I have been in Nepal for a month and wish I could stay longer. The VCD Nepal team have filled my weeks with an exciting and rewarding combination of volunteering and travel.
For the first few days before starting my placement I did site-seeing around Kathmandu, I was shown around the monkey temple, Pashupatinath temple and Durbar square, all beautiful places. These couple of days were very helpful to get to grips with the completely new environment I was in.
My volunteer placement was at the Local secondary school near Thamel(Yubak school) where I taught around three lessons a day. The staff and children were so friendly and enthusiastic, I thoroughly enjoyed teaching the children and seeing them progress day to day. I taught a wide range of ages from 6 to 16, which made the experience all the more interesting and fun. I was mainly teaching English but sometimes taught science in English too. Doing this meant that I got to stay at the lighthouse were I felt very at home and have made some extremely fond memories with the whole family and other volunteers as well. My schedule meant that I was able to explore a lot of the hustling and vibrant Kathmandu itself. The family were very helpful with the independent travel as well helping me with directions, buses and advise
on where to go and what to see. The adventure side of my trip consisted of a four Day trek around the Annapurna region and a safari in Chitwan. I’ve never done any trekking before and loved this as my first trekking experience, getting up at sunrise every morning for the incredible views was definitely one of my highlights along with the very cute tea houses that we stopped for lunch and stayed in along the way. You keep your energy levels up with extremely tasty Dal bhat. Chitwan is also a very beautiful and tranquil place with lots of wildlife to offer.
We managed to see several rhinos, many crocodiles, a lot of different bird species and even a wild elephant. The stay in Chitwan was a lot shorter but I still feel that I saw so much. The endlessly bumpy bus journeys too and from Kathmandu are definitely something to experience as well. Both parts of my trip were very different but equally incredible. This definitely won’t be my only visit to Nepal!
Freya Gronow
Country: The UK
3 weeks volunteering and adventure trip
