The School

The view from the balcony

Kunpan Cultural School

The school is set some 1.5-2km below Fatiphur, in the Kangra Valley.  It sits just above a small river valley – the bed of which is currently dry.  Pine trees line the valley opposite the school and clumps of giant bamboo dot the surrounding landscape on the other 3 sides, along with assorted other vegetation, including some thriving curry-leaf trees – the use of which for culinary purposes is unknown to the students.

The school comprises 2 double story cement buildings, painted white and with flat roofs, joined together by a small amenities block and an attached 2-sided shelter, which bears the label “dining room”.

The front building

The front building houses a couple of storerooms, the kitchen, the girls’ dormitory and one classroom on the ground floor, with another classroom and two boys’ dormitories on the first floor.  The roof of the building supports many strings of prayer flags and some washing lines, accessed by a metal ladder.  It also provides sleeping space on unbearably hot nights. And it has a fantastic view of the Dhualadhar range of the Himalayas.

The girls have each given themselves a level of privacy by screening their individual bunk beds with sheets or similar.

The back building, dining room on the left

The second building houses, on the ground floor, the main office with a computer and 2 printers, one of which is also a photocopier – both are currently working – for a while neither were, a bedroom which the manager uses, another bedroom for staff, a well-stocked library, a small storeroom with a fridge for general use and a computer room with computers that apparently do not work.  Computing used to be one of the subjects taught at the school.  The first floor houses the main staff quarters:  a small office with 2 adjoining bedrooms, a third separate bedroom and another classroom. And the corner of the balcony has the most wonderful view of the mountains.

The amenities block consists of one squat toilet for students (plus the girls’ dormitory has an ensuite toilet/wash room) and one western toilet for staff use.  This sometimes flushes from the cistern but so far we have had to carry buckets of water from the “stream” – the water that runs down the concrete culvert just outside the school gate – for about half the time I have been here.

Deki in the girls' dormitory

There is also a shower room;  well, there is a room with a shower head and a tap.  The water flow is such that use of the shower head is impossible.  Allowing the tap to dribble water into a bucket and splashing it over oneself (or tipping over with a jug if such an item that one is prepared to use can be found), applying shampoo and soap, then splashing / tipping more water is my morning routine.  Sometimes this water does not flow either and water for ablutions needs to be bucketed. Note that I have not mentioned a wash basin.  Nor does the kitchen have a sink.

There are 2 levels of water supply.  The afore-mentioned stream which is classified as “not very clean” because we have no idea what is going into it upstream, and a spring behind the kitchen.  The spring feeds a tap in the kitchen which is used to fill 3 large bins with water, and (sometimes) the water supply to the shower room.  

Amenities block

Washing of clothes and dishes, and sometimes washing of faces, is done in the stream.  After I had been here 2 weeks, one of the girls told me I should not be using the stream water to wash my body, but should take water from the kitchen.  Fine.  The kitchen water is also used in the water filter – which currently has bits that need replacing so I am boiling water for drinking.

The students usually go for a walk down to a water pipe near the riverbed, which delivers clean water, to shower.  The girls usually go in pairs and take a couple of boys to sit out of sight but within hearing, just in case there is any harassment from the local Indian men.  

My mosquito netted bed

Even so, I am pretty sure that they remain fairly well covered to “shower”. 

My room is one of those adjacent to the small staff office and is furnished with a bed, a set of metal shelves, a table and a wooden chair.  It also contained a stand-fan which sounds a bit like a jet engine taking off.  After my colleague Sarah vacated the other room adjacent to this office in favour of the cooler, more dungeon like room on the ground floor, I raided her room for another fan.  This is still very noisy, but not to jet-engine levels.  The room does have insect screens and metal bars on the window – the latter is security against intruders of all sorts, including the local monkey troop.

The teachers' office

I have made my room reasonably clean and comfortable, and added a mosquito net to my bed.

Every room has its resident 8-legged fauna of assorted sizes.  I need to keep my eyes open when using the shower room and always take half a minute to cast my eye around the toilet before locking myself in!  Luckily, so far the fauna in my bedroom has been minimal, possibly because the little staff office provides a bit of a barrier.

By standards at home, it is very basic, but it is adequate.

Metal shelves plus a string with some
coat hangers holds my worldly goods here

The altitude and latitude of the school is enough to be slightly above the worse of India’s air pollution, but the latter does make for some amazing sunsets!

If you want to know more about the background of the school,  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kunpan_Cultural_School

Sunset through the giant bamboo