The pandemic year in HKH Part II – Taking refuge in Komang

During covid pandemic in 2020, the HKH family had to escape from Kathmandu right before lockdown without time to prepare for the long trip. After a very hard and dangerous journey they finally arrived safely to Komang Village
HKH students in Komang doing special prayers during Covid

When we arrived to Komang village, we were so tired! The journey was much harder than usual and we all had to rest for a while. After some days everyone started the field work and all the HKH students went to help their parents on the fields planting the new crop



The next days we all did many special prayers for the good health of our sponsors and the world, the weather was very cold and snowing a bit too. We also went on pilgrimage to the holy sites in our village. There are many special sites to get blessings in Komang, we are so fortunate to be born there.

HKH students doing special prayers in Komang

During mother’s day, everybody got together to celebrate at a festival at the school. The villagers were so happy to see the kids so grown-up with good manners and respect. They are so grateful to our sponsors and supporters that made it possible for our children to receive a good education in Kathmandu, they are bringing so much happiness to our village.

We had a horse race festival. All the kids were so happy to join and ride horses again after a long time. We had a horse race for young people and another race for children. We also did a rope-pulling game too, and both villagers and HKH children had so much fun that day.

Mother’s day festival

There was news on the radio that corona was getting worse, so we decided to start some classes in the greenhouse since the school was closed due to the lockdown. We began classes for all children from small age to the big one. The HKH students who had finished class 10 until 12, took on teaching children up to class 7. Nyima taught classes 9 and 10 students. We didn’t have our books in the village, but we had some exercise books from school so we learned grammar, advertisement, application, essay writing, handwriting, etc in 3 languages (Nepali, Tibetan, and English)

After some time, the families and children who own sheep and goats had to go on nomadic grazing with the animals. The grazing pastures are more than 4hrs from the village which is very far away. There, people have to stay to look after sheep, goats, cows, horses, etc. There aren’t any houses there so we need to stay in tents.

Nomadic grazing

We got notice that we could open up the school of the village so we started the classes with some of the older children as teachers and the rest learning at the primary school. We did some education trips in nature with all kids, helping the small ones, and we had fun learning new things about nature. The weather was so nice and the grass was so green.

We did a traditional Nyungne fasting and purification practice with Rinpoche. Some kids joined and did very well, we were so blessed to have the chance to do this practice under Rinpoche’s guidance. We surely generated a lot of merit from it.

During our time in Komang, we also helped build two new houses in the school, and then we did the same kind of programs and games we do at HKH. We did different competitions, literacy, music, general culture, drawing competition, etc. All the villagers were so happy and some cried seeing their children participating in this program at the school. Even our ex-student cried a lot too.

HKH students help house building

We heard the news on the radio that the situation was getting better in Kathmandu. HKH students stopped going to school and started preparations to leave but some days later we heard the news that the situation is getting worse so children need to stay in the village.

During all this time our children were helping their families with the daily chores like taking water, collecting wood, looking after animals as shepherds, etc. After seven months the harvest time came and we all helped in the harvest collecting the crop for the winter. The weather was getting cold and we had finished all the fieldwork, then we heard that online classes were resuming in Kathmandu schools. We said goodbye to our families and started our journey back to Kathmandu so we didn’t miss any class. We reached HKH safely in winter 2021.

Back in HKH Kathmandu

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