Shre Anapurna Academy in Fulkharta!!!!!!

We have had several meetings over the past few days with our good friend and project manager of HANDS school #2-the Shre Anapurna Academy in the village of Fulkharta. This school is also in the Dhading district of the Ganesh Himal and in "close" to Dharka, where we built school number one. What is close by in Nepali terms is waaaayyyy different from close by in Western terms. In this case, remembering for those of you who know about our first school and how it takes a bus from Kathmandu (4-5 hrs.) and then jeep 4 x 4 taxi out to first porters rest (about 4-5 hours) and then hiking up and up steep stone steps (1-2 hours) okay-that is the route---oh, we usually spend the night sleeping with porters who are the transporters for all goods in this roadless part of Nepal-so it takes us two days to reach Dharka. Then, from Dharka, we get up early and hike 8-9 hours over several valleys and hills to Fulkharta. This is a village of several hundred mostly Hindus of several castes. They are farmers, like everyone in the villages of Nepal, farming steeply terraced hillsides for corn, wheat and flatter plots for rice. Danny and Bree spent 8 days in the village on their last trip there to check school progress and were treated to the spectacle of a every third year local ritual and major "puja" ceremony-complete with the sacrificing of 40 virgin male goats and hopping shamens. The shamens hop for hours on one leg shaking musical instruments while the village band plays gaily and goats are brought up by each family to a ceremonial tree and slaughter rock-who knows how long this area has been used for "puja". (Danny has been trying at various internet cafes here in Kath. to upload his photos of this and the Fulkharta school, but we have had little luck doing so) The process of bringing forth a male virgin goat, the beheading, the dancing, the singing, repeat, on into the long day, was a step into the pages of National Geographic, Danny and Bree said. It was good to hear the meat is cooked in huge pots for the whole village to enjoy, but Danny and Bree said they were too sad after watching the sacrifices to enjoy eating the goats! The saddest part, that reallymade them cry as practicing Buddhists who seek to do no harm, was watching the tied up goats watch their friends lose a head and then the remaining goats would bleat helplessly looking around as if "Hey, someone rescue us!!"Our Tibetan friend Kelsang Lodue, being a Tibetan Buddhist, sat on a rock nearby. Danny said, and chanted the Buddhist prayer for compassion "Om Mani Padme Hum". Life in these villages is little changed over thousands of years-electricity is just arriving but sketchy, and schools are a big thing to have-a marvel of modern society. So here in the villages you have a coming together of the ancient and the new, and villagers having to figure out how to merge the two.
This merging comes up from time to time for us here in Nepal. An ancient Hindu Kingdom that was closed off to the modern world until some 40 years ago-westerners have only recently have had the opportunity to glimpse life in the hill tribe areas-far off the well-beaten Everest trekking trail. We find ourselves often treading lightly between our Western ideals and respect for Nepali culture. For me, a life-long animal rights advocate, watching goat slaughter is extremely hard, but it's not just the goats. It's the hard working donkeys with extreme, open ozzing saddle sores, the dogs suffering from mange, and the water buffalos hauled in hot, open back trucks, tied head to tail, fainting from the heat and often arriving dead at their final destination to be churned into "buff meat", after years of servitude in the fields. We try hard to keep a perspective on this world where everyone-animals and people-are struggling to survive.
We had to cross the ethical road just yesterday with Rajan, the manager of school number one. It had been reported to us that the villagers in Dharka were not using the new school because a few children had fainted while attending classes in the new rooms. Superstitious about wandering spirits causing trouble, villagers now want to do puja around the new school grounds. I asked Rajan if there was some way to do it without killing goats-or anything-like the Buddhist here do-a puja of incense, of prayers, a lama coming to chant, maybe hanging prayer flags. There are Tamil Buddists in the villages, so it is a possibility, but it will be up to the school committee. Such is business in this part of the world. We are lucky to be given a glimpse into this ancient kingdom-and we feel so fortunate that we have had amazing donors who also believe in bringing schools and education to the villagers, such as the Dworak famly in Minnesota. Without people like this, there would be no schools ging up in these very remote, ancient worlds. We hope at HANDS that education will help the next generation in making decisions that better their life as they cross paths more and more with modern life.