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Gap Experience Lepchas - Gap-Year-India - Africa and Asia Venture
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Gap Experience Lepchas - Gap-Year-India - Africa and Asia Venture
Gap Experience Lepchas
Experience life in the Lepcha community, teaching English in tiny community centres.
Where?
The original inhabitants of this area - in the foothills to the south of Bhutan (Map >>) - the Lepchas are a cultured but simple people who have been pushed to the margins by successive waves of immigrants and now farm enough to eat, some ginger and spice in tiny terraced fields in valleys of spectacular beauty. Here Buddhism and Christianity are underlain by a much older worship of Nature, with much to teach us about how to live in harmony with our surroundings.
Outline Experience
| 5 Days | About 12 weeks | 8 days | 3 weeks |
|---|---|---|---|
| getting there and orientation | living among the Lepcha people, teaching English in village and local schools, helping farm and village life. | safari in Sikkim, trekking and rafting | independent travel. With friends over as much of incredible India as you can! |
In Lepcha culture spirits go to the snowy peaks of Kanchenjunga (8600m). Lepchas have their own music, dances, herbal medicine and language (said to be the oldest spoken script in the world). Wanting to preserve their identity, they have built tiny cultural centres, or ‘night schools’, in each village where children are taught Lepcha traditions.
Here you will teach children and some young adults English in the morning and evening. Facilities are pitifully basic, but the confidence that you give the Lepcha children has meant that they do very much better at local state or Christian schools, where you will also teach for 2 – 3 hours each day.
Gap Year Living
You and your partner will live in one of the better off Lepcha houses in the village as a paying guest (we give you the money). You have your own space, sometimes your own cottage, and ‘facilities’. Your hosts will cook for you (and grow what they cook!) and look after you as a good friend and honoured guest.
Gap Year Travel
When you leave you will have an 8-day safari in Sikkim. 6 days of trekking to the snows or sightseeing followed by 2 days of white water rafting before leaving to travel around India, with all its myriad sights and sounds, for 3 weeks.
We are sure that you will make lasting friends among the Lepchas and among your fellow volunteers, and will want to return again and again later – 60% of your predecessors say they will and some have returned 3 times already!
Itinerary l Dates and Costs l Facts l Apply
