Starting School... Nepali style!

April 23, 2010
While starting school in the US is an ordeal sealed with scouring ads for the best deals on crayons, glue, and spiral notebooks, here we don’t just have to buy supplies, but also all the school textbooks. After last school year, all the kids were required to “turn in” their books to me, which I managed nicely over the break. I then distributed them, and figured out which books were missing, meaning either we didn’t have enough or the school switched books for this year.

Fortunately, about 1/3 of the books were useable again, but that left a whole lot to buy! For instance, we had no books for Raju, as there were no kids in class 2 last year. Similarly, for class 6 I had to buy 2 full sets as we only had one class 6 student last year, Manisha, but this year we have three, Asha, Arun, and Bimala. To my relief, once kids reach classes 9 and 10, the school won’t change their books, but will phase them out with the next two year’s classes as to not introduce new curriculum right before their SLC exams (graduation exams that are standardized for the entire country; they must be passed before you can be considered a high school graduate).

If you’ve ever talked to a teacher or a college student or anyone school related who has anything to do with textbooks and purchasing them, you’ll quickly hear tales of how much money textbook companies must be making. I mean, some of my books in college were themselves over $200. But if you were wise, you bought used, traded with other students, or decided to share (meaning, only have the studying was necessary, obviously! probably not so good for GPA, but really nice on the pocketbook, especially when you share 4 ways ;)!). So, naturally, I suggested that some of the kids share books, so soften the blow of the textbook bill. They looked at me in appalled horror. “SHARE BOOKS?! Sister, you must be kidding! What if we sit across from each other in class?! What will we do then?” “Share with the person sitting next to you?!” was my logical reply. “NO! We’ll DIE if we have to share books!” “OK OK!”

So, after being persuaded that they could not share books as certain death awaited those who embarked upon that path, I carefully counted, recounted, and counted again the books we needed to purchase. I certainly didn’t want to purchase any extra books! The grand total?! Over 100 books. If you think about it, we buy books for 15 kids, each in a minimum of 8 classes, with the younger kids having more classes as their “fun” classes alternate days. And some classes require more than one book. Some require more than 2 books, and I’d like to have a talk with those teachers! No, I’m just kidding. But, when we got to the bookshop to purchase the books, I quickly realized that book publishers here must be making as much as American textbook publishers. I mean, most books were in the 200 rupee range, which is just under $3 in the US, but that’s a LOT of money for Nepalis (3 weeks worth of lunch for one child!), considering it’s just one book, and you probably needed a good 9 or 10 more for one student, even if they’re in class 2!

But, we sorted, counted, recounted, and counted again to make sure we weren’t paying for anything we weren’t getting, as some books were out of stock. When all was said and done, we ended up spending about 200 dollars on the books, and another 50 later on when we got the missing ones. Then we had to buy copies, their equivalent of spiral notebooks. And each kid needed double the number of copies as classes, one for classwork and one for homework (and their teachers really do require that; last year I was the only teacher who didn’t care where the work was as long as it was done. Some teachers won’t count or check work done in the wrong copy!). And at 30 rupees a pop (which is almost 50 cents each, way more than school sale spirals in the US, which were a mere 5 cents each last year, leading me to invest in hundreds for my students!), we weren’t about to buy that many copies unless we could buy them wholesale. So, Uncle called his printer friend (he has a lot of very useful friends considering he runs a children’s home!), who gave us a great deal on buying enough copies to last through the next millennium for one child, but will maybe last this year with our kids ;).

The last thing we had to do was cover EVERYTHING with thick paper or plastic. The teachers will scold and send kids out of the classroom for not neatly covering their books, so we sat down and covered them, one by one. With all the books and copies we used thousands of staples (literally, each copy requires 10 staples, and we had to cover about 300 of them, plus about 150 textbooks) and hundreds of feet of cover. I sat and tore book cover to the right size, dealing them out as fast as my hands could handle! Then, we had to tape all the corners and edges so the books wouldn’t “damage,” though they damage anyway. And Raju and Darshan (and actually, Laxman too, but he’ll hate me for saying so) don’t really know how to cover, so I covered their books myself, but they had to do the taping. Let me tell you, if you ever need books covered, I’m your girl!

My favorite school supplies to buy were their school boxes, though. I bought each one a new pencil box, which comes filled with a protractor, compass, small ruler, and triangular rulers. Then, because the eraser and sharpener which were included in the boxes don’t work at all, but rather break pencils and rip paper, I bought small erasers and sharpeners for each one, along with pens and pencils. The kids were way excited, and I required them to take their old pencil box home over the break and give it to a brother, sister or friend who needed a pencil box. We talked about how when God blesses us, it’s a chance for us to bless others as well since most of their boxes were still in pretty good shape but were just missing most of the included instruments (minus Raju’s, which looked like he used it for a soccer ball, then stepped on it a few times, then chewed it up and regurgitated it!). So next year, when you think of complaining about the rising costs in school supplies and everything, just remember, you probably don’t have to buy their books, spirals are cheaper there, and you’re probably not buying for 15 kids! But if you are, call me, and I’ll help you :).