I had been House Captain of one of the four senior houses. There were two junior houses, four senior houses, and then there was Gaurishankar, where people who stayed on to do O Levels and A Levels - Senior Cambridge stuff - stayed. Back then in Nepal school was 10 years. Then you sat for the nationwide School Leaving Certificate (SLC) exams. And if you passed, maybe you went to college. But high school was 12 years in places like America and Britain. And this British founded and run top school in Nepal had introduced O Levels, A Levels. Half of the students in Class 10 were selected to do O Levels. Half of those were selected to do A Levels. And this was already a school where you got into in Class 4 after sitting through nationwide entrance exams.
O Levels was two years in Britain, one year at this school. So you finished school in 13 years.
We had three vacations: summer, Dashain/Tihar, and winter. Dashain would be the Nepali Christmas. I was not from Kathmandu. Kathmandu is a valley, the capital. Half the students at school were from outside the valley. I was one of them. The valley students got to go home about once a month for a weekend. We went home for the three vacations.
Image via WikipediaI had given an excellent year as House Captain. We won pretty much every competition there was, academic, sports and otherwise. Morale was super high. The grades of the students went up across the board. I personally took charge of one student a year junior to me who was considered struggling. His marks were up by 20% across the board by the time I was through.
And a fight broke out on the soccer field. We won the match, there was a fight. I learned about it later. It apparently escalated. It erupted in the dining hall later, and one or two places on campus. I heard.
Our official color was blue. The red house were the sore losers.
But then things quietened down, or so I thought.
I had been the top student in my class every year to that point.
