Archives for January 2012

Today the children of Life Vision Academy listened to the fairy tale hunter’s stories from the mountains (you can find them for your-self in the latest articles from his adventures). After the stories and questions the students had fun all the way till sun set creating the giant yeti costume and its story below.

The Story of The Dancing Yeti’s head, body, arms, hands, legs and feet.
Many years ago there was a forest. In the forest there was many ghost heads. There was one very, very big head and it was the head of a yeti.

It had two horns and two eyes

It has long, long teeth and talks like a man. In the past it used to eat small children. Do you like the yeti head? And then………

There was a boy in the forest, he was very strong.

His muscles were strong, as were his bones, skin, stomach and his back bone. He was wearing a black jacket and inside it was red and he looked very beautiful. And then…….
The boy hid in the trees of the forest and saw some wings and arms. The wings and arms were searching for their body, but they could not find it. Then through the forest came the body and joined the wings and arms and they started to fly. And then……

The boy saw from his hiding place the hands. The hands were very long and big and strong. He thought that they were very dangerous. The hands were covered in fur and had long nails. And then….

The boys looked at the legs. They were walking from place to place, running, jumping and even swimming. And then….
The boy saw the feet. They were playing. He noticed that each foot had fingers, ten on each one! It was very cold and so the feet were wearing big socks. The boy looked at his own feet rapped in his slippers and thought they were very small by yeti standards.


As he watched from his hiding place the boy saw the whole yeti body dancing about making giant yeti sock footprints in the snow. Look at the dancing yeti in the forest….

Everyone had to imagine something very big, something you went into, something scary, something extremely small, something you were able to get out of and finally something very nice and special. After imagining all these things we had to link them together in any order we wanted to, by creating a story. We had lots of extra fun making props for the films we created of the final results. See if you can find the finished films on the website.

Cinderella
Once upon a time there lived a young girl, whose name was Cinderella. She lived with her father and two sisters. She was a very beautiful girl, but her were not. They made her do all the work in the home. She looked like the servant of the house.

One day a king announced that there would be a party and they were all invited. The two sisters were very happy. They talked about the prance and the party.

Then the day came and Cinderella had to stay and clean and polish shoes. The two sisters went to the party and Cinderella was crying.

Four Potatoes
The man’s potato story.
Once upon a time there was four potatoes in the soil. One man came looking for potatoes and he took all four potatoes.

The man went to his house and he fell into a deep sleep. Then a snake went into the house to search about. The snake searched and found what it thought was a potato, but it was a bird. The bird hit the snakes and flew away. When the man awoke he found a flag and he took the flag and waved it high in the sky.
The snake’s potato story.
Once upon a time there was a snake. He was very hungry. he wanted to eat frog. He was very old and he can’t walk fast he had no friends.

One day the eagle came to eat snake. The eagle saw the snake and the snake was afraid. The eagle catches the snake and the snake died.

The Ant.
Once upon a time there was an Ant. Ant went leaf and then Ant fell down from leaf!
Then again Ant start to walk and went to the forest.

In the forest there was a ghost.
The ghost has only one horn left after battlers with man.
He saved the Ant from harm with humans.

The story of one girl
Once upon a time there was a girl. She was very beautiful. Her name was Vunti. She was very small. In the village all will love her.
One day she was sleeping in her bed when a thief came! The thief killed Vunti! After that he through her in the river. All the villagers were very sad.

So we all have to be happy and beautiful in keeping our memory of Vunti.
The end.
After we finished the workshop four of the seniors went to the local internet café. It was the first time they had ever seen the internet and we had a look at our pictures on the Hunting for fairy tales of the Yeti web-site.

First week of January 2012.

Hello adventurous fairy tale hunters across the globe. Thank you for following my journey as we continue to hunt down fairy tales of the yeti. I am still in Nepal and have enjoyed an amazing two weeks of working with the children of Life Vision Academy, in Kaushaltar, which is between Bhaktapur and Kathmandu. Please take a look at the workshop articles and the picture galleries which are bursting with creative images. The hunt is generating lots of discussion and all at mission control are pleased to hear your thoughts. So join us by sending your ideas to andy@yetifairytaels.com or via the links on the site.

It is with pleasure that we welcome fairy tale hunters from the Netherlands who will be adding music to the site and they have found in the past that when stories are difficult to find in books then they are told and re-told via music and singing. I will add this to my box of tricks as a special tool. Also a fairy tale hunter from Florida has joined us as a photographer and he will be uploading images from hunting in the foothills of Everest.

So much to tell you of the last week away in the mountains I find it difficult to un freeze my sketch book pages. I started here in Bhaktapur.

 

This town is a fairy tale come to life. It reminded me of the days back when horse pulled the carts through the streets of Dickensian England. Cars were space ships and electric lamps only the work of magic wands. Here treasure pots are made to the sound of morning temple singing

 

 

 

 

 

Bhaktapur is the home of Dragons of all shapes and sizes

Then it was riding on bus roofs (taking care to duck the bamboo) on switch backs high into the mountains. Where I came to view Everest in the golden sunrise holding the wings of circling eagles, such are the headlands of Nagarkot above the clouds.

Onward…..and sardine packed into helter-skelter buses I twisted my way higher and higher to Dhulikhel, Charikot and the ancient Kalinchowk. Now I had to walk, the air thinning and the flora and fauna transforming into mountain buffalo rings, their bells calling to the “happy queen” ferns. Through the clouds and into the snow past ruined settlements with the helpful pointing of Sherpa families I made it to the summit.

The evening cold with icicles out-side, brought the happy dancing inside the wooden long house around a fire with new friends from distant Bhaktapur.

 

I searched to complete my mission I had been given by the school children guiding my hunt for fairy tales and I was in luck! On the side of an old and ancient house deep in the pine woods, hiding in the sparkling snow I found this

I set off to the warmth of the valley full of wonder about the creatures that lived to the sound of the mountain bells when I came across maybe another clue

I followed these footprints for over two hours as they led me to the warmth of the valley below. I never found there owner, what stories they could have told me.

When I was back in Dhulikhel I told stories to the local children of my mountain adventure. They had great fun looking at my pictures.

Back in the hussle and bussle of the city of Kathmandu the mountains seem a world away. I will be travelling west next week to the mountain range of the Annapurna and there I will be working with another Nepalese school in Gaunsahar, deep in the depths of the countryside two hours walk from Besisahar.

Continue to uphold our moto in “Protecting Innocence and Suspending Disbelief” as we the international tradition of fairy tales from mountain top to treasure filled valley. 

These two workshops took two days and involved making our own fairy tales stories, books, sculptures and films! Can you imagine the amount of art work we made? We spent all the time working in the playground as in the day time it is very sunny here. I wonder if the schools in England have found where the Life Vision Academy is. Try using the maps on the internet, here are some clues: Bhatapur, Gatthagar and Kaushaltar. Maybe you could email me a picture of what you find (andy@yetifairytales.com).
The children here had done lots of drawings while I was away writing on the website. Doing creative art at school is very new for them so they have started by coping pictures from their own story books. They books have stories from all over the world including England. There were stories like Red Riding Hood, Pooh Bear and Peter Pan. I hope you are enjoying the books on the book shelves and the books that Seven Stories have sent you to read in class. I look forward to seeing your articles about them on the website. I also look forward to reading more of your own creative stories; I will probably have to read them by candle light as there are lots of power cuts here (14 hours a day!). can you imagine what that would be like in England?

The children designed their stories around six main parts. A hero, villain, saviour, magic creature, a map and a mystery (the last one with their eyes closed). I wonder if the children back in England can remember similar pictures and sculptures they made. Ask your teachers or take a look in the galleries on the website if you have forgotten.

After making our own stories we divided into groups with the seniors deciding one story each and making a sculpture of the most important part of the story.

Most of the stories were in Nepalese so the groups spent a long time translating them into English. It would be great if the students back in England could translate their stories into Nepalese so I can read them to people here in their language. Don’t panic! The stories were very short, only one page long.

Some of the tales were very inventive and reminded me of fairy tales I have hunted for before. Can you remember a story with a face with no-body like the one below? I think it involved a magical cat up a tree.

Some of the stories were very scary, just like some of the fairy tales I have found before. There were great battles, lost princesses and giants who were sometimes said because no-one liked them anymore.

All of the stories finished with happy endings and we all learnt amazing things about how humans grow up.

The pictures below are of the groups presenting their stories to the rest of the school. Each story was supposed to last for one minute, so I could video them, but the stories were so full of adventure that they went on, and on and on! Some times for ten minutes. Look out for the videos on the website as the school practices them while I am away in the mountains. They children have given me a mission and a place to go to, so look out for future article sand blogs about my hunting adventures.

Today we imagined just what we could do if we were monsters. The students of Life Vision Academy had lots of fun creating mysterious and fantastical creatures with special powers. Here is one who has many eyes. He can see where ever you are….even when you asleep!

Just in case some of the monsters were dangerous, the students decided that they would have to keep them in a special park. So we invented special characters and tools to catch them. We decided that the park should be very big and that the monsters should be given everything they needed. What do you think they will need to be happy?

One of the monsters was very friendly and wanted to open a school for the younger monsters to learn about humans. He has very big horns so he can tune in to television and internet signals. Do you think he can speak human languages? If he can not it would be good if you could invent something for me to help him translate. I wonder what the yeti children look like? I wonder if you know. I think it would be good if you could draw them for me so I can put them in my box of tricks with your special fairy tale hunting tools.

The students are very excited to find out if there are any fairy tales of the yeti out in the mountains and this monster is a yeti who is very happy that we want to listen to his stories. His is one thousand years old! He says that we can come and stay in his cave, but he has forgotten where it is. Maybe we can help him find it again. Where do you imagine it may be?

One monster wanted to come and live in Life Vision Academy. He has very long arms to protect the children in the school and to keep them warm.

The workshop with the senior students concentrated on introducing them to the web-site. The school here has no internet access, so we had to visit a cyber/internet café. We used the idea of making books as a lead into film making. The students took turns in making their first films. Can you think of the jobs they had to do? To start with there was a camera operator, a person for lighting, a news reader, a presenter and someone who held up words (auto cue). We will have to go in small groups to the cyber café as it is very small.
We had a very long day together as now that exams are over here the students are on holiday for two weeks. As most of the children have no family homes they will stay in the school house next door. I will be seeing them from now on once ot twice a week as I am about to start travelling into the mountains to record fairy tales. Look at the “mission blogs” in the control centre, for more details of the results of what you have told me to do. It is great to receive a mission every week as we use the internet and our web site as an art tool.

The story goes something like this:

Once upon a time a small boy called Mane (which means “heart” in Nepalese) lived in a palace. He lived all alone as his mother and father had died when he was a baby. Many people had visited over the years to try to take the palace from Mane, saying that they were his long lost relatives. When he was nearly ten years old a man called Hurry (this is a river name in the Kathmandu valley) came to the palace and told him many things about his family history that made Mane believe that he was his long lost uncle from the south. However what Mane did not know was that this man was no telling the truth and had only worked for his family when he was a baby.

Hurry and his wife took the palace and plotted to kill Mane by hiring two Hench-men. The Hench-men gagged Mane and tying him up them through him into the Bagmahati (the largest river of Kathmandu). Thinking he was dead the Hurry household told everyone in the valley of their great sorrow at the loss of Mane and they inherited the palace and laid on a great ceremony in honour of his past and sadly short life.

Meanwhile in the river Mane sank to the bottom where he was seen by the fish people. The fish princess was very surprised that he was still alive and thought him very beautiful and took him to the fish palace. When Mane opened his eyes he could see lots of jewels and a beautiful garden with a golden waterfall. His bed was made of partic (this is a special local stone that purifies water) and he was surround by fifty beautiful fish maidens. He was afraid saying “where am I?”, but the fish princess told him to be calm and that all is ok. This is what happened and Mane and the Fish Princess played for many years and fell in love.

The fish princess and Mane decided that they would get married, but when the fish princess took Mane to her father the king he said that he would kill him, because he was the son of man. However on reflection the king wondered whether Mane could help him? The Fish King said that if Mane could kill Serpent Raja (the King of Snakes) then he could be his son. Mane was worried that he could not do this so he went back to the land to discover what he could do. There he found an old friend Manuhar (the name of a river in the valley) and asked him what to do. He said that he should employ the help of the giant Narimouso (this is a mythical Nepalese beast, like a cross between a rat and a lizard. In Nepalese there is often a confrontation between a rat, a frog and a snake. Even though they are all fierce animals when they are all together they can do nothing, because they all eat each other in a big circle, so therefore the stale-mate means that nothing can go wrong in life). The giant rat went into the river and ate all the snake army and the snake king.

The king of the fish was very pleased and said that his daughter could marry Mane and that he could have all his land and jewels. Over the years back on the land the Hench men had stolen the entire palace so the Hurry’s were now poor. After some time Mane and his Fish Queen visited the people of the land and the Hurry couple were so surprised to see them that they dropped dead on the spot.