Six Weeks Residential Training....................

Life is very amazing, full of surprises............and this has been always true to me. As I have moved on up to 22 years I am blessed with many of the surprises that life has given to me and yes, the beginning of 2013 was also a great surprise for me. I had applied for Teach For Nepal's fellowship but hadn't expected that I would receive a call from there... So at the mid of January, I got a call for interview and after rounds and rounds of interview finally I got selected which was a very good news for me.And finally the day arrived when I was moving with my luggage to TFN Learning Institute for six weeks. 

I entered TFN learning institute with loads and loads of excitement and enthusiasm on the very first day. And this continued till the end of the six weeks.  As I had never done teaching before, this training was very important for me as I was not much confident about teaching. And I gradually started raising confidence in me. Rojee, Seetu and Rijuta were the first three friends I met as soon as I reached the house and then gradually I started to become friends with all other people in the house.

I call myself an introvert so being open and close to all the people in the house with more than 40 people was what I thought difficult previously but it was just my assumption. I was close to friends and sharing with all of them and this began from the very first day with an interesting introduction game.

Our head of the training, Swastika didi is really an amazing person. She shouted to us, gave all her energy up, laughed with us, danced with us but whatever she did with us, she was just motivating each time to be a confident teacher. The first week of the training started learning about the core values of Teach For Nepal which were really helpful in making us confident in our path of being a transformative teacher. Visit to Osho Tapoban, those silent meditations all were in our schedule to make us persistent in our goal achievement. I was never on to meditation before but as there we had to do meditation every morning I gradually started being in a peaceful state during those hours gradually and even now when I am back to my room whenever I hear the Buddhist hymn, I feel like I am meditating and Shishir dai is there, in front of me giving suggestions for meditation. The everyday evening reflection was helpful in making us analyzing our problems and mistakes we did during the day and even in the past and make a new plan for the next day.

The second week was really amazing. The most beautiful part of my life. I was on practice teaching to Jyotidaya Co-operative School and this was my first experience on teaching. I really enjoyed it. There were different mixed feelings arising in me. Sometimes I was yelling, sometimes I was laughing, and sometimes I was playing with my students. 

Rushing to school, making lesson plans till evening and even taking other lessons, the schedule was really packed and in the early morning running for washroom was really a wow moment which I reflect now. Then, the time was difficult but now when I just go in those days I really smile. The days were awesome and when I use this word, awesome I remember Narayan ji (first boy) who always used to describe the training with this word awesome. The days were gradually passing on. I had never thought that I would survive with a large number of people around me all the time as most of the times in my life I had stayed all alone. Moments with students were really the best moment of my life. There were not only lesson plans on our schedule, there was an amazing women’s day celebration, the fire camp on shivaratri, dances and a lot of enjoyments.

There was a surprise plan for us on the occasion of Holi. We were taken to rafting at Trishuli River. Most of us were having the experience of rafting for the first time and I was one of them. I still remember how sacred I was when our rafting guide threw me on the river telling me to feel the water thought I didn’t know swimming but after staying in water for few minutes I felt that it was really the wonderful feeling floating in water. Then we had a stay out on tent the whole night where we expected a sleeping bag but when we didn’t find that we first could not believe our eyes but that was the truth we faced but there was a hope that again we would survive the next morning and yes, we did. That time I was really frustrated but now again when I reflect this also brings beautiful smile on my face.

Then we went to a village in the southern part of Lalitpur, Lele for shramdan. We stayed there for two days and there I knew what life really meant? Why education is important in our life which I think I would not have known better if I had not been there as most of the people in the village were facing hand to mouth problem and they had a hope for better life after receiving education. As all of us stayed with one family, I and Rojee stayed at Ganesh Nagarkoti’s house. I found him a very hopeful person who was educated only up to grade nine but had educated his three daughters and a son till graduation. Stone mining was a means of livelihood for them though they knew that it was illegal and risky. During our stay too, a boy lost his life while working there. I heard from the villagers that, he was a very talented boy. This made us really unhappy but from this we came to see the real side of Nepal where people are bound to do that risky labor.  We were in the village for helping the villagers in making road and all of us did that and some of us including me helped in arranging the books in the library. This was the first time we were donating our labor for someone. We were happy for that.

 The experiences of learning institute do not end here. Many great persons, leaders were in front of us supporting us, guiding us during the rest of the days sharing their experiences of life which made me feel that we are learning each time, each moment and yes I am not going to teach the students solely but also I am going to learn from them during these two years. Then the day came when we were revealed where we had to go for two years of teaching and again I was on Jyotidaya Co-operative School with two other friends Suman and Seetu. On the last day we were happy to go back to home after such a long time but at the same time we were sad to leave friends and other beautiful moments there. And now when I reflect I just feel that I hadnot left the moments there, I have taken the moments and experiences in my heart and mind which just motivates me throught out my life with  the core values I learnt at TFN learning institute and I always see a sense of possibility in my life.