Stichting Veldwerk at Nepal

Secretariaat: Stichting Veldwerk Postbus 163 1850 AD Heiloo The Netherlands

Tel:+31 (0)72-5339585 veldwerk@wlink.com.np IBAN nr. NL51ABNA0543703266 Attn. Stichting Veldwerk, p/a Egmond Binnen Bank: ABN-Amro 543703266

The Holy Sinterklaas from Spain was visiting our children home in Kathmandu.

Because Sinterklaas had to visit all of the children in Holland first and it was a long trip to Nepal, he came to visit the children's home in Kathmandu on the 12th of December. Better late than never!

Sinterklaas is a good holy man from Spain that, so the children are told, travels the world on his white horse the night before December 5 to give all the “good” children a present. Every child puts his or her shoe in front of the chimney filled with carrots for the horse and drawings for Sinterklaas and they sing songs just before they go to bed The whole week the Children from Hamro Niwas where busy making drawings for Sinterklaas, and practicing their songs for him. On Saturday afternoon they went to the shop to buy hay, carrots and sugar cubes for Sinterklaas' horse. They put it all in their shoes in the evening while singing. One off the kids said he would sleep in the living room because he wanted to know how Sinterklaas would replace it with their presents.


The week before the volunteers of Stichting Veldwerk (Foundation Fieldwork) where busy baking Pepernoten (very tasty, difficult not to eat them all beforehand), wrapping the presents in nice paper, and writing stories about the children for Sinterklaas' big book. For each child there where 3 little presents such as a pencil case, pencils, clay, a skipping rope, etc....And for everybody a new sweater. A lot of volunteers and visitors bring toys or clothes for the kids when they come over to visit the children's home. So as not to spoil them too much we keep this stuff for special occasions like this.


Sunday at 5 am we were waiting. Sinterklaas and two Zwarte Pieten come through the gate. The children were singing the songs they had been studying like they had never sung them before. The bigger children figured out quite quickly that one of the Zwarte Pieten was "Maaike Miss" but they kept the secret from the other kids. Little Boenoe (4 yrs old) wasn't really impressed by the fuss and the Zwarte Pieten. She crawled onto my lap and was hiding her face behind my arm. Sinterklaas spoke to all of the children one by one telling them something nice, and for the older children he also delivered a wise lesson. After an hour they all received their presents. They thanked Sinterklaas and the Zwarte Piet but the older kids couldn't help themselves by saying 'Thank you Miss'. The children where so happy. Even little Boenoe forgot for a second that she was afraid of Zwarte Piet and sat on his lap for a while playing with her 'music phone'.





But we still had one big surprise. The older children got 4 extra presents, which they had to share with everybody. The children were given 4 bicycle locks, and for the 'extra' presents they had to look around the house. After 5 minutes they found 4 brand new mountain bikes. There were smiles all round. We were able to buy these with the money Maaike had raised from a sponsored run.

We had so much fun. For us, the volunteers, there was a big surprise as well. We went for dinner at the Restaurant 1905 Kantipath, and there was Dutch liquorices (English liquorices), chocolate, cheese and Dutch spice cake.

Thank you Sinterklaas! It was a great day.

Sasja, Volunteer in Nepal.