THE YAKHA: CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN ...

students coming from some distance away, but many others who needed
accommodation near the school stayed with relatives. More than half the
Yakha students we spoke to seemed to be staying with their maternal
uncle (mFimFi), reflecting the important roles played by this relation
(see Chapter Five).
There were seventeen teaching staff at the school, Of these, f o~~r
(three male, one female) were Yakha, and only one of these taught at
secondary leve!, The female Yakha teacher was Kamala, our village
sister and daughter of the pradhhn pEi-c, The other female teacher in
the school when we arrived (a third woman came with her husband during
our time in the village) was also a primary teacher. She was a Brahmin
woman cal led Sharada and was a niece of the headmaster. Her husband
Bhaskar taught mathematics to secondary students, The rest of the
teachers were from Brahmin or Chetri castes (predominantly the former)
except for a primary level Newar teacher from Chainpur. Most of the
teachers were quite young (average age 27) and had been away for their
higher education, some as far as Kathmandu. Seven of the teachers on
the staff when we arrived in Tamaphok had come from outside the
pancevat, the furthest from Jhapa district in the Tarai. During the
second year of our fieldwork a male teacher employed by the American
Peace Corps joined the school. This was not the first Peace Corps
teacher the school had had, but a previous one had left after only a few
months because of the death of his mother.
The in- and return migration of active and questioning minds with
experience of the outside world often played a galvanizing role in the
community. Although poorly paid, the teachers had considerable status
in the community. They were always expected to speak at public