Children of Nepal (photo)

Children in Nepal are the same as all over the world - cheerful, beautiful and spontaneous. They play, do homework and get resources - quite normal activities for children. But to travelers unaccustomed to Nepalese realities (including me), their appearance and way of life seems exotic. We take pictures of Nepalese children, so that later at home we can say in admiration, “And they also have such and such!” Or maybe not for this. After all, looking for similarities between civilizations is no less exciting than differences. Shall we get started?

To begin with, just a bunch of photographs so that you understand who you have to deal with and why there was suddenly a need to write an article.

Children's faces.

One might assume that children raised in the Himalayas would be strong and well-adjusted - little Mowglis. So it appears to be. However, this does not prevent the presence of eternal snot under a chapped nose and ultraviolet burns on the cheeks. It turns out that the mountain sun does not spare even dark-skinned people.

Games and toys.

Store-bought toys are a rare guest in Nepalese homes. Even cheap Chinese consumer goods are rare. And the children play with anything - pine cones, bamboo sticks, rag dolls, their own slippers.

If you don't have a Playstation, you have to play with the water pump:)

However, Nepalese children have one toy that is inaccessible to our children. This is a huge bamboo swing - huge 10-meter supports and a simple rope with a seat. On such a swing you can fly into the sky. I even tried this several times:)

Football is rarely played here. Volleyball and cricket are more common.

Child labor.

It makes sense that in Nepal children start working early. They help with housework and in the field - they fetch water, look after livestock, and carry baskets of corn on their heads.

Older siblings are naturally assigned to look after the younger ones. And mothers usually carry infants everywhere with them in slings on their backs. There are no roads in the mountains - only paths. And you can’t travel much in the city. Therefore, almost no one uses strollers, even wealthy Nepalese.

School.

Work is work, but still the main task of every child is study.

They often do their homework right on the trail, so it’s easy to see what they’ve been assigned.

Nepalese understand the importance of education in the modern world and are working hard for the future of their children. On the advertising-filled streets of Kathmandu, the eye constantly comes across advertisements for various colleges, computer literacy courses and foreign languages. There are many Montessori establishments.

But this is in the city, but what about rural children? They go to school. Since there are no kindergartens in the villages, the school takes on part of their responsibilities and children go there from the age of 5 (if I understood everything correctly).

I was never able to figure out the daily routine of Nepalese schoolchildren. At any time of the day (at dawn, at 10 am, at noon, after lunch, late in the evening), you can meet a flock of kids in uniform on the trail, hurriedly stomping somewhere with textbooks on board. Whether they are going to school or already leaving school, whether they have one shift or several - all this remains a mystery..

English occupies an important place among the subjects. If you master it, then in the future you will be able to work in tourism or go to work in rich Arab countries or Singapore.

Nepalese schools often organize something like open days - they invite Western tourists, show them the classrooms, introduce them to the children and the curriculum. Of course, this is done in order to raise money for the development of the school.

Beggars on the path.

One of the traditional entertainments of Nepalese children is to stand on the path and beg for something from passing tourists. They mostly ask for sweets and ballpoint pens. Some tourists specially buy a bundle of colorful pens and a bag of candies at home to please little Nepalese. Others, on the contrary, give their children nothing on principle, so as not to teach them to beg. Decide for yourself what to do:)

Most of the photographs shown were taken during the Nepal Trekking. Those. We filmed children in villages located directly on the tourist trail. It can be assumed that the abundance of foreign tourists somehow influenced the behavior of little Nepalese. But it seems to me that since the relatively short tourist season (2 months in spring and 2 months in autumn) is regularly replaced by relative calm, the influence of the “pale-faced” is not decisive. Don't attribute too much importance to yourself))

I forgot to say that in the Buddhist regions of Nepal, boys are often sent to a monastery. As far as I understand, not all of them will remain there after completing their studies. It is much easier to leave the “world” from a Buddhist monastery than from a Christian one.

I don’t pretend to have any deep knowledge of local customs, I just walk along the path, look around, take pictures and occasionally ask the locals about something. Would you like to join me? Every year, in March and October we fly to Nepal.