Royal Mountain Travel Magazine Royal Mountain Travel Magazine Issue 3 | Page 55

Exchanging Culture
for a Concrete Future

by Sudan Budhathoki

Students from America being welcomed at Panchkanya Higher Secondary School. Photo: Sudan Budhathoki.

“Life in Nepal is so hard that you guys should be singing blues,”
a French colleague once joked. We were planting rice in Panauti
and we shared a good laugh.
The following week I had to go to Nuwakot to cover a story about
the new homestay business there and the arrival of a few guests
for its opening.
After a two hour of ride from Kathmandu, I reached Teeghau,
a small village in Nuwakot where Panchkanya School is
established. Surrounded by silent and enormous green hills,
Teeghau is a beautiful village.
During the Maoist insurgency, Panchkanya Higher Secondary
School had good reason to be very grateful to Royal Mountain
Travel. A poor government school, when it was being neglected
by the government, RMT helped by providing some money
setting up a science and computer lab. A local homestay in the
village where I was to stay is closely associated with the school.
To collect more information, I went to see the school principal.
The school was beautifully decorated and students were all
carrying flowers in their hands. Despite the piercing heat, they
were standing patiently, eager to welcome their guests. A big
bus drew up outside the school and a group of teenagers came
out of the bus, whispering to each other and laughing. It soon
became obvious that it was the first that they were about to

interact with any foreigner and they looked very excited.
Warmly welcomed, the guests entered the school. The school’s
resident principal led the guests into his office where everyone
introduced themselves to the teachers of Panchakanya.
The visitors were from America and most of them were high
school students. Not only were they guests, but they were also
volunteers. They were escorted by two of their teachers. After
an introduction programme, they were taken to the classrooms.
To my surprise, the foreign students decided to share classroom
seats with the local students. The class was electric with energy
as the students exchanged questions about each other, with
the local students showing off their textbooks and high school
guests looking with equal interest. There were some barriers
in communication as certainly language was sometimes prime
obstacle. So later, to make communication a bit easier, the
teachers who were in-charge of foreign high school students
came up with a question and answer session.
The two foreign teachers started with their introductions,
explaining that they were from Eugene in Oregon. The local
students scratched their heads. The teachers then tried to tell
them about their hometown, and smiling, one of the American
teachers asked what the local students knew about America. A
17 year old Nepali student stood up and answered that America
was the most powerful country in the world. The American
teachers and students smiled in surprise.

ROYAL

www.royalmt.com.np

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