Kristie Village School

The other day we visited the village of Kristie with a Rotary friend.  It was near Pokhara but high and unfortunately the weather was cloudy and we could not see the view.  It was a lush area with orange, lemon, pomegranite, papaya and banana trees.  Coffee also grew here and one of the school committee was a coffee farmer and he showed us how the beans were harvested and prepared.  We also drank black coffee, which I never do, but it was delicious.  Everything here was totally organic. 
We were welcomed at the school by the children presenting flower malas as usual.  They were in lines, girls one side and boys the other.  The girls presented to me and the boys to Bob each saying their name.  Very touching.  The school was in terrible condition some rooms unusuable with plants growing out of the floor and walls.  The walls were also crumbling and the roof leaking.  They had three new rooms that the government gave them.  Bob came up with the idea of partitioning the new rooms to make six rooms instead of three as a temporary measure.  He felt it was urgent to remove the children from the unsafe rooms that they were in especially the youngest children.  They are going to give us a budget to see if we can help them with this later.  They also had no drinking water.  The children were crowded on benches.  Six children on a bench made for three.  They had no library etc.  Actually they had nothing!!!
Of three new schools we saw last week we felt that Gunjara and Kristie were the most urgent and deserving of any help.  Gunjara has already repaired one roof with the material we sent up last week. 

Accepting flowers from the children

Condition of the classrooms

class one with no desks

Mann picking oranges but still talking on his phone

I have been having computer problems in the last two days as my laptop would not hook up to the wifi, today is okay.  We left Pokhara today which is always sad as we have so many friends there and Mann's family which are like our own.  We also attended Mann's wedding for two days more on that tomorrow and photos.