Update from Nepal: Meeting Yubaraj, and a new school plan

On Monday March 5 and again on Saturday March 10, I had the incredible pleasure of meeting Yubaraj, Basu, Scott, Puskar, and many others involved in this project. It's taking longer than expected to recover from that whirlwind, week-long trip to Nepal, and also longer than expected to write the detailed report that will be posted here, but for now it is a pleasure to post a few photographs from those meetings and write briefly about what a joy it was to finally meet everyone! (Visit http://www.flickr.com/photos/christineegger/sets/ to see these photographs with captions as well as more pictures from our visit as well as the week in Nepal.)

An revision to the school plan: During our conversations, Yubaraj voiced an interest in owning a shop one day and we talked about the best way to prepare him for that. With Yubaraj's participation, we revised our short-term plan to include a government school (public school) education rather than a boarding school. This will provide a good, well-rounded education for Yubaraj that will help him towards his goal of owning a business one day, and it resolves the issue surrounding his age difference with other children in his grade level. Children in government school whose families live outside Kathmandu typically live in hostels (boarding houses) and Yubaraj asked to live in one of these rather than staying in the room he currently shares with two young men from his village. So we're looking for a government school and nearby hostel for Yubaraj to begin with when he passes the academic evaluation at the sixth grade level. We'll consider boarding school on a regular (probably annual) basis, and will base a decision to change on Yubaraj's academic performance and interests.

I'll write more soon and look forward to sharing more updates as these plans take shape!