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

people began drifting off and paid !ittle attention, irorr~ the pradhen
e, We scurried down to the tea shop where the proprietor's wife had
made a rather solid and not very flavoursome khir (rice pudding) for the
occasion.
Apart from its physical presence in the landscape, the school also
acted as a cata!yst for changing perceptions of the environment.
Concepts such as 'ecology' (prakr,ti tatha pra-T sam~ad6vi~FcBn) in their
Sanskritized Nepa!i forms appeared in school science textbooks. The
Peace Corps volunteer was active during the time of 'Earth Day' in 1990,
making a banner and, with the help of a Yakha teacher, digging a pit
which was then covered over with a bamboo and earth trellis. This was
intended as a dump for non bio-degradable items, The village health
worker and a colleague, who had been running an immunisation clinic at
the school, ceremoniously threw in their broken syringes as a first
contribution to the pit, Tamara and I religiously carried our non-
combustible, non-recyclable items up the hill to put them in, but there
was little evidence of other peop!e doing the same, There was more
concerted activity on Earth Day following radio broadcasts encouraging
schools to plant more greenery around their buildings and play areas.
Students and teachers brought plants and shrubs which they had dug up
for replanting in the area between the school and the tea shop and
pancavat office. Unfortunately due to damaged roots and inadequate care
and protection afterwards, not many of these plants survived.
More than changing perceptions about the Tamaphok environment, the
school gave impetus to a sense not just of wider identities, but of
environments further afield than that of Tamaphok. The school had an
inflatable world globe which teachers and students regularly perused to