What to do???

Sita's Blog Entry

We had planned to visit Rimwa Janajyoti higher Secondary School on March twenty-first where 13 visually impaired students were studying together with sighted students. Rob, myself, my sister Nirmala and Jayanti Bhatta from the Rotary Disability Awareness program were planning to go.

But two days before that plan, both Gina and Rob became sick and Gina had to cancel her flight for USA. This made all of us sad. Part of my heart wished to cancel the trip and the other part of my heart would say, "Yes, we are in bad situation, but if we cancel this trip when will we get another chance to see those kids whom we really need to visit, who need our help."

Somehow it went positive. Both Rob and Gina felt little better. Gina was able to reschedule her return flight to Seattle and Rob was able to make the trip. On the morning of March 20th, we departed for Gulmi.

We arrived at the Bhairahawa airport after our 30 minute flight from Kathmandu and then drove more than five hours to Gulmi in a jeep which we had hired for three days. As Rob had stomach problems, he barely ate single bite of anything except several bottles of water during the whole drive that day.

The next morning we started out for our trip to the Rimwa school. After two and
half hours driving on the very bumpy, jumpy road, we were able to reach the school. All the school staff and blind/visually-impaired (BVI) students were waiting for our arrival with great anticipation.

As it was my first visit to the school, everything was unfamiliar for me. First, we
introduced ourselves and the children introduced themselves. After introductions, everybody gathered in the main school room, which is both bedroom and resource room due to the lack of space for the BVI students. After a few minutes of informal discussion, Rob started to take individual video interviews of some of the students. Out of 13 students, five were first or second in their class, out of many students, sighted or not! We asked each child if they had any other activities or talents they would like to share and many of them could play a musical instrument and they all enjoyed singing.

After a short discussion with resource teacher for the BVI students, we felt that there is so much need in every sector. With our limited funds from TRIFC.org, we were able to provide money for Braille paper for a year. They game us tika (red dot on forehead as farewell and good fortune) and mala (flower marigold necklace) as is the custom in Nepali culture. Then came the time for us to say goodbye and we left for home.

In the early morning of our third day, we left home and drove to Butwal, which is the major city in this area. In the afternoon, we attended the Butwal Rotary meeting then went to visit Shanti Namuna School for blind/visually-impaired children as the local Rotarians had requested. This school was established with the help of many organizations. Though their infrastructure was better (larger dining room, kitchen and sleeping rooms), all the other problems were same as Rimwa/Janajyoti School had in the village area. It really pinched me and reminded me of my own school as we are facing many of the same type of problems for the visually-challenged students even though it is in Kathmandu, the capital city of Nepal.

After that we left Butwal for Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha, with many Buddhist temples having been built by different countries around the world. I was excited to go there as it my first visit. We spent that night in one of the local hotels. The situation at those schools for the blind/visually-impaired drew my mind back and forth with worry and concern for the children’s future. The next morning we visited Lumbini and then returned to Kathmandu.

-Sita Gyawali, Teacher of the Blind/Visually-Impaired at Laboratory School, Kathmandu, Nepal and Volunteer for TRIFC.org