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Village
school at Yawa
Yawa is a village in the Shorong
(nep.: Solu) area of the Solu-Khumbu district in northeast Nepal.
Administratively, Yawa belongs to the Takshindu VDC and is situated
about 30 km (7-8 hours walk) north of Salleri, the district headquarter.
The village is a bit out of the trekking route from Jiri to
Chomolungma (Mount Everest). From Jiri, you have to walk about 3-4
days by foot. By air, one can use the airfields at Phaplu
(immediately north of Salleri) or Lukla (about 1.5 days northeast of
Yawa in Pharak).
Yawa, village scenes
1967 and 1994
Population
The people of Yawa and the other villages of
the Takshindu VDC almost exclusively belong to the Salaka clan of
the Sherpas. Traditionally, the whole Sherpa area had been Sherpa
clan land until the Sherpas became expropriated with the abolution
of the kipat tenure system (concluded in 1949). Besides the
Sherpas, there are some Tamang, Rai, Newar and Kami in
Takshindu VDC. Bahun and Chetri may only be there for some time as
teachers sent by the government.
Infrastructure
The inhabitants of Yawa traditionally live
from agriculture and animal husbandry supported by intra-regional
trade. Since the village lies offside the main trekking route,
additional scources of income are limited to porter and guide jobs
arranged in Kathmandu. Today, many young people are commuting
between Shorong and the capital.
There is power supply only in the Salleri
area. In recent years, the water supply in the villages has been
improved; the water quality is good. The culturally most important
place in the surroundings of Yawa is Takshindu with its nunnery and
monastery. In 1994, a Buddhist high school has been established
there with support from Japan, where 15 young monks can do their
studies. But the nuns do not get similar support. So, the nunnery
has been neglected for some decades. The remaining nuns are getting
older, and there is no fresh blood.
Chorten at Takshindu
La
Within one day walk you can reach the district
administration in Salleri, where there is also a weekly market. In
1994, a group of Sherpas from Salleri and Phaplu started to build up
a Sherpa cultural centre which, in the end, shall comprise a
monastery, a school, a library and a museum. There is also an
airfield with connections to Kathmandu and Biratnagar as well as a
small hospital in Phaplu
Chiwong Gomba (north of Phaplu) and Zhung
(nep.: Junbesi), the cultural centre of Shorong per se, with its
five monasteries in the surroundings are other culturally important
places that can be reached from Yawa within less than one day.
North of Yawa, there is a beautiful area with
forests and high pastures up to 4.500 m. Nestling between these
pastures, there is Womi Tsho (nep.: Dudh Kund), a small mountain
lake at the foot of mount Numbur. It serves as a holy place for
Buddhists as well as Hindus. Across this unsettled area, a path
hardly used by tourists leads to upper Pharak and Khumbu.
Problems of Yawa school
Today, Yawa has about 30 households (see
development
since the 1960s). If you include the close by village of
Shiteling, it may be about 40 households. On the average, every
family has at least 5-6 children. For these children, a small school
has been built in the late 1970s. Over the years, it has been
extended and now comprises six small rooms.
The school in 1996
after repairing the partly open roof
Each room has a door and a window without
panes. There are a table and one or two banks on the loamy soil
floor. Some rooms don't even have a table. That's the whole
equipment. The school does not have a single blackboard. Besides,
there is lack of textbooks and writing materials.
The back of the school
with its unpaned windows
The children are taught by three teachers.
None of them is Sherpa, even though there are only Sherpas in Yawa
and Shiteling (with the exception of very few Tamangs). Over the
years, we have rarely met teachers who had tried to learn a bit
Sherpa language. The teachers, who usually don't come from nearby
places, can hardly pay lodgings from the little money they earn. So,
they have to look for provisional solutions like using one of the
class rooms or constructing a small hut with the corrugated iron
sheets of the school roof.
School enrolment of
elder girls; on the left the Bahbun headmaster
Currently, about 50 children have been
registered at the Yawa school. The teachers count themselves lucky
if half of them regularly join the classes. After finishing this
primary scholl, there is hardly any educational perspective for the
children. The nearest secondary scholl is at Zhung. So, the children
would have to stay there. But who of the parents can afford this?
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