A Little Confusion…Volunteer Placement with VSSN Nepal
The site-seeing around the Kathmandu Valley was really enjoyable and gave Helen and myself a jump-start of sorts into the Nepali Buddhist culture into which we were immersing ourselves. After several days touring around Kathmandu and our crash-course in Nepali language we were ready to head to our volunteer placement in the Kathmandu Valley, Nepal.
At this point it behooves me to just note right of the bat that our volunteer company really let us down from this point onward and I would not recommend them to a single soul. The rest of this blog is a recap of everything that went wrong with our organization, Volunteer Service and Support Nepal (VSSN). Volunteer Nepal claimed that what happened to us was a fluke – wholly doubtful considering that out of the seven other volunteers we met during our month not one person was completely satisfied with their experience. We loved our language lessons and the two sisters who worked with us but the facilitation side of our VSSN volunteer program went into the gutter the moment the cab dropped us off in the small town of Pharping.
Pharping is a small Newari village that doesn’t have a whole lot going on – which really isn’t a bad thing. The pace of life went down about ten notches and all of the hillsides around Pharping are dotted with Tibetan Buddhist monasteries; it was quaint, quite, cool, and wholly lovely. The owner of VSSN, Matrika, came with us for the trip, seemingly to show us around and give us more information about our placement at the two monasteries were we would spend nearly four weeks teaching. After a bit of soup and tea Matrika informed us that he was going back into Kathmandu and a mysterious third person would arrive in the morning to escort us to the two monasteries.
At this point we already knew that there were two other American women (well one American and one South African living in the US) already staying at the guesthouse and that each of the girls were placed at the two different monasteries: Manjushri Di-Chen Learning Center and Arya Tara. We had two choices at this point, one of us would walk for 45 minutes to the girls monastery, Arya Tara, and teach English to the young nuns while the other would work at the boys monastery, Manhushri Di-Chen, a short walk up a steep hill nearby. Helen chose the nuns and I opted for the monks and we said our adieus to Matrika. This is when the Volunteer Nepal drama begins.
We ate dinner with the two other women, Cara and Louise, that night and they gave us the scoop on the situation – the girl’s monastery was on holiday for three weeks and the my boys monastery already had two English teacher volunteers. Louise was concerned with the situation because 
there was literally no need for me at the monastery right now and the facilitator at my monastery, Lobsang, hadn’t even been informed that I was arriving. Helen was similarly pissed off – if the monastery is on vacation for three of the four weeks we are here what will she do every day?
Then, to top it off, the food was God-awful. Truly not good. They had been feeding Louise and Cara white bread with jam for breakfast and the same exact dinner of dhal bat and rice for a week or more even though we were told that three complete meals every day were included – they weren’t providing any form of vegetable or fruit, nor any protein besides the daily lentil soup (dhal bhat) in the two weeks that Cara and Louise were living there.
We went to bed that night pretty upset and confused about what was going to happen the next day. After finishing our tiny and insufficient breakfast, Helen and I anticipated meeting Barbajaun, the owner of the guesthous - he was supposed to escort us to the monasteries according to Matrika’s information the day before. Instead, Amrit, the lovable and 
truly sweet man running the guesthouse (and an innocent middleman in all of this drama) told me to follow along with Louise to the monastery and announce myself. Helen was told the same and we were both sent off to our monasteries to figure out the situation ourselves.
Now, Helen and I were both extremely lucky that Louise and Cara were awesome throughout everything – it was not their place to act as our tour guides for the day but they both played an integral role in helping us figure out how to get through the next four weeks. Lobsang, the man running my monastery, was extremely sweet when he met me even though he was very confused about the situation – he instructed me to shadow Louise for the next week and a half that she was volunteering and once she left I would take over her classes. Helen was equally unexpected and unnecessary at her monastery but she created some good in the situation and Cara and Helen decided to walk to their
monasteries every day even though class was not in session to: play with the girls, teach them some Spanish, Latin salsa, and other fun games and dances.
Both of us made the absolute best out of the situation but it was not ideal for anyone. I addressed my grievances with Matrika and he did respond positively to my request for better food – but as far as the facilitation and placement – he really dropped the ball by not communicating with either of the monasteries about our arrival. If he had informed us of the situation we could have avoided the situation by coming three weeks later and doing our Poon Hill trekking first – but the communication channels at VSSN are not open at all. There was no record of our past emails and communiqués, he had no idea even how long we planned to stay when we first arrived!
Our first few days at the monasteries ended on a positive note because of the interactions with the children but not at all because of the help of the VSSN volunteer organization. What I’ve learned: going through a third party isn’t always necessary. My monastery has a Web site and allows volunteers to book their time through them directly (shoot me an email if you want to contact Lobsang directly); I loved every aspect of my work there and would highly recommend this place to volunteers looking to teach English in Nepal.
It was my sheer lack of knowledge that put me in my predicament – even though we emailed past VSSN volunteers and received positive reviews, it just feels like a bit of a crap-shoot. For a little perspective, at the time that I’m writing this, the amount of money I could have saved by going through the monastery directly is about US $510 – the monastery charges roughly $75 a month for housing and three meals a day…VSSN was significantly more than that. And one thing that really galled me was finding out that VSSN did not donate any of my volunteering fee to my monastery although the monastery fed me lunch every single day and donated some of my money to a random orphanage owned by Barbajaun.
This was my first lesson in thorough research; volunteer organizations charge anywhere from $500 to $2500 to arrange programs -in some cases this is necessary because of remote locations and specific types of volunteering. In other circumstances, if you know 
what type of volunteering you want to do it pays to read other travel blogs and stories from other RTW travelers. Do some homework and it’s totally possible to avoid a third party!
Helen’s woman’s monastery also arranges volunteers by emailing the principal at Arya Tara. She had a fantastic time with the nuns even though she was not able to formally teach them; she did mini-lessons every day and formed some tight bonds with many of the girls.
For more tips and travel stories you’ll want to subscribe to my RSS feed…it’s free and I promise I don’t bite!
Related posts:
