Nepali grandfather, Durga Kami, combs his bushy white beard, puts on his school uniform and, with the aid of his walking stick, walks for over an hour to reach his school for another day of learning.
Poverty prevented Kami from completing his studies and achieving his goal of becoming a teacher. At 68, this father of six and grandfather of eight goes to school six days a week to complete his studies and to escape the lonely home life following the death of his wife.
Walking into the Shree Kala Bhairab Higher Secondary School and the buzz created by 200 children are welcome contrasts to the hush of the isolated one-room home, with its leaking roof and frequent power cuts, where Kami lives in Syangja district, some 250 kilometer west of Kathmandu. “I go to school to forget my sorrows,” said Kami, one of the oldest students in Nepal, in the classroom where he studies along kids who are his grandchildren’s age.
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Kami, whose children have all left home, first went to Kaharay Primary School where he learnt to read and write with the seven- and eight-year-olds until the fifth grade. D R Koirala, teacher at Shree Kal Bhairab School, then invited Kami to his school which provided the grandfather with stationery materials and school uniform – grey trousers, blue striped tie and white shirt.
“This is my first experience. I have never taught a person my father’s age,” Koirala said. “I feel very excited and happy.” As the school does not give tiffin, Kami’s breakfast of rice with a fermented green vegetable known as ‘Gundruk’ must sustain him until dinner.
Twenty students of Grade 10 fondly call him ‘Kami Baa’. Despite his old age, Kami joins the students in all activities, including playing volleyball in the schoolyard. “Earlier, I used to wonder why this old man was studying with us. But as time passed, I started enjoying his company,” said Kami’s 14-year-old classmate, Sagar Thapa.
Kami wants to study until his death, and hopes that this mindset of his will encourage others to ignore age-related obstacles and move on in life. “If they see an old person with white beard like me studying in school they might get motivated as well,” he said.
According to Thapa, Kami is a little weak in studies as compared to the rest of his classmates but, with the help of the little ones, it seems, this old man will do just fine.
This story won the third place in the Nepal Photo Contest 073
