This book is a free iBook. Please consider making a donation of any amount possible (maybe the amount you would have felt comfortable paying for the book) to help continue the work being done in Nepal:

http://www.nepalorphanshome.org/donate

Donate by Mail If you prefer to make your donation by check, please send to: Nepal Orphans Home, Inc PO Box 1254 Davidson, NC 28036

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 3, 2014
• ISBN: 9781483526225

Book preview

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Why Are Our Stories Important?

Early in my teaching career, which not unimportantly didn’t begin until my mid forties, I was introduced to a remarkable professional development opportunity. They kept telling me that it would change my life. I had grown up on a farm in rural Indiana, served in the United States Navy, made a little money, married a devoted husband, raised a blessing of a daughter, and recently become a grandmother. I wasn’t quite sure how one summer professional development program was going to change my life or if I even wanted my life changed. I was fairly satisfied with the way life had been going.

It all Began with Teachers teaching teachers.

It’s just now 4 a.m. (I must still be on Nepal time), settled into the corner of my softly padded couch, with a cup of my favorite coffee in hand I am ready to begin. While greatly appreciating the comforts of home, I already miss the vast orchestra of the morning sounds of Nepal. I don’t hear the crowing of rosters, the caw of crows, the coo coo of an actual live coo coo bird, or any of the many more musical bird calls that began as soon as the sun started to rise each morning in Nepal. I also know that the following morning sounds of the city starting it’s day will not be to come this morning as they were every morning in Dhapasi Heights. The quiet northern area of Kathmandu had its own normal sounds of the city that entered the morning symphonies not long after the birds’ prelude. The sound of prayer bells, not the loud reverberating sound of big church bells, but the smaller high tingle of individual hand held bells, could be heard from different directions as women carried out the morning blessings around each side of the balconies of the surrounding homes. Along with the morning prayers came the slight hint of burning incense waffling through the air as they were waved in circular motions about the areas being blessed. All too soon after the blessings have begun the sound of car, truck, and motorbike engines indicate that the neighbors have started their day. Of course due to the narrow twisting alleyway of streets in Kathmandu, along with the sound of the motors comes the ever increasing beeping of horns before they make each curve. Soon the occasional peddler would be walking softly chanting out his wares for anyone interested to come out of their homes and stop him. By 5 a.m. the world is alive in Nepal. Here, back in Indiana, windows are closed so that air-conditioning can cool our homes, it is still dark outside the closed windows and with the exception of a lone distant train whistle there are no sounds to be heard.

Although I say, I am ready to begin it is difficult to even know where to begin. Years ago in a family genealogy I was working on, I said of myself, Although I have never really demonstrated the talent nor persistence needed to be a great writer, I have always felt that the soul of a writer rests within me. Since that time I have written for numerous reasons; pleasure, business, school work both as a student and now a teacher, to express myself and to understand myself, to learn and to teach, to look forward to something and to record or remember something. I write because I am a visual person and sometimes need to see what I am trying to say, because I am a storyteller, and finally because I write far better than I speak.

The year after I began teaching I was encouraged to attend the Indiana Writing Project Summer Institute for teachers of writing at Ball State University. Everyone told me that it would be an experience that would change my life. I didn’t necessarily appreciate nor quite honestly believe that my life was being changed as I was going through the daily rigor of the program.

I recall many times feeling that I resented being told to write when I had nothing to write about or simply wasn’t motivated or in the mood to write at that very moment in time. While I was blessed with a wonderful group of participants, most with talent far beyond that of my own, I struggled against the structure and what at times seemed such elementary aspects of writing. I was, to say the least, a skeptical participant during the summer program.

Such feelings of hesitance that the Writing Project had or was going to change my life didn’t stop me from immediately implementing the principals learned in the program into my classroom. I started each year out with a program on understanding and using Writer’s Notebooks, taught writing in a writing workshop environment with mini-lessons, writing partners and small groups. It however took nearly four years for me to reach the place in my life where I started understanding just how the Writing Project honestly had changed my life. This is where I will begin, the point in which I combined the Writing Project, my love of storytelling and my belief in the soul’s need to connect and write into this impending adventure in Nepal.

At this point in my life, Indiana teachers had the incredible opportunity to apply for a unique grant program through the Lilly Foundation. The program is called the Teacher Creativity Fellowship Grant. Unlike most grant programs available to teachers, this program is designed to allow teachers to follow their own dreams or passions to reenergize themselves and be stronger more passionate teachers in the classroom. The first year I applied for the grant, after only teaching three years I floundered and grasp for a cohesive plan that might attract the grant committee’s attention. It was not well developed, not written exceptionally well, and did not get approved.

The second year that I applied for the grant was an entirely different story. I researched an area of the world that I had never been to. I read about the struggles and desperate need for assistance in the small landlocked country of Nepal. I had been to China and studied Asia and East Asian cultures so it seemed the perfect next step to visit a country that shared so much with Tibet and the Asian philosophy and religion of Buddhism that had so fascinated me. Oh the stories I could learn. A fire had been lit and I had picked a location for my grant proposal.

Next came the opportunity to actually work as a volunteer in Nepal. Through a great deal of research I found a volunteer organization associated with Nepal Orphans Home (NOH). Volunteer Nepal (VN) is a fundraising effort of Nepal Orphans Home which was founded by Michael Hess in March of 2005. In an authentic attempt to improve the lives of poor children in Nepal, Michael Hess has moved himself to Nepal and now houses 137 children in five homes in the Dhapase neighborhood of Kathmandu. Of the many volunteer organizations operating out of Nepal, Volunteer Nepal was the only one I could find that offered an oral history (story telling) placement option. The generic placement description from their web pages read:

We have a select group of placements where the villagers are dedicated to the passing along of their history through song and storytelling. Along with a bilingual Nepalese person, you would help these villagers make a permanent record of their lives in both audiovisual and written formats. You would be living in the village, working alongside of the people there, and your recorded results could be published and also archived for the future. Part of your volunteer fee goes to the publishing of a journal that you would then return to the village.

The Nepalese people have a profoundly rich and fascinating history. Independent and creative thinkers are encouraged to explore this placement.

The embers were smoldering and the fire was building.

After being awarded the grant I began sincere communications with Volunteer Nepal. While the final placement commitment didn’t have to be made until after arrival in Nepal, it was confirmed that I would be able to work with the children in The Nepal Orphans Home, travel to the southern Nepal jungle, and spend time in the Bigu Nunnery high in the mountains near the Tibetan border. While living with the Buddhist nuns I would be allowed to attend daily puja (prayers) and follow the routine of the nuns, attend evening Dharma lessons in Tibetan, teach English to the nuns, assist with chores and visit the farming families living around the Bigu area to collect oral histories.

As any passionate teacher does, I enthusiastically shared my upcoming adventure with my students. One day each class walked into the room to the classic rock sounds of Bob Segar belting out his plans to go to Kathmandu. It was a YouTube video being project through Apple TV complete with the beautiful scenes of the monuments, temples and mountains of the Kathmandu area. For the last three months of the school year, when I wrote with the students (another one of the valuable lessons learned from The Writing Project) I wrote about my impending travels. In support of my policy to always do the assignments I give the students I did my second semester research paper on the monuments, stupas, and two primary religions of Nepal. My enthusiasm overflowed into the daily lives of my students and they became a part of the trip I was about to experience.

The look on several of my fellow teacher’s faces when I explained that I intended to spend my summer in Nepal, and hike two days into the mountains near Mount Everest to live with and learn from Sherpa villagers and Buddhist nuns, was priceless. They all thought I had lost my mind, and worried about my lack of mountain climbing skills. Yet in their own way my coworkers were also becoming a part of the trip I was about to take.

I began my own Nepal 2013 writer’s notebook with a travel book description of Nepal, Draped along the spine of the Himalayas, Nepal is a poor country rich in scenic splendor and cultural treasures that will linger in your dreams long after you leave. I continued talking about just how exotic the name Kathmandu sounds and had written the word mayhem next to it. I quoted the mantra, Om Mani Pad Me Hum (Compassion for all living things). I recorded lists and notes about required shots and the sights I wanted to make sure I didn’t miss. My students and coworkers saw me jotting notes and writing in my new red Nepal 2013 writer’s notebook.

As my own writer’s notebook grew before the actual travel had even started, an idea began to take shape in my mind. I started thinking about the people I would be meeting and working with in Nepal. I imagined their interest in the writer’s notebook that never seemed to leave my side. I thought about how important I always tried to make the new students’ writer’s notebooks at the start of each school year. It was still an unformed plan, really just the wisps of an idea on the track to becoming a plan, but I started thinking that I wanted to have writer’s notebooks to leave with the people who shared their lives and stories with me in Nepal. I wanted to encourage the people of Nepal to tell me their stories, but how cool would it be to plant a seed and provide them a writer’s notebook of their own.

I began shopping all the discount stores for 5x7 or smaller hard cover journals. I didn’t want to use paper covered notebooks. I wanted to leave something nicer, something that would be very special to them, with each person who shared their stories with me in Nepal. I also posted a Facebook request to friends and family:

The central concept and driving force of Steve and I’s upcoming trip to Nepal is cultural sensitivity and storytelling. We are going to be living with rural mountain people of the Sherpa ethnic group in order for me to record some of their oral traditions and stories. I have decided that I would like to leave a small journal and pen or pencil with each family or village member we visit. If you would like to be a part of this effort, we will be accepting journal donations (5 x 7 or smaller) between now and May 24th.

Their story, yours and mine -- it’s what we all carry with us on this trip we take, and we owe it to each other to respect our stories and learn from them. —William Carlos WilliamsonStories have to be told or they die, and when they die, we can’t remember who we are or why we’re here." ― Sue Monk KiddThanks friends.

As the soft leather feeling journals of bright colors rolled in, I began crafting a personal hand written message (sometimes in a colored ink that matched the journal color) in each one. Although there were minor variations in most of the journals the basic message incorporating the wise words of so many others regarding storytelling read:

Thank you for your kindness and great generosity of spirit in sharing your home and story with Steve and I. We all have stories deep within our souls, stories that must be told lest they may die. When our stories die, we can’t remember who we are. We all owe it to each other to respect and honor our stories and all that we can learn from them. As one of my favorite American writers, Maya Angelou has said, There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you. Share your stories just as you continue to share your care and love for all creatures sharing this existence with us.

With my love, your

American friend,

Jodie Scales

I had also found a free Nepali translator online. I typed in my personal message and was given what I hoped was an accurate translation. I carefully wrapped four or five journals in each of seven gallon size Ziploc plastic bags and tucked them neatly into one of my large suitcases.

Being a teacher I simultaneously started putting together the teaching aids I thought I might use in Nepal. I had learned firsthand while traveling in China that a smile is a smile in any language and thus began creating picture books centered around the theme, We All Smile in the Same Language. I overlaid enlargements of family photos with the English words: smile, sleeping, cat, backyard hammock, couple (husband and wife), mask, book, daughter, grandson, writing utensil, grandson, husband, short hair cut, kitchen, wedding dress, one horse, two horses, three horses, snowmen, living room, White House, brother, sister, me, father, newborn baby, car, friends, golf, bedroom, fireplace, hat, pony, nephew, Christmas tree, Santa, flag, our house, grandfather, happiness, teacher, computer, and a few others. Each page was one picture and the English word, the Nepali word using Devanagari script from the online translator, and in many cases the Sherpa word in both Tibetan script and translated into our own Roman script was imposed over the part of the picture it represented. It was my hope that by sharing authentic representations of everyday words at the same time sharing my family and home with the students I would be teaching would more meaningfully engage the English language learners.

I also began reading everything I could find about Nepal. The first book I completed was Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal by Conor Grennan. I thought the book gave me a feel of what Nepal must have been like, but couldn’t imagine that it could still be so dismal or desperate for the children. The civil war was over and surely by the time it had taken Grennan to write a book and get it published the situation in Nepal would have improved. After all, this is the twenty first century; we can communicate instantaneously around the world. Communication leads to understanding and understanding leads to change, improvement. I never once contemplated that I would be walking directly into the pages of Grennan’s book.

Next I read Hidden Tiger Raging Mountain by Jo Carroll and Tilled Earth : Stories by Manjushree Thapa. Both broadened my academic understanding of the people of Nepal. The first by another traveler into Nepal and the later from the perspective of someone born, raised, educated, and living in Nepal. While all this preparation was indeed helpful to my understanding of the history, geography, and beliefs of this poor country and its people, nothing could have adequately prepared me for the emotions and realization encountering these people’s stories, up close and personally, would have on me. My story has changed because of this journey. How I see the world and myself has changed because of