Chaukori

From Gopeshwar we headed to Chaukori.

My friend Charly’s family lived in Chaukori for one month in 2019 and her grandmother is connected to the local school there.

Chaukori is a very small and beautiful village, even closer to the Himalayas than where we were in Gopeshwar. It was another kind of dream with pine and oak forests surrounding the village and the snow-capped Himalayan mountains always in the distance.

Sunrise view from our homestay

We volunteered for a few days at the local school, which has a total of 900 students during the day that come from other villages across the region. It is known to be very prestigious. And there are about 20-30 students who have come from much farther away that live at the school as boarders.

It was so much fun to spend time with the kids! We attended a few of their classes, ate meals with them, and learned some of their games, such as Coco and Kapati.  I met some incredibly bright, inspiring and driven young girls there.

We also got to join in with the local women’s collective known as Himalayan Naari. This is a group of women that make local woolen crafts, such as hats, scarves, mittens, blankets, and much more. It’s a self-help group that supports the women with income and provides meaningful work for them to do outside of the home. The Naari office is located across the street from the school, so many of the women work at Naari during the school day after dropping off their kids.

We hiked with Charly’s family friend, Mamta, discovered the best wild berries (that are like sweet golden raspberries), watched the sunrise over the mountains, and slept in the same bed at our homestay for the entire 5 nights we were there! The three of us became incredibly close. We made chocolate chip banana pancakes for the staff and the boarders and had a dance party with them in the cafeteria on our last day! It felt a bit like being at a middle school dance party again, but it was an absolute blast. And they all LOVED the pancakes! :)

Indianna and I left Chaukori at 4:30 am on May 11th to start our journey into Nepal. It was very sad to leave Charly and say goodbye to the kids but we were both feeling excited for our next adventure ahead.