On the 27th of June 2013, Earthlink Ecoventure 2013 has embarked on an unforgettable journey to Nepal for its annual overseas community involvement programme aimed to help the people there in any way possible. On that fine morning as early as 6:30am, participants as well as the committee members started to gather at Changi Airport to catch the flight to Kathmandu, Nepal. That morning, everyone seems well rested, well prepared and excited for the trip.
At around 2pm local time, we have finally touched down at Tribhuvan International Airport, Nepal. Here in Kathmandu, we spent a night and also for us to have last minute shopping to get necessary items for our programmes at the school later.
We woke up early the next day and all packed to continue our journey. Firstly, we took a tour to Boudhanath Stupa, which is the world s largest stupa. Here, we learned a lot of knowledge about the history of this place as well as some understanding about Buddhism.
Then, we continued our journey to Nagarkot, which took around an hour and half from Kathmandu. Along the journey, we rehearsed our songs and enjoyed the wonderful scenery of the countryside in Nepal. Upon reaching our destination, we checked into a hotel called Hotel Space Mountain and spent the night there.
The following day, the drizzling rain and foggy weather continued to persist resulted from the heavy downpour during the midnight. However, this does not deter us from continuing our expedition. Hence, we braved ourselves and set out in thick fog and drizzling rain for around an hour to our final destination that is a lower secondary school named Shree Janakalyan Lower Secondary School.
Upon our arrival at the school, we were greeted by students and staffs despite the rain is still drizzling. Without wasting much time, we proceeded with the opening ceremony and then lunch. Fortunately, the weather improved right after lunch and we were divided into 3 groups that are construction group, education group and tent set-up group. After 2 hours doing our assigned tasks, we had our teatime and also to check into our tents. After that, we had our sumptuous dinner and then we had a personal development and learning session.
In the following 8 days, our schedule is quite routine with us waking up early in the morning for our morning exercise at the school compound. Then, we had our breakfast before attending our Nepali class, which is conducted by Mr Dhruba to learn the Nepali language, history of Nepal as well as the culture there for about 2 hours daily.
Then, we will proceed with our education programme to teach the students with the first 3 days teaching English, Science and Mathematics and the following 3 days conducting Sanitary and Hygiene, Green Generation and Environment Awareness workshops for 2 hours daily.
Throughout this programme, we employed different and yet interesting methods to teach the students such as through games and experiments to make our programme more effective. Apart from that, we had proper debriefing sessions each time after the teaching session so that we can constantly improve ourselves. Soon after that, we had our lunch and break. At around 2:30pm everyday, we will begin our construction work for the school s water storage tank. During this time, we worked harmoniously and efficiently in all stages of the construction for 2 hours.
Subsequently, we will be having our teatime and our rest until 6:30pm, where we will be having our dinner. After dinner, we will be having our personal development and learning session until bedtime.
However, during the 3rd day in the school, we took a short trip to the top of the hill during our usual teatime as the weather cleared up so that we can have a view of the magnificent Himalayan range. The view of the Himalayan range was so spectacular that we could not take our eyes off it.
On the other hand, we had a visit to the local village there known as Tamang Village on the 7th day to have a taste of the life of the villagers there. In that tour, we visited the school s principal s house to take a look at inside the village houses.
That night, we had our final feast in the school and celebrated our endurance for staying in the school with a cake baked by our beloved chef. Then, we all proceeded to the campfire to celebrate our last night in the school with lots of music and dance together with the staffs. It was definitely a great and memorable for each of us.
On the last day at the school, we had our closing ceremony by presenting a few performances such as cultural dance, cultural showcase and choir singing. After that, the students performed their cultural dance and it was a great experience for us to be able to see their local dance.
At last at around 1pm, we departed from the school and headed back to the resort in Nagarkot. Upon reaching at the resort, we all can finally take our well-deserved rest and good shower before meeting for dinner at night. Right after dinner, we had our final sharing session at the resort s conference room and each of us shared about our feelings and experience throughout the trip in that closed room. It was certainly a great moment where we get to understand one another better and was also a good time to express our feelings.
The following day, we headed out for our trekking and we trekked for around 2 hours. Throughout the trekking, we had the opportunity to see beautiful and stunning sceneries. On top of that, we also passed through a local village too. At the end our trekking, we got on board into our vans and travelled back to Kathmandu.
At Kathmandu, we had our last minute shopping and at night, we had our dinner at an authentic Nepalese restaurant. There, we had our splendid and tantalizing authentic Nepalese food while enjoying cultural performances on the stage.
Later that night, we had our certificates receiving ceremony back at the hotel as a form of acknowledgement and appreciation for our effort and endurance in making our community service project a success despite we had to go through much hardship.
On our last day at Nepal, we all woke up early to catch a flight back to Singapore. En route to Singapore, many memories and thoughts flashed in my mind and I m glad that I ve made the right choice to enrol into this project. Our trip officially ended upon our arrival at Singapore s Changi Airport. Although the trip has ended, the experience that we gained from this trip will definitely leave a deep impact in each of us and the strong bond that we have moulded among ourselves will definitely be unforgettable.
