What I am doing here…..

My computer was out of my hands for the last week as one of my former students here is helping me create a book of my drawing process so just received my ipad back so that I can communicate again.

As you know I worked with the founder of GATE College (a hospitality training college in Kathmandu) in 2009-2011. There were really no vocational colleges in Kathmandu and certainty no Hospitality Schools. Khem Lakai who invited me in joining him in creating the foundations, had been trained in the swiss schools of hospitality and wanted to bring this training to Nepal. Having employed myself in Hawaii with many waitress and cooking jobs, I knew what it took to do this hard work. I had the belief that to do this work you need both a physical and mental toughness. That learning was not exclusive to the classroom absorbing information but real practice was needed to see if these students really wanted this career. Thus I found ways to take the students out of the classroom and into doing the work and I worked along side of them. There were many ideas I had and several things that I was able to implement. I left living in Nepal in 2011 and Khem continued with the foundations we had laid down. Moving forward 12 years, for the last two years Khem has been inviting me back to Nepal so that I could see how the seeds I had sown about this mental and physical work had taken hold. I finally decided to return to Nepal after he said to me, that I didn’t have to do anything only just observe and see if there was anything I wanted to do.

These last 8 days have been an immersion back into Nepali life and learning about and seeing the changes that have occurred over these last years. Also in addition to this, meeting previous students that I taught long ago and learning the impact I had on their lives. How things I said in the classroom, modeled with my behavior, and made them aware of in themselves changed their lives. I have been overwhelmed with the changes and the responses from the students. Many have said that the life lessons I spoke of in the classroom, did not impact them until they were actually working in the Industry and had their ahaaa moments. Oh that is what Deborah Ma’am meant and they had the tools to deal with the situation. Each of my early students have gone on to be successful in hospitality as well as other industries. They have told me of things that I have forgotten that I did.

There is a Hierarchical system in Nepal. People are very good at telling others what to do. However, I was raised to do the work alongside others as a team. So that when I asked students to do things, I worked beside them. This was strange to them but they accepted me but when they went out to do their internship in the Middle East and Malaysia they saw that their bosses were working alongside of them and that everyone worked until the job was done. Thus my behavior made sense to them. Now they have returned to Nepal and are running their own restaurants and hotels and doing the same with their own staff and it is changing the culture of Nepal.

One of the programs I started with the students was to clean the street coming to the college. I was getting irritated every morning as I walked to college and I said this shouldn’t be. Thus with Khem’s agreement in 2009, we started what was called the Street Cleaning Program. We met much criticism from residents, government and parents of the students that this was not our job or the students job but we did it anyway. Now, 15 years later all schools do local clean ups, the government provides trucks to pick up the trash that is collected by the students as well as what the shopkeeper clean up in front of their shops. And the streets are cleaned. I just cannot believe how this has shifted. Also this is because there is a young new Mayor of Kathmandu that got behind the project that Gate College started and built on it and supported it. Gate College is known as the college that began the change.

Here is Khem’s interview of what he hoped for the college recorded 7 years ago.