In Nangi

Phew, what a day. First off, a prologue: Yesterday I got a call from Mahabir that I would be meeting with Lee, an Australian volunteer who has already been to the Himanchal High School once before. We met yesterday for lunch, and when I woke up at 5:30AM today to hustle all the boxes downstairs, she was already in the taxi. We then went to a battery store to pick up two tubular 300aH batteries. Serious amounts of electricity can be stored in these guys, for reference they can run one computer and one monitor at full load for one week straight without any power outages. We also picked up two battery chargers: one is 15 amp, one is 8 amp.

We loaded this all in the taxi and set off to Beni, a town where we were to be picked up in a jeep. We picked up a football in Beni and loaded our bags into the jeep that was there to pick us up. Contrary to our understanding of the situation, we weren’t to be alone in this jeep (although that too would have been a tight fit), and we watched person after person jam in with us. Eventually we had to shift all our bags and boxes up on top, as there were about twice as many people as there were seats!

About seven and a half hours after leaving Pokhara, we arrived in Nangi. The original plan was to hike here, so I had to dump some weight and leave things in Kathmandu. The 500mm lens was one of the casualties of this decision, and I instantly regretted it once I saw how amazing Nangi was: the Himanchal High School is surrounded by towering peaks and cavernous valleys begging to be photographed.

I dropped off the supplies in my room (one of the class 11 students called me ’superman’ because I carried one of the 300aH batteries by myself. Thanks, Kumar). I explored the campus a little bit, when I found Krishna’s child. No older than four or five, I said “namaste babu!”. He sheepishly said, “Namaste”. I asked him what his name was, and he replied “Kisoj”. He had trouble pronouncing my name, so I asked around for a good Nepali name. “Gorei”, meaning “white skin”. I rolled with this name for a while, but then realized I should have a more formal name for meeting with elder people and the teachers. I asked if “cha li” would be suitable, and it seemed to catch on…but I just found out that is a girl’s name. GREAT!

I noticed that the class 11 and class 12 boys were playing football, so I joined in with the ball I bought in Beni (the old ball they were using was flat). My name for the game was still “Gorei dai” or “Gorei bai” (dai is used when someone is older than you, bai is used when someone is younger than you), and they were impressed by my ability to simultaneously score goals and shriek like a “keti babu” (baby girl). The phrase “ai ya”, “cai na” and “team zero” also caught on as the number of goals scored seemed to rise about every five times the other team scored. It wasn’t a pretty sight from an athletic standpoint, but it was a lot of fun! As the sun set, we finished the game (final score something like one lac to three).

I also managed to take a look at Himanchal’s computer room, and I was glad to see that they were using Ubuntu. I think the computers were setup using PXE / a thin client system: the data wasn’t stored on the computer in a hard drive, rather a central server which would send the data to the computers when they booted. I also noticed that many of the kids seem to be using the computers well, to the point where they can converse with friends and family over Meebo and Hi5 (nobody had Facebook, I asked). I think the best way to learn typing is to have a conversation over an instant messenger, and most of the students were typing quickly. There is very little impetus to learn typing if you are just staring at some tutor telling you to type “fj jf f f j jfj” for ten minutes; talking to a friend shows you the value of having typing skills.

The internet is also quite fast: I ran a speed test and the speed was 95KB/s! This is nearly 1mb/s, I’m very impressed by the work Mahabir has done. To get these kinds of speeds in a village as remote as Nangi is such an amazing feat, and I’m incredibly impressed that the students were making good usage of the internet provided. I asked one student who he was talking to, and he showed me that he was talking to two people (using the online service Meebo): his mother in Kathmandu, and another student across the valley. Speaking of which, I brought ten computers to Nangi. Five will stay with Mahabir here, three will go to the school of the student across the valley, and two will go to another school nearby (also across the valley).

Things are looking great: the students are familiar with Ubuntu (after you have Firefox running, what differences are there anyway?), and the internet speed is fast enough to make good usage of the computers. Mahabir’s Himanchal school looks great so far, and I can’t wait to get these computers I brought up and running tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted, and I’ll try to take some pictures along the way.

UPDATE: Here are some pictures. It’s getting really cloudy and it’s super cold, plus I’m extremely tired from yesterday. I’ll take some better pics tomorrow, I promise (realizing that Polaris is behind the lodge I’m staying in gave me an idea for a picture…)

The lights are from the student volunteers who go out to make sure everyone is in their room.

That’s all for now.
Charles