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Although we were planning to stay in Melamchi for a few more days to be here for the start of the Nara festival, we have had to change plans slightly to fit in with the start of term at the next school that we are going to, so today is our last day here.

The preparations for the festival have reached fever pitch. The other day at lunch an enormous copper ornament had appeared in the corner of the room and we were told that this is one of three giant butter lamps that will burn during the festival and that we suspect may be visible from space. Porters had done a special trip to collect the tens of litres of yak butter which will burn away in these. It's quite frustrating to be leaving just as the excitement and celebrations get going.

It's been a bit of a frustrating week in fact, as having got the computer set up going well, and started using it to prepare papers for the school exams which are rapidly approaching, we have had very little electric this week. There have been heavy storms with lightning you can see flashing with your eyes closed (baa!) and thunder which shakes the house rather alarmingly every night. This has no doubt contributed to the problems with the electric supply (along with the flash flooding the heavy rain causes). We seem to be caught in a cycle of hot mornings followed by rain in the afternoon and storms at night. Purna tells us that the start of the monsoon is not usually like this, and that in the 25+ years he's been in the village the weather/climate has changed significantly in the last few years.

Yesterday was our last day at school. When we arrived in the morning there were a couple of visitors. One of them turned out to be a journalist who is apparently quite well known. Drew was given 30seconds notice that the journalist wanted to interview him for radio Nepal – the national government station. So a mic was thrust in his face, and some questions asked. They mainly centred around the school and what could be done to improve education and facilities in remote Nepal etc. With all of 4 weeks hands-on experience in the subject, I'm not sure how many wise words I was able to produce, but it went okay. We'll have to see if we can get our hands on a recording of the broadcast when it goes out.

The majority of what I was able to say about the prospects for improved facilities up here came from various conversations with Purna.; he certainly is a forward-looking man with lots of ideas for the future. He's told us that within 2-3 years the road should be extended to reach the village. This could change everything (we've regularly been amazed when we remind ourselves that almost everything man-made you see up here came up on a porter's back). There are also plans for a new mobile phone mast which will hopefully enable the school to have some internet access.

Having found the peace and quiet up here a great relief after the noise and pollution of Kathmandu, and being pleased with ourselves for making the climb up here, we probably felt a little ambivalent when we heard about the plans for the road. However, a book we've both just read – Video Night in Kathmandu by Pico Iyer (which is an interesting book about the author's travels around Asia in the '80s) – points out “As tourists we have reason to hope that the quaint anachronism we have discovered will always remain 'unspoiled', as fixed as a museum piece for our inspection. It is perilous, however, to assume that its inhabitants will long for the same. Indeed, a kind of imperial arrogance underlies the very assumption that the people of the developing world should be happier without the TVs and motorbikes that we find so indispensable ourselves... it is the first vanity, and goal, of every traveler to come upon his own private pocket of perfection, it is his second vanity, and goal, to shut the door behind him.”

Purna would like to set up a trekking company (one of the main sources of income in the mountainous regions is foreign trekking and Melamchi sits on the popular Helambu trekking circuit)... this would provide income and employment for villagers and school-leavers who would be well-placed to work with trekkers as they have great local knowledge and really good English. The plan would be to plough any revenue back into the school and local community; including expanding the school to include 2+ (equivalent to 6th form) which currently students must get funding and go to Kathmandu for. In Purna's mind, the ideal way for this to proceed would be if he had good internet access up here and a website advertising the trekking company. If only we knew someone who could put websites together... watch this space.

The Friday afternoon activity this week was girls' football. We watched two matches in the blazing sunshine – the whole school seemed to find the spectacle of us applying sun cream mildly hilarious. Few of the female players however took off their wooly jumpers and played for ½ hour in sandals (which often went further than the ball!). The other hazard being the cows and buffalo which seemed to resent giving up their patch of grass for the game. Still if the girls' IPO football team fancy a game... What the girls lacked in tactical expertise they made up for with enthusiasm – no holding back in the tackles. (Purna at one stage remarked on how this made him slightly nervous with the lack of medical facilities available – obviously you'd hope it wasn't necessary in a football game, but in the event of a serious medical emergency, the only option is a helicopter to Kathmandu which costs much more than most villagers could afford; to put it brutally, as Purna did, if you don't have the hundreds of thousands of rupees it costs, you die. Another benefit the road coming here will bring is affordable ambulance services, although they will take 4hours to get here!).

We're quite looking forward to getting back to Kathmandu for a few days before heading off to the next school. Purna, Jhangmu and Karma have been great hosts and given us a fantastic experience on our volunteering trip. We'll take fond memories of Melamchi with us, as a beautiful, tranquil place with a friendly, tight-knit community who seem to smile and laugh a lot.

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