Photos: What it’s like for a 68-year-old grandfather to attend school

A typical day in 68-year-old Durga Kami’s life goes something like this: he wakes up, gets ready, has his breakfast, and goes to school. Not to teach, but as a student.

Perhaps the oldest student in the Himalayan country of Nepal, Kami currently attends 10th-grade at Shree Kala Bhairab School, along with a bunch of 14 and 15-year-olds. A father of six and a grandfather to eight, Kami always wanted to study and become a teacher, Reuters reported on June 15. But poverty didn’t let that happen.

Kami says he goes to school, “to forget his sorrows.” He has been living alone in a one-room house in the Syangja district of Nepal since his wife died. A teacher at the school told Kami to attend classes, and provided stationery and a school uniform.

His classmates call him Baa, which means father in Nepali. “I used to think, ‘why is this old man coming to school to study with us?’” Sagar Thapa, a 14-year-old classmate of Kami told Reuters, “but as time passed I enjoyed his company.”

Here’s a look at Kami’s daily school routine, through the images of Reuters photojournalist Navesh Chitrakar.