I've been volunteering at the New Marigold Secondary School for 10 days now.

I left Kathmandu on the 1st of April and took a bus towards Besisahar, but got off a bit earlier in a place called Udipur - around 165 km covered in about 7 hours. Yeah... that says a lot about the roads here. Traveling by bus in Nepal is an adventure in itself: very bumpy, with loud Nepali music. At first, it was funny, but after a few hours I just felt like getting off as soon as possible.

In Udipur, I waited for 2 hours for a second bus that took me up to the school. The road is quite steep, so the bumps were even worse - and, of course, we couldn't miss the same type of music. I was the only tourist in a full bus. One guy sitting next to me started speaking in Nepali, thinking I was local - he later told me I have a similar skin colour. I must really look like one, because not even my big backpack made him think I might be a foreigner. Well... if that helps me avoid tourist prices in shops, I'm happy with it!

I had a good feeling while walking to the school. I loved seeing it from a distance, and the entrance is quite pretty. It's located in a small and remote village, surrounded by nature - a peaceful place to be. It's exactly what I was looking for.

We're currently on school holidays. Classes will restart next week. That means, for now, our volunteering tasks aren't focused on the students. There's a new building under construction, and we're helping the full-time workers with things like carrying bricks or sand for the cement up to the upper floors, and also doing some painting. We only work 3 hours a day and can choose when to do it, but we've all been working mostly in the mornings. This is a small village, so many of the kids live nearby and sometimes drop by the school to play in the yard and hang out with us volunteers. This usually happens in the afternoons, after we've finished our work and gone for lunch - most of the time to the same place in the village, where we can eat something other than the famous Dal Bhat, which we eat twice a day (10 a.m. and 6:30 p.m.). When school starts, we'll be eating it 3 times a day. For now, they're giving the cook some rest during the holidays.

So overall, the days here are quite relaxed and we have plenty of time for ourselves. Sometimes we go on small excursions, or just play some sports at the school. We have 2 free days per week, even though in Nepal only Saturday is considered the weekend.

Last weekend, we visited another village where our host runs another school. He took us there for a festival. More than a thousand people were there - it was quite crowded, as the place wasn't very big. As far as I understood, the main purpose of the festival is to make sacrifices to one of the Hindu gods, which involves publicly sacrificing goats and buffalos. Fortunately for me (I didn't watch the killings), there were other entertainments like concerts, dancing, and even a rock-throwing competition. For the first time ever a woman participated - one of my volunteer colleagues, a young American girl. At first, they didn't want to let her in, but she joined anyway.

It's fun being with other volunteers. There are 5 of us at the moment, but we were 8 at one point. Volunteers come and go, and next week - when school starts - the number will surely increase. Most volunteers prefer to be here when the kids are around. When I applied for this volunteering, it was because I wanted to spend time with the kids (teaching or playing), but I'm also enjoying these days with different tasks. And it feels really good to be away from the busy and more chaotic cities.

The one thing nobody was enjoying here was the air pollution - something we didn't expect in such a remote area. But it seems that, around this time of year, many fires are set across the country to make the soil more fertile. There was a lot of smoke, and also dust in the air. I write it in the past tense because last night it rained for the first time since I arrived in Nepal, and it was a very heavy rain with thunderstorms. It cleared up the sky from the pollution, which might let us finally enjoy the amazing views we have from this place, at least when the clouds go away.

Today, the host is going on holiday - and so is the volunteer who's been here the longest - which now makes me the most experienced one here. The host asked me to take the lead. I asked to share the responsibility with a colleague, because I didn't want it all on my shoulders. I'm aiming to keep this experience relaxed, not stressful. Anyway, the host makes everyone feel comfortable - he never checks how much we work, and even told us not to work more than 3 hours a day. The 2 of us will explain everything to the newcomers about the school and our daily tasks. Every evening, we all decide together who will do what the next day, who brings the food from the kitchen, and who washes the dishes after meals.

Next week, the dynamics will surely change, as school starts and more volunteers arrive - so I'll share more updates later on.

For now, I'm having a great time. It's nice not to feel I need to do things in a rush, so I'm just enjoying things day by day.

At the moment, I don't know what I'll do after I finish this project. It's scheduled to end on the 29th of this month, but I can extend it if I feel like it. Since I have a 3-month visa for Nepal, I'm considering going on a trek. There are so many big and beautiful mountains here - it would be a pity not to do some trekking before leaving. But it's still just an idea. And somehow, it feels good not to know what's coming next - just enjoying one day at a time. It's interesting to see that many of my colleagues are in a similar situation - enjoying the experience, but not yet knowing where they'll head next. This openness to the unknown is starting to feel like a valuable lesson from this journey.