“After teaching in a school for 26 years, I decided to take a voluntary retirement. If I had wished to continue, I could have spent 12 more years in the school as the Principal. But I had already given much to Sagma Primary School, which lies in one of the most remote part of Morang. Raising the school from primary level to that of secondary, I thought that is the best I could give to the community during my tenure. I had no regret in handing over the baton to fresh minds and the next generation of passionate teachers.
With the savings I had made from the school’s salary, I had managed to make a small home at Itahari. After the retirement, I decided to stay there with my family and children. I didn’t want to stay idle and live a docile life, which is generally the case of a life after retirement. I still felt young and energetic, as I hadn’t yet crossed half century of my age. Trying to explore stuffs to get engaged with, I observed the growing trend of coffee in urban centers of Nepal. After perceiving the enormous scope of coffee, I decided to return to the community where I had spent my entire life teaching. I initially had hard time convincing my wife on going back to the village. It’s a bit eccentric to see people returning back to the village, who had once migrated to town.
Leaving the grown-up children in Itahari, I and my wife started to till the slopes of Sagma to plant coffee and other fruit trees. I’ve seen the village getting vacant each year, as the youths either go abroad for job or migrate to city centers for better opportunities. I wanted to put a reverse gear to this tendency and prove that we have so much of prospects here in our village only. I wanted to present an example of what these terrains are capable of producing. We started a small nursery of coffee in our ancestral property. Next year, we planted the coffee saplings after understanding the technicalities of its cultivation. This year, our happiness knew no boundary, when we managed to harvest the first batch of coffee.
I could have lived a decent life out of the pension I receive each month. Instead of starting new chapter of struggle in the hills, I could have lived a “comfortable” life at Itahari. However, that would mean to live a sterile and unproductive life. After teaching students lessons of life during my tenure as the Principal of Sagma School, how can I live like that myself? I even convinced my ex-student, who had just returned from abroad, to get into the coffee farming. Looking back, I am happy that I took an early retirement and have no regret in that decision.”
– Chandra Rai, Coffee Farmer and Former Principal of Sagma School, Morang.
