Gear for Trekking and Living in Nepal: What to Bring, What to Buy, and What to Leave at Home5/14/2021 Written By: Laura Shaw and Regina RudderMost Trek to Teach teachers spend at least 10 weeks in a rural village in the Annapurna region, where they have the opportunity to explore all that Nepal’s Kaski district has to offer. Packing for a big trek is often daunting enough; however, packing for multiple treks and living in a mountain village is a whole other feat within itself. The packing list will undoubtedly be lengthy, but sorting out what to buy at home and pack in your luggage versus the gear you could buy in Nepal to avoid baggage fees is something a lot of people wish they had known prior to arriving. Rest assured that teachers will have time in Kathmandu and Pokhara to acquire any last minute gear or supplies they may need or want in the village before leaving on the Poon Hill Trek. Teachers will have to decide what gear to carry with them for the 4-5 day trek, what belongings to send to their village by jeep, and, ultimately, what to leave behind. Based on the experiences of former TTT teachers’ packing struggles and regrets, here are our suggestions!
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By Regina RudderRegina went to Nepal in 2018 with Trek to Teach and spent 3 months teaching in Kliu, loving it so much that she decided to join the Peace Corps. After returning to Nepal to teach in Dhading for one year, she stayed on with TTT to help prep incoming teachers for their own journeys in Nepal. They say variety is the spice of life and Nepali food has both variety and spice! The staple meal in Nepal is daal bhaat, which literally translates to “lentils and rice”; however, it is so much more than that. Daal bhaat is a large meal consisting of white rice (bhaat), lentil soup (daal), curried vegetables (tarkari), and spiced chutney (acchaar). It is usually eaten twice a day, once in the late morning and once in the evening. The most common dish in Nepal, it has become so popular among trekkers that it inspired the slogan “Daal Bhaat power 24 hours.”  Dal Bhat Written by: Ashley Mathews This time last year we were in the midst of rebuilding a Nepali school that had been destroyed in the 2015 earthquake. Our partnered school in Kliyu became unrecognizable, with a fallen building and large boulder rocks piled high where there used to be an outdoor play area. With the generous help of MyTefl, we raised funds to finish building a multi - purpose hall used by both the local community and students alike. It's been a blessing over the past three months to partner with the headmaster's to use the schools as the host site for food and hygiene kit distributions for students. With understandable travel restrictions during the pandemic, certain food items have been limited for remote regions in Nepal. It’s also been difficult for our student’s families to find work which has affected their regular income during the pandemic. While we recognize that our efforts are a single, small action in the larger scope of the difficulties Nepali communities are currently facing, we hope that the meals will give families the space they need to continue focusing on maintaining their livelihood during the global pandemic. Our operations director, Sarala Shrestha coordinated with a vendor in Pokhara and Nayapol, near the beginning of the Poon Hill trek in order to transport food and hygiene supplies up to the mountain schools. We also hired donkeys to transport the goods to the village of Chrommong, a mere two days from Annapurna Base Camp. So far we've donated kits to 181 families which includes the following: Trek to Teach Kits Rice- 15kg Sugar - 1kg Lentils - 2 kg Potato- 2.5kg Onion - 1kg Salt- 1pac.of half kg Beaten rice - 2kg Soyabeans - 2kg Oil-1ltr Soap - 1pcs Toothbrush - 4pk Toothpaste - 1pk
By Regina RudderRegina went to Nepal in 2018 with Trek to Teach and spent 3 months teaching in Kliu, loving it so much that she decided to join the Peace Corps. After returning to Nepal to teach in Dhading for one year, she stayed on with TTT to help prep incoming teachers for their own journeys in Nepal. I’ve been super lucky to have experienced many Nepali festivals throughout my time teaching in Nepal, and I can honestly say that every festival is unique and meaningful. Here is a little bit about some of the major Nepali holidays, along with a few of my personal experiences!  BY DARIAN FINLEY-GARCIADarian experienced the Trek to Teach program from September-December of 2014. He currently works with youth and families in Portland, Oregon, helping to provide community and mental health services. “The world is round and continues to spin. Because it is a circle with no ending, we are bound to see each other again.” This little adage was shared with me by my host brother on my last day teaching in Nepal and it has been engraved in my brain ever since. But then again, Nepal had a way of doing that: taking seemingly simple concepts and turning them into robust beautiful life lessons.  |
