How to See Lots of Pictures

I just can't get all of my pictures up here with their accompanying stories fast enough, but I have been setting up some albums on my Facebook profile. Even if you aren't a member of Facebook (and have no desire to join), you can still view my pictures by following these links:

Since each of these albums have a capacity of 60 pictures, I'm sure I'll be adding more too! Also, if you try these links and they don't work, let me know---it means I did something wrong!

Pictures of my host family:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50856&l=44c10&id=630057811

Pictures of where I lived and visited nearby:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50828&l=f324b&id=630057811

Pictures of places I visited:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50840&l=0dbb9&id=630057811

Pictures of the kids at school:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=50854&l=7c25d&id=630057811

The link to the Letters to Nepal group (and there are about 45 pictures of kids on there, but mostly serious ones):
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=32132534472

Names

I thought it might be good to tell you all of the names of my kids just so you could know what Nepali names are like. Memorizing them at first was beastly hard (and this was when all of the 116 students all looked exactly the same), but once my ear got used to the sound of the language and the soft-spoken manner in which Nepali children usually introduce themselves, I found their names to be charming. The pronunciation is pretty simple: vowels are like Spanish vowels, "h" is usually not pronounced, "j" is like a "z" especially at the end of names, but it sounds more like a soft j + "zh" at the beginning and middle of names.


Class 4 boys: Chandeshwar, Roshan, Binod, Udish, Prayush, Roshan, Biki, Sagar, Ujit; Class 4 girls: Mamata, Jessica, Rojina, Rashila, Shamjana, Urusha, Gita, Mamata, Rojee, Sheruta


Class 5 boys: Shiva, Imran, Anish, Sujan, Madhav, Roshan, Binesh, Rajendra, Manil, Gopal; Class 5 girls: Juna, Binita, Ramita, Manisha, Sarishma, Sanu, Sapana, Sunita, Saru



Class 6 boys: Saroj, Balram, Suraj, Saroj, Susan, Sanjip, Buddha, Bibek, Suman, Krishna, Buddha, Nigam, Anoj; Class 6 girls: Rabina, Nabina, Sangita, Sajana, Rishma, Sonu, Saraswati, Asmita, Roshni



Class 7 boys: Suman, Sunil, Sushan, Rajan, Dhiraj, Susan, Sujan, Sudarshan, Ashish, Manoj; Class 7 girls: Neha, Rashmi, Sarala Alina, Sharmila, Sabitri, Muskan, Kalpana, Salina, Sabina, Ribika, Anu, Aman, Saru, Rakshya, Chanduka, Nisha, Rabina, Puja



Class 8 boys: Rohit, Raju, Powan, Saroj, Santos, Sulove, "Bicycle" (the only one whose real name I can't remember!); Class 8 girls: Usha, Tara, Sajani, Sabina, Puja, Sujata, Shila, Sachita, Sujina, Jamuna


Class 9-10 boys: Mahesh, Kuber, Ranjan, Suman, Gaurav, Ashish, Ramesh, Umesh, Sanish; Class 9 girls: Ranju, Shanti, Shamjhana, Jharana, Sarita; Class 10 girls: Shree Devi, Sapana, Tina, Kanchan, Sujita, Bimala, Rabina

Pictures of Dhapakhel. . . Home

I was not only SO lucky to live with a terrific family in Nepal, but I was lucky to do it in such a picturesque and peaceful place. I still lived in the Kathmandu Valley, but I was about 30 minutes from the actual city of Kathmandu---away from the traffic, pollution and crowding. The shots above are taken from the house; the first is the patio where we ate our meals, and the second is a better view from that patio to the east (I think?), showing my friend Anoj's house (my host father was his uncle). There are many green rolling hills in the distance but because it was the monsoon season they rarely peeked their heads out from beneath the clouds. Below is another picture of his house just as the sun was setting and the light (even though it looks a little dark here) and colors looked so warm and beautiful.

Below is the west view of the temple and pipal tree from the shop my host family ran on the bottom floor of our building. This is one of my favorite pictures from the hundreds I took while I was in Nepal.

Above you can see the views from the roof of my family's house. The picture of the fields was taken in early June, before much of the rice had been planted. The fields got progressively greener and greener---almost neon---as the rains came down and the rice sprouted up. (My Irish friend Brona said Nepal was even greener than Ireland!) You can probably see this in other 2 photos below that I took of the fields from the pipal tree across the street. I love the scarecrow.

The pictures below are of the main road---really the only road---that runs through Dhapakhel. My house and my school were on this road and so I walked it everyday.

Nepali Food I Love

I don't believe Nepal is particularly famous for good cuisine, but I loved the food because it was so salty and spicy and fresh! I only regret that I didn't get too many recipes; the preparation was always fairly simple but the problem was in translation: knowing what some of the spices were called in English. What I really missed most during the 2 months was meat, which we got about once a week (usually chicken and a couple times goat); however most of it was fat and bones, which the family ate also, but I just couldn't choke down (so it just wasn't the same). Here's a quick rundown of some of my favorite dishes:

Rice from my family's field (nobody does it better! the way they cook it too. . . it's so moist) The basic meal in Nepal is called daal bhaat, daal being lentil soup and bhaat meaning rice. You pour the daal over the rice on your plate and scoop it up with your right hand (I think I wasn't half bad at eating without utensils by the time I left). The mother made AMAZING fried rice for breakfast as well.

Fried mo-mo (veggie or CHICKEN! chicken mostly) (finely ground cabbage/veggies or chicken with spices wrapped into a ball with an egg roll type shell and then fried so the shell is crunchy, but you have to make sure it's fried---steamed momo is not so much my favorite)

We ate potatoes in some form (usually with another vegetable) at almost every meal and they were fantastic, but cauliflower was my favorite vegetable that we ate in our curry. We also ate a lot of pumpkin leaves, which tasted like spinach but even better!

Fresh Fried Doughnuts (the best ones come from the shadiest looking places so it's always a risk, but I was never disappointed)

Samosas (I think these are Indian, similar to the mo-mo, but a pyramid shape and larger, usually filled with cooked potatoes, beans, chickpeas? and spices---curry at least) This picture is of our samosa supplier in the shop down the street. He makes them with the shell pastry layer so flaky and light and wraps them up in newspaper for us.

Cucumbers in general, but with chili is even better

The homemade potato chip place in Patan that my students took me to; I had pineapple flavored potato chips and they were fabulous!

Ramen noodles like I've never had before! Unbelievably good with a little extra oil, chopped tomatoes and onions, ground chili and coriander. You can eat them dry or cooked, but I prefer cooked. I can't wait to make it at home

I'm Addicted to This Baby

Baabu! (means "small boy" and you must make the "baa" low and the "bu" a high pitched squeal when you say it) I miss this baby! SO much. Baabu (who I first thought was a girl because of pierced ears and silver anklets) is some relative of my host family---I think his father is a cousin of the kids. . . it's all so confusing because everyone is called "brother" or "sister" regardless of the actual relation. Baabu is not his real name; it's just what little baby boys seem to be called (I believe he already had his naming ceremony but when I asked what his real name was I was told that nobody knows yet except for the parents---I will consult with my Nepali connections to make sure that's right).

Baabu lived next door. Some mornings (after I got over jet lag and was able to sleep through roosters) I would wake up to the sound of his squeaky shoes (you know the kind of baby sandals that squeak when you step down) 3 stories below toddling around. He would always come with his grandfather to the shop my family ran on the 1st floor of the building where we lived to get attention, kisses and sweets. Even though he took a few weeks to warm up to me so I could hold him, he was such a happy baby all the time and never cried. I literally watched him grow right before my eyes: he was just starting to walk when I arrived and by the time I left he was running around. . . especially if there was a chocolate in plain sight. Oh, and Baabu loves his chocolate.

P.S. Baabu has the coolest clothes ever.

Really Quick. . .

I still have so many experiences to record on here---I have written about 115 pages of journal so far---but I have sadly had no time to do put most of it online. I will be returning to the States on the evening of July 24, and then you will get to see some amazing pictures of the beautiful places I been, and more importantly, you will get to see the many people that I love over here! I will also be playing catch up in writing all of my stories down.

Besides just teaching at the school, lately I have been busy just trying to spend time with my friends before I leave. Also I've been organizing a penpal program between the students here and my students back at home (students on both sides have been so excited)---it's actually been a lot more work than I originally thought (I give you an update about that soon) we've been teaching some of the older students how to use the computer and set up email---it's a stretch (to say the least) for some of these guys. I have also been working on sponsoring, and eventually creating a scholarship fund, for students at my school who are in financial need---it is so inexpensive, you would be amazed (More on that soon too).

As things are winding up here and I'm not sure what I'm feeling. Disbelief that's almost all over, love for my host family and such sadness to leave them and the school and the village, anxiety at leaving my new "normal" life here to go back to the old "normal" life, so excited to see family and friends and to gain back some independence, dread at the thought of jetlag, wondering how I'm going to reconcile the changed me with the old me. . . I am going to miss so much here and at the same time NOT miss some other things. . .

I'm just so blessed to even have had this experience.

Happiness is. . .

(I'm definitely adjusted to Nepali time now, because now I can't fall asleep until my usual midnight or so. Last night at about the same time I jotted down this list of moments that have made me sublimely happy since I've come here. They all are about my host family. Just a reminder, Manisha is the 15-year old daughter, Anisha is the 11-year old daughter and Anish is the 8-year old monkey terror.)

-lying on my back with the kids on the roof watching the satellites and shooting stars in the rare but special cloudless sky
-laughing so hard I'm crying with Manisha when Anish pretends to be drunk with "white beer," as he calls it---it is only water; also when Anish puts on these ridiculous floral print rain boots that the family inherited from another volunteer (they are very un-Nepali and that is what makes them so funny)
-taking pictures of "baabu"---the one year old cousin that is learning to walk around in his squeaky shoes
-kung-fu fighting and ticking Anish; this morning I tickled him to the ground and he peed his pants! ha ha!
-Anisha and Manisha doing my hair
-Anisha "I like it very very very very very very much."
-singing "Om Shanti Om" songs or Akon's "Smack That" with the girls at the top of our lungs; even funnier that Anisha is always WAY off pitch.
-singing "dun dun dun dun dun dun DISCO" with Anish
-playing clapping games with Anisha (I'm so uncoordinated; the occasional dance lesson can be, but is not always, fun too)
-watching "Tom and Jerry" with Anish
-power outtages for hours at a time and hanging out in the shop with the kids
-falling asleep on the veranda, snuggled up in a blanket with all 3 kids (also during a power outtage)
-eating the best rice in the world on the silver plates that everyone in this country seems to use
-hearing the Jannatt (Bollywood movie) theme and break out into song at any time or any place (this is actually with any of the volunteers too, not just the family)
-the father asking me if I have "taken rice" no less than 10 times a day
-how the mother and I always seem to communicate even though we don't speak the same language; sometimes she'll tell Manisha to ask me something and I can just answer her right away even though I promise you I don't speak Nepali
-wearing my Groucho Marx glasses/nose/moustache and seeing their reactions
-sharing coconut lotion with the girls (Anisha says, "Everyone always wants to hang out with some one who smells good, and when they smell me, everyone will want to be my friend!")

A Sweet Letter

Wait until you get a load of some of this sweetness. I received this letter from a girl in class 7 a few days after I arrived at the school and it melts my heart everytime I think of it.

Dear Cameela teacher.

Always be happy never be sad that is my wishes just for u.

U are so beautiful. U are great mam. You are one of the best thing ever happend in my life. U are my best teacher ever happend in my life. You are so good mam. Everyday that passes leaves me a felling like I have discovered something new about you to teach. And I like you mam. Plz talk to me. Coming Saturday I will go to Nagdaha and you are should also come ok my beautiful mam. Ok mam that much for today. See you again.

One poem just 4 U.
Topic=Life is empty.
Life is empty without a teacher and I'm empty without u only u mam.

Topic=One Day.
Some like one day, some like two day
Some like Sunday, some like Monday
But I like one day that is Valentine Days
Teachers Day.

Things I Won't Take For Granted Anymore

. . . when I return to America. Even though I was coming over to Nepal to give service to others, the main reason was because I knew that I had turned soft in my prosperity and glut of blessings. It was about time I had a swift kick back in the pants to help me appreciate everything I had.

in order of priority (and this will probably get revised as I continue to think of things):

going to church (who knew? I actually thought I would enjoy the break, but that is just about the stupidest thought I have ever entertained.)

water from the tap I can drink

toilet paper in bathrooms (you don't have to carry your own in)

flushing toilets (not having to pour buckets of water down the hole)

soap at sinks (generally)

soft beds and soft pillows

not being the only white Western Christian wherever I go

washing machine mostly, but the dryer would be nice too

understanding what everyone is saying

not having to brush my teeth with bottled water

not getting my feet and legs dirty and muddy wherever I go

using an ATM card whenever I want

no mosquitoes

hot water (can you believe that it's this low on the list?)

fast internet and reliable technology

eating beef

not having to scrutinize a piece of food and/or where it comes from before eating it

no transportation strikes

soft couches

having a car

having a cell phone

Cafe Rio steak salads and burritos

Diet Mountain Dew and pebble ice

constant electricity

having a piano

air-conditioning

refrigerator

dishwasher

eating with utensils

Paradigm Shifts

I really had to get used to a lot of things when I first arrived in Nepal. For starters, the living arrangements. When I arrived at the volunteer hostel for RCDP (Rural Community Development Project---the volunteer association I'm with here), I felt like everything was so dirty. The greasy table and dirt-smudged chairs we sat in at when we ate; half the time the silverware was still dirty, and maybe that's because we also didn't have soap to wash them with after our meals of greasy wanna-be Western food. I was skeptical of the beds, trying to not think about the last time anything was washed; my bare feet having to touch dirty floors (because you never wear shoes inside the house in Hindu/Buddhist culture). And then there was the worst of all---the toilet/shower combination bathrooms. I don't think I even want to relive those first impressions yet, or maybe ever. Don't I sound like the hugest snot? (Even though I tried to not verbalize all of this---in retrospect, I think most of the volunteers were trying not to---I was thinking that Nepal had outted this closet germophobe inside of me.)

After several weeks in the country, I returned to the RCDP hostel with 9 other volunteers from our village stay in Lamatar (on the disco bus!), and I was shocked to find how everything was so clean and nice! Even the walls seemed cleaner and the lights brighter. I didn't even hesitate to sit down to use the bathrooms ("sit-down" toilets are a special luxury here) of which I was originally NOT a fan. I barely noticed the smells I first found so reprehensible when I arrived in the country. I was ecstatic! When I shared my enthusiasm with my friend Grace, she didn't really think that that much had changed, but that it was me: I had changed from my few weeks stay in Nepal. Even reflecting back on how I felt, it seems crazy that I could have changed THAT much in such a short period of time.

It is funny, though, how much you really do change when the circumstances require it. For example, we simply sweat and sweat and sweat during our village stay in Lamatar and our jungle activities in Chitwan National Park. We'd go for days without showers wearing the same clothes. You just start to realize that you're not really smelling THAT bad, and that your clothes aren't THAT dirty (sure, it's the 8th time you've worn that pair of pants, but they still look pretty good, right?), and it's just not worth the trouble to get clean in a shower when you're going to be dirty all over again in 30 minutes.

Landing in Chitwan, Grace and I were delirous with joy at the ceiling fan that we had in our guest room. It was our first air conditioning in the country, plus the moving air kept all of the mosquitoes away. The bedroom even had it's own bathroom, which in turn had it's own bathtub and shower area, separate from the rest of the bathroom. (Most hostel situations have a shared bathroom for all the guests on a floor, and usually the shower is in the middle of the bathroom and there's just a drain in the floor, between the toilet (which is either sometimes a sit-down get-up or a hole in the floor) and the sink.) It wasn't until a day later that I noticed that there was a lot of dirt in the bathroom. When I asked Grace if our bathroom had been clean when we got there and she said no. I was so happy to have what we had, I hadn't even realized that it wasn't a clean (by general hotel housekeeping standards) bathroom.

One night when Grace and I were up late talking we started fantasizing about all the foods we would eat when we got home. I am constantly fantasizing about steak and Mexican food (food I can't get here), and especially anything Cafe Rio that would include steak as an ingredient. Not only am I at the point where I'm obsessively thinking about eating the forbidden holy cow, I could even it off the bathroom floor or the toilet lid and probably not be phased by it (Maybe even wash it down with some toilet water). That is how excited I will be to eat it, and also how much trust I have in the cleanliness of my bathoom at home.

Random Observations: Part 5

When Americans express agreement, we usually nod our head or say yes. Here in Nepal (also in India from what I've seen on television), to show agreement, the people kind of shrug, moving their head from side to side, and they don't say anything. For me, I'm used to this meaning "I don't know" or perhaps even a negative answer. I'm finally getting used to this after 5 weeks, but it took me a long time to get used to it. I remember several times repeating my questions when really my Nepali friends were saying "yes" the whole time.

The Venga Boys are also still extremely big here. (?) If you don't know this cheesy (and that's an understatement) pop group, you've probably heard their song on the Six Flags commercials with the old guy prancing around to "The Venga bus is coming. . ." Pretty annoying, but catchy---it's one of those songs that will definitely get stuck in your head for a week. The other day I went over to a student's house---she's so sweet---and I transcribed the lyrics for a Venga Boys song (as well as the Titanic "My Heart Will Go On") and I can still remember it all unfortunately.

Marijuana grows wild EVERYWHERE in the country. Supposedly there is a day here, like a festival or something, where they can smoke it legally.

There is a lot of garbage lying around; I was walking in Thamel, the tourist center of Kathmandu just last week after a few days of a garbage strike and trash was piled up thigh high in the narrow streets, feet away from vendors selling vegetables and fruit. The Bagmati river that flows through Kathmandu and Pashiputinath (the most sacred Hindu temple complex in Nepal) is rank with the stench of being a public dumping ground. In stark contrast to this, however, Nepalis recycle and are very careful about their glass bottles. Most of the time you buy a soda, you get it in a glass bottle and they pop off the bottle cap with a bottle opener old-school style (like how I imaging in the 50's). It's a lot cheaper to buy this way rather than plastic (15 rupees, about 25 cents for the glass bottle; 35 rupees, about 55 cents for a plastic bottle) even though usually the shopkeeper won't let you leave the shop for fear of losing his bottle and you have to drink your soda there. After you're done, you give the bottle back to them and then they keep it to be picked up by the bottling distributor who will then take it back to the plant to be refilled. You just hope that the bottle is being washed in the meantime, but I've since learned to not over analyze sanitation in this country, otherwise I would have gone stark raving mad a few weeks ago.

Leeches and Mosquitoes

Leeches and mosquitoes are so smart.

Before this trip, I'd never encountered a leech. They were those things that I had heard about doctors using hundreds of years ago "to bleed people out." They are nasty little buggers.

First off, they look like innocent little worms. But they're not. They're after one thing: your blood! When they attach to your skin, they apply some kind numbing agent so you can't even feel that they're there. You won't even know that something's sucking your blood until you actually see them.

If you're lucky, they will only be on your clothes or your shoes and you can pick them off, but it is easier said than done. They just don't give up. They even fight to wiggle into the mesh of your shoes and they are real good at it.

One time I stopped on the trail to remove a leech from each shoe, only to see another leech fly from behind and attach to the back of my shoe again. How did they know that I was even there?
Does anyone know how they sense that blood is around? Body temperature?

Once a leech is on you sucking away, they put an anti-coagulant into the wound so that once you get them off, your blood won't clot. After I pulled one off my ankle (which you're really not supposed to do, you're supposed to put salt on it or burn it off---unfortunately our guide didn't have anything for us) it would not stop bleeding for a day! I was pretty freaked out, but I didn't have it a fraction as bad as 2 other volunteers on the hill hike; they had open-toe shoes (they were champions for even being able to make it up the mountain in the first place) and they got leeches inbetween their toes and on the bottoms of their feet! Disgusting.

Mosquitoes are pretty smart too, but not nearly so much as the leeches. They're kind of like Santa Claus in that "they know when you are sleeping, they know when you're awake." You can be lying there on your bed for awhile and just when you're about to sleep, you hear them buzzing in your ear. But it's not until those final moments when you're drifting off and you're so tired. And then you get stuck and just can't fall asleep for a few more hours.

The mosquitoes like me most, unfortunately, at the host family's house. It seems that I've worked some kind of truce with them at night so that they don't bother me so much anymore in my room, but I've basically surrendered to them if I'm outside in the evening. I'm wondering if my ankles and feet will ever look the same again.

My Dream Honeymoon

So when I was about to leave for Nepal, there was always the inevitable question, "So why are you going?" When I tried several times in vain (and I could tell from the looks on my friends' faces that I was pretty unsuccessful at explaining) I started resorting to sarcasm and humor. "Because I'm single and I'm bored." Naturally. I even joked, perhaps a little too close to sacrilige, that this trip was my signal to God that I wanted to get married, and if he continued to keep me waiting, the trips and the countries would just get scarier and crazier.

If there's one thing I have learned, though, while I have been here, is that there is no way I can keep doing this scary stuff by myself. I have definitely got to get married so I can bring a husband on my trips to help kill the bugs and to just have a manly presence around, you know? You would be amazed at how differently I'm viewed when I am walking with a male, as opposed to being just by myself.

So I've already decided that I'm coming back to Nepal, but not in the monsoon season so I can go on a mountain trek. And I'm going to bring a husband. So here's the plan. Ideally, I'll get married and just have a short little honeymoon to nowhere in particular. We'll save our nickles and dimes and then like 6 months later, we'll fly on over to Kathmandu where we'll volunteer in an orphange for a week (this is negotiable, but it would be so awesome! The kids here rule.) and then we'll set out on the mountain trek of our lives for 11-14 days and then we'll fly to Thailand where we'll crash on a beach somewhere for a week. Isn't that like the most amazing vacation plan ever? It's just flights that kill you; once you get over here, everything is dirt cheap.

Look, I know it won't happen, but I can always settle for Hawaii.

Tourist Visa

I know that I should be writing down all the "adventures" and such, but sometimes it's these little conversations that really leave you with the most intense impressions. In the broken english which my host father speaks, he told me about his experiences with attempting to obtain a 2-month tourist visa to the United States.

It's taken the equivalent of one year's salary for my host father's 2 interviews for a tourist visa at the US Embassy in Kathmandu. And in case you're wondering, each interview is a non-refunadable $131 US (so we can guess that his salary is about $260, comparable to figures I've read and heard). In addition it also cost him money to collect all the financial documents for presentation at the interview. For example, it costs 1000 rupees (only about $6.75 US, but that is a substantial amount of money here, so much so that if I have a 1000 rupee bill, I have trouble spending it because it is such a large bill they can't make change for it) to get a simple bank statement. Sadly, when he brought the papers to his interview, they rejected him without even looking at them.

He is applying for a non-complicated tourist visa to visit some of the many US and Canadian volunteers that he has hosted at his house through the years and would legitimately come back to Nepal. He is not trying to sneak over illegally. He has a wife, three children, a home, land, a job in Kathmandu, and a shop---he's not going to just cut and run. Plus he just loves Nepal.

The first time the interviewer gave him the visa interview in Nepalese and so naturally he answered in Nepalese, only to be denied him a visa because they said his English wasn't good enough. The second time they denied him for I don't know what reason, but he said he was so mad that he almost punched the interviewer right there. He said 3 or 4 officials held him back. I don't think he's planning on trying again anytime soon, but I know that if had punched the interviewer he definitely would never set a foot in the US.

We always joke around and so I thought that he knew I was joking: I said that since I'm an American citizen already, I would go down there and punch their lights out (I mean, really, look at me. . . who's going to be scared of me coming? So he would have to know that it's a joke, right?). I would actually probably get arrested for assault of a federal official, but my host father was like, okay, we'll go down to the embassy and I'll show you who to get. Ha ha.

I understand that the United States has to be cautious of who they let inside their borders, but this to me was beyond ridiculous. I mean, I've only known the man for a few weeks, but I know him well enough to know that he's not going to leave his family behind. And that he's definitely no threat to national security. And he was rejected without even a full appraisal of his application. I love America, but the conversation left me troubled and disheartened.

He did say that he could buy a visa for what I think what he said was a million rupees but he said he wouldn't do it. He doesn't have that kind of money (though he is okay financially, he is definitely NOT rich: he pays a lot of extra money for his children to go to good schools, and medicine for his wife). I asked him if it was illegal and he said no, but he said it wasn't good to do that and that he wasn't going to.

Letters to Nepal

So I'm sending this out to all the students (past and present) to whom I have access through the internet, and I know that a few of you are checking this blog:

I'm starting a penpal program for my Nepali students who are really interested in making American friends about their same age. I also want them to be able to practice using their English with native speakers. Most of my students' written English here is absolutely fantastic so you shouldn't have too much problem understanding them. (The difficulty will be in them being able to understand you, but I will be here to help translate.)

What I need you to do (or anyone you know who is interested, from about age 10 on up to 18, but ages 10-15 are probably the best) is email me a simple letter all about yourself and asking questions to a Nepali student to whom you will later be assigned.

You can start the letter with "Dear Student,"

And then I need your letter to include the following:

Your Name, Age, Grade
Street Address
Email Address (though few of these students know how to use email or have access to a computer; I am hopefully going to teach them how to use email and set them up with addresses)
Talk about your family (how many brothers and sisters, etc.)
Talk about classes you take at school
Talk about your interests, hobbies and talents
Talk about what you like
Ask them about their family, classes, interests, talents, what they like, etc.

IMPORTANT:
Please type clearly, without chat or IM abbreviations and with as little slang as possible
(If you want to teach them some slang, that is terrific! Go ahead, just don't throw something random in there and expect them to understand.)

Try to send these letters as soon as you can, like within the next week, so I can help them get responses to you soon! Their letters back to you will probably be sent through the mail and I will take pictures of them that we can include in the letter back to you.

Please send your letters only as a message (not on my Wall) on my Facebook account or to my email address camille.kingman@gmail.com. Do not send letters to my school email address or through PowerSchool because I cannot access those accounts in Nepal.

I know that this seems pretty simple (I think it should only take you 10 minutes maximum to do this) but it will be a GREAT act of service to these students here! Thanks guys!

Greatests Hits from Last Week

Hey everyone, I'm still alive, I just haven't been able to update anything for awhile because I was gone for week exploring the country. Let me give you the greatest hits: hill hiking (hills here are pretty much mountains though) and catching a spectacular glimpse of Mt. Everest, only then to be attacked by blood-sucking leeches; walking through beautiful terraced rice fields in the country; rafting down the river (I'm definitely doing this again!) on my way to Chitwan National park, where I bushwacked through jungle and 8 foot high rhino grass on foot and then later on elephant also. Then I returned to Kathmandu where I got sick sick sick (that is just part of being here), but luckily I am on the mend. More details to follow!

Random Observations Part 4: Mostly About TV

What do you know, there's another bus and taxi strike in the Kathmandu Valley---I think this time it's to protest the rising prices of fares due to the shortage of gas. So of course the kids in the family didn't have school again (they aren't on summer break like me). I'm so lucky I'm not dependent on public transportation out where I am; my school is about a 7 minute walk from my house.

This morning I watched part of "High School Musical 2" in Hindi with the kids. Even the songs were in Hindi. So funny. It is oddly (and perhaps disturbingly) comforting to me to have a TV in the house, even if I usually can't understand anything. My greatest pleasure on the small screen is now watching Tom and Jerry cartoons with Anish because nothing is lost in translation.

A lot of the TV shows here (mostly transmitted on Indian channels and all in Hindi) are copy-cats of American shows. For example, they have their version of "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?" and there are several spin-offs from the "American Idol"-type show. The main difference is that they love putting the little (and I mean little!) kids in the main spotlight. The main show that my host family watches---"Chak De Bachche"--- is a combination dancing and singing show where boy-girl duos (I think most of them are brother and sister) perform these really cheesy routines and people then call or text to vote for their favorites. For all the people I've heard sing really poorly on the big stage for "American Idol," I am really surprised at how terrific most of these kids are! I've never really heard any kid biff it or just freak out because of nerves (which is what I think most of us would expect from a little child now and then). Of course the style of singing is very different than what we are used to. I think most of us would call it whiny, but it really does start to grow on you, ha ha.

On one of the Nepali stations there is even a spin off of "America's Next Top Model." Nepali people I think are naturally very shy people (especially on camera or if they're having their picture taken), and even more so when it comes to trying to act sexy. I really will not go too much into detail as to not be too demeaning, but I venture to say that even some of my most awkward junior high students would know more how to act on camera than most of these girls (I would say most of them ages 16-20.). When they make the attempt at being seductive, I really don't know whether to laugh or to cry!

Back to my students: I have taken many pictures of them and while they're so excited at the prospect of seeing a camera and having a picture taken, the discomfort they experience while they're actually having to stare at the lens is almost painful for me now. They almost never smile at the camera, even if they usually smile otherwise. I've resorted to taking more candid shots now because it really captures how sweet and happy most of them are.

I am getting really really great at walking in mud and water. Even my little jaunt to town---Patan, basically a suburb of Kathmandu---left even more of my students laughing at me sliding around mud and water in sandals. I am really in awe of how they do it all---we're taking short cuts through rice fields, for crying out loud!---and not splash mud all over the back of their pant legs (I have resorted to rolling my pants up above my knees so I just have to wash my leg and not the pants. Everyone stares at me anyway, so I have long since given up trying to look good.) It had just barely finished raining as we entered Patan so the sort-of-paved streets were extremely muddy as well; I think I had to wash myself like 3 times that day (there are just free-flowing stone taps in the city that people collect water from if they don't have running water in their homes, believe it or not) and I still can't get all of the mud stain from off the bottom of my feet!

I washed clothes by hand for well over an hour yesterday. It was the first time I had really done major laundry in the 3 weeks I've been here. I love my washing machine at home! Even though I might not have to go to the gym if I put a couple hours into hand scrubbing my clothes with a bar of soap and a brush each week.

I got an email from a student today who finally admitted, "So is Nepal in Utah? I don't really know where it is." I think that was the internet highlight of the day.

Personal Space

Over the past 3 weeks I've been in Nepal, I've noticed that Nepali have very different notions about personal space. Maybe it is because there is less space to go around.

I first noticed it at the airport when I thought people were going to walk right up to me and ask me something (or I'm ashamed to say, maybe take my bag) and they were simply walking past me. It is the same in the city. Especially where traffic is concerned. In a bus, you cram as many people as you can inside and then people start hanging off the back and hopping on the top (hey, at least it's air-conditioned up there). On the street the cars and motorbikes get so close that several times I absent-mindedly had my elbow resting out of the side window and it just about got taken off (by cars going the opposite direction and the same way). It's often that I could have easily reached into neighboring cars and touched people through the windows if I had wanted to. I've seen 2 way traffic go in the smallest of back alleys, all the while they're manuevering around cows and pedestrians with enormous loads on their their backs and heads (just like you see in National Geographic!).

It is a sweet thing in the family and at school. The children are extremely affectionate. Even after a few days, the children in my family would snuggle up close to me or rest their head on my shoulder or leg just while we were hanging out. Last week during one of our normal several hour power outages, we curled up on the patio with blankets and just feel asleep. At school, I had to get used to students linking arms with me or grabbing me by the hand just merely to take my hand in theirs---no reason at all really, just to be close.

It is not uncommon at all to see men in public hold hands or to have their arms around one another as they walk down the street. The same is okay for women too, but really it's the guys that do it most. However, public displays of affection on the other hand are completely frowned upon and you NEVER see couples romantically linked in an embrace, definitely never a kiss, and not even holding hands. Married couples do not seem to be exempt from this social norm either; I took a picture of my host mom and dad at Anish's birthday party, and even there they posed like 2 strangers right there in their own home. On TV or in the few Bollywood (Indian movie industry) movies I've seen, the romantic leads barely kiss---like not even a peck. Even when you know that they're supposed to be kissing they always work in some trick of the camera or introduce a prop or a shadow. You can tell that the media has been heavily influenced and sexualized (like there's always a lot of undertones) by the West, but obvious images of anything you're never going to see. Homosexuality is a huge taboo as well. People don't even talk about it all. Ever.

Summer Vacation

So this either shows that Nepal is totally crazy (in case my past entries aren't evidence enough) or it proves just how little I really know what's going on. . . some of my older students took me on a little excursion yesterday and they were like, did you know it's summer vacation now? (!!!) Um, no! I supposed I missed that little memo? The older grades get a week off and then the rest of the kids get 2 weeks.

It actually works out perfectly because I have an opportunity this very week to go stay with a family in a village for a few days and learn all about their way of life, hike in the hills, learn their cultural dances, etc., and then I can go to Chitwan National Park, where essentially I go on safari and ride elephants and fight big bugs (apparently it's blazing hot and humid there) and stuff. So it's perfect!

I'm so glad some child thought this might be a little detail I might need to have and said something. Thankfully, I'm not as totally clueless as I feared I might be: the students said that the school had just decided that day that it would be summer vacation. What the ???

The First Born Son

Last Monday night we celebrated the 8th birthday of Anish, the little boy in my host family. We even got a little Mountain Dew (and for all who would care to know, I haven't had a Coke in 2 weeks!) and special "mystery" meat for dinner. Nepali cuisine is mostly vegetarian, with the exception of Friday nights when we seem to get chicken and other times like this when we ate goat! It grossed me out for a just a second, thinking of all the goats I see walking down the street, but once I realized that it was the same thing as mutton (which I've never had, but it just seems a little more civilized) and that I had already had several bites and that in all actuality it was very good, I got over the goat thing.

I love the little kid---he is so darn cute---but I will be the first to admit that he is spoiled. For example, he received portions of 2 different cakes from a local bakery. I guess normally 1 big cake would be ordered from a shop but something happened (like the bakery was closed or something). Well when Anish realized that there were just 2 little cakes, he flew into this huge tantrum. Manisha and I were laughing because it was so ridiculous. She said that she and her sister don't ever get any cake for their birthdays. When I asked why, she said it's because he's the son (in this case he is the first born and the one and only).

A few days earlier he had accompanied his father to a party where his father was honored for donating blood so many times. (When I was telling the dad that I donated from time to time, he said that he would take me in about a month. What do you think? Should I trust myself donating blood here? They probably actually need it so much more here than in America, even though I think so many people that truly need health care never receive it. FYI: Nepal has the 3rd highest infant mortality rate in the world and there is 1 doctor for every 12,000 people.) Anyway, Anish returned from the party in this beautiful traditional costume/dress. I couldn't believe that it was still clean or that his mother would have even put it on him in the first place. I asked Manisha if she and Anisha had traditional dresses like that too and she laughed like, "What a silly question," and said no. She didn't go into the whole "son favoritism" thing that day, so I was just left to wonder how weird it was.

This kid is a total monkey, but since he is the only son, all preference is given to him. And no effort whatsoever is made to disguise the fact that he is the favorite and preferred child. Already it is just assumed that he will take on the all the household and financial responsiblities (as well as receive all blessings attached to that) once his parents begin to age. If only I could post a picture right now: it so humorous to look at him and think about that. All duties of religious ceremonies will also fall to him, like at his father's funeral it is only he who can light the funeral pyre at the cremation. Manisha was telling me that since the culture is so male dominated society, there is intense pressure on women to give birth to a son, and to continue bearing children until a son is born. And because there is not adequate prenatal or medical care in the country, many women have poor health for the rest of their lives after having given birth to a few children.

Manisha, to her credit, didn't really seem bitter at all, but just resigned to that's the way things are handled here, and that if you are a girl, you kind of get the shaft. However, she has told me a few times that she never wants to get married because of the hardships that wives and mothers go through; I'm sure now that this her little way of bucking the system. So sad.

God Bless Elementary School Teachers

Yesterday, after having taught the Class 7 English grammar class, the school accountant (because he has the best English in the school, which is not saying a lot) pulled me up to the primary grades building and asked me to teach English grammar classes for 4th and 6th grades. I was totally pumped because I was hoping to get a little elementary experience in while I was at the school.

Essentially the accountant took me up to the room because the class had already "started" and said "Kids, this is your new teacher. Learn English!" and left me with no book, no idea of what was going on. I was encouraged initially that the students were so adorable and their first few sentences of English seemed to be right on. Since I wasn't prepared with any of my first day of school in Nepal devices (constuction paper, gum, photos of my family, and a camera---I take pictures of them on my digital camera and then go home and memorize their names, which, I might add, has been no small feat!) I asked them where they were in the book and we just started there, reading a story.

The students read pretty well for 9 and 10-year olds with English being their second languge. They had NO CLUE what they were reading about though. That was fairly obvious from the get go. So after every paragraph, just try to imagine me reinacting the story through charades and my quickly degenerating English (I am going to be so thankful to speak English normally and for real when I come home. Talking slowly and without using slang is exhausting!). I think after my little shows the students began to understand even less. And of course it then started to pour; being in the second level of the building with nothing but a sheet of corrugated metal about 6-1/2 feet above the floor (this room is tiny---I must look like some kind of monster to these poor children, the sound was distracting to say the least. And the kids are totally entranced by the rain even though it rains everyday because they don't understand me and they don't understand the book and they're just getting so squirrelly. Man, elementary teachers are awesome. At the end I gave up trying to teach them anything and just tried to learn a few names. I am still totally excited about teaching them, but it is going to be so much work considering the language barrier. Those little demons are dang cute though.

Immediately after that class, I was to go to the Class 6 room to teach English. They were still with their teacher for math so the Class 5 class pulled me into their room and I talked to them for a few minutes. It was unbelievable to me the developmental jump from 4th to 5th grade. So much bigger and so much more mature. It sounded like they had the same teacher as the 4th, 6th and 7th grades that I'm filling in for (the teacher is at a training for the next month), so I might end up teaching them as well.

Then I went into Class 6, and can I just say, move over all other students. . . these are my golden children. I always loved teaching 6th grade in Las Vegas and I tell people all the time that I miss it, and now I know why. I just love how they are at this age. There's always a few know it alls (funny, because the middle child in my host family, Anisha, is in the 6th Grade and is a total know it all too), but they just are excited to be there and are practically fighting with each other, falling all over themselves to participate in class. And they're discipline is really good too. 7th graders can be like this too, and Class 7 here was initially as well, but then they crossed the line when some wouldn't stop talking in class the other day. They thought I was all fun and games and that we were just going to play and be best friends all day because I was the pushover American. Little did they know that I'm not scared to be mean. Yep, like 75% of the students in that class are still totally awesome and amazing, but the honeymoon is definitely over in that class, ha ha ha.

I am glad that I am getting to teach more and more, even though it is becoming less like a vacation and more like work. But that's good, because that's what I really came for. And besides, if they keep cancelling school they way they've been doing, I'll still have plenty of chillaxing time. I still don't have any preparation materials for any of my classes and so I am constantly wracking my brain for any shred of creativity that may still remain in the summer. If you have any fabulous ideas send them on my way!

A Day Off Thanks To Communism

So, in case you didn't know anything about the political climate here, let me clue you in with what little I know. Now, you do have to understand that most of my news resources are Nepali people who speak to me in what little broken English they have, but the stories always usually seem to line up pretty consistently so I trust that there is some amount of truth to what I'm passing on to you.

2 days before I flew out here, they declared Nepal a democratic republic, dissolved the monarchy, and told the king that he had like a week to get out of the royal palace. The people here have hated this king. . . in 2001, there was a bloody massacre of the previous beloved king and most of his family (10 members in all) that was pinned on the prince, who conveniently committed suicide after he supposedly killed his family. The entire investigation was extremely suspicious and practically non-existent. For starters, the entire royal family was creamated (as done according to Hindu tradition) before autopsies could be performed.

I've never seen a group of people so united on a conspiracy theory but everyone here thinks the king now (well, the one who was actually just overthrown) was the one behind it so he could gain the throne. It sounds like a story from the Book of Mormon, huh? I guess this king has been a really bad king anyway and the people were ticked that he dissolved the democracy a few years back so they kicked him out.

The main political party behind the revolution is the Maoist party, aka the Communist Party. Nepal is one of the only places to ever had actually voted a communist party into power in the past. Right now, the majority of the people here back the Maoist rebels---especially in the rural areas---even though they often resort to disruptive protests, violence and extortion. They don't target tourists, so I really don't have anything to worry about. They have been known to "hijack" (and I say this in the in the least harmful sense of the word) tourists trekking on the mountain circuits and make them pay 1000 rupees (about $6.50) each, only then to pose with the trekkers for pictures!

Well, the king left the palace a few days ago and really everything has been remarkably chill here, taking into consideration the gravity of what has actually happened. Then last night, I guess one of the Maoist leaders decided to lock one of the foreign ministers (or somebody like that) in the bathroom for an hour to send the message that reform in the government wasn't happening fast enough! And this, somehow (I've been trying to figure out the connection why this should naturally follow), meant that today was a holiday and that all of the schools were closed (I would assume buses weren't running, etc.)

What a country. Just last week, the kids didn't have school for 2 days because there was a bus strike (in protest of a taxi driver that had been stabbed). I didn't have those days off because my school is so close and no students are bused in. (The kids in my family I think go to higher profile schools in Kathmandu and have to take the bus.) No wonder everyone has to go to school year round---they're always cancelling it! I have to admit, and it's stupid I know because I actually came here to teach, but I was excited to have school cancelled. I think more than anything it was because of the fact that they would actually cancel it because they never cancel school in America! Never! This really must happen all of the time though because it really doesn't seem to phase anyone, not even the kids.

I guess further into town, the father (baa) of my host family couldn't even get into work on his motorbike because there were demonstrations in the streets (Funny, it has been as peaceful and as boring a day as possibly could be up by my house.) and the Maoists were letting out the air of tires of anyone who wanted to get into Kathmandu. Again, the dad was like, yeah, that's the way it is, no biggie.

I promise you all that I am very safe and there is absolutely nothing even resembling danger right where I am at. The thing you should probably worry about the most is the mosquitoes that are eating me alive, and maybe getting fleas from the innumberable homeless dogs that line the streets, picking through garbage in hopes of finding food. (I'm just kidding about the dogs: they are so very docile. They don't even try to come up to you. But I have wanted to mention the plight of the little doggies; I'm no animal lover anyone will readily tell you, and it even tugs on my little heart strings to see so many starving, obviously ill animals everywhere.)

Random Observations: Part 3

So Avril Lavigne still seems to be pretty popular around here. I thought teenagers were kind of over her in America, but she seems to be making some rupees over here in Nepal (which actually makes me kind of mad because she doesn't need their money!). People are still talking about Titanic too---still!---I distinctly remember seeing that movie in December 1997.

Nepalis seem to like clearing their throats. . . A LOT! They spit everywhere too. I don't think it's considered anykind of social faux pas to just hawk up a big hairball and unload in public, in the street, even on the patio at home. Sometimes I wake up to the most horrible sound, like someone is choking, gagging, trying to get something really horrible out of their system for like half an hour! and then I open my door and it's been the little 11-year old girl spitting (and spitting) all along.

Morning Running

Yesterday, the oldest daughter Manisha, her cousin and I went "running" (it was really more light jogging and mostly a walk) at 4:30 in the morning. When she asked me the night before if I wanted to go, I was ecstatic---I was under the impression that people just didn't exercise or go for a run here. First of all, there's no room. Second of all, you can't breathe. This is really true for the city at least. Another huge concern for me is that I'm a Westerner and really I can't do anything anywhere at anytime of the day without everyone staring. That will be so nice to come home to anonymity. Add me running down the street in Kathmandu to the equation and people I really think would be beside themselves. There's also no way that I would be able to run down the street in shorts either. The list kind of goes on and on why it would definitely not be wise for me to go for a run in Nepal.

Luckily I wear long shorts to begin with, but I really have tried to limit how much I even wear those. Shoulders and cleavage are pretty taboo, but strangely enough, it is appropriate for a woman in traditional Nepali dress (with the draped flowing material scarves, etc. . . think India) to show her stomach and back.

However, going running with a native who actually brought up the idea. . . that's a whole other story. I have despised morning running and exercise of all kinds for as long as I can remember and I was thrilled to go! Nepali peoples' routine really parallels that of the sun: when the sun is up, they're up, and they really don't stay up too late either. I'm falling into the same routine. I'm totally exhausted if it's like 10 pm and I can wake up easily at 4:30, 5 or 6 without an alarm clock and I feel really good. This whole Nepal experience is going to revolutionize my life, tell you what.

The air was clean and refreshing, but even more refreshing was the lack of people and animals, and of those people who were out, many of them were exercising and running too! I'm laughing right now at how surprised I was. It was really nice to see groups of women out together and doing something other working. The women work SO hard here. I look at the mom of my host family and she's just such a good mom: she really loves her kids and helps them with their homework, she cooks for them, she works in the garden and in the fields, she works in the shop, she washes the clothes.

Nepal is a VERY male dominated society (and I actually have some pretty surprising things to write about that later) and so when one "goes out," like down the street to do errands, you're bombarded with men everywhere and it can be so nervewracking and sometimes downright scary. I remember that this was one of the very first impressions I got when I arrived at the airport in Kathmandu and was trying to stay calm (with a Coke naturally) when my bags didn't arrive with me and I had to wait around the airport by myself for about an hour because my ride forgot to pick me up. (True story, and I did eventually get my bags even though I really thought they were gone forever when I looked around that tiny backwards airport.) There were absolutely no women around---just men everywhere hanging around talking and smoking cigarettes.

Probably the highlight of the morning outing, though, was that the sky was finally clear enough of clouds for me to see a silhouette of the Himalayas on the skyline. It completely took my breath away. Because it is the monsoon season, the sky is usually some shade of purple or gray and it totally obscures any hope of seeing the amazing mountains. The mountains rise SO high into the skyline. . . I think that it's so crazy that I should be so impressed, especially since I'm no stranger to mountains living in Utah. That's how spectacular they are. (I was very lucky too right before I arrived at my project, I had the opportunity to catch a glimpse of some mountains from a little retreat some friends and I took up to the hills.) We were so lucky, because even within 20 minutes of seeing the horizon with the sunrise, it was totally gone and you couldn't see anything.

We walked for awhile and it was about 5:30 and the sun was up and so were most people, a lot of them already milling around on the streets, busy to get to work or already working. I couldn't believe that already so early all these little mom and pop type shops were open and ready to go. I went back home and went to sleep for 2 and a half more hours.

Respect and School

It's a little unnerving sometimes how respectful the students are at school. When a teacher, or really any kind of authority figure enters the room, they all arise without hesitation and they greet whoever it is with a chorus of good morning or good afternoon. If a teacher is already in the class---it doesn't matter whether the teacher is already teaching or not---they ask for permission to enter before they set a foot inside the room. The students know my name is "Camila" but always address me as "m'am" or "miss." All males are "sir" as well. Students don't slouch (they can't really, they're sitting on benches---there's really, much to my dismay, a deplorable lack of good comfy couches, beds, chairs and soft pillows in this country!) and they don't ask to get excused from class ever. No one gets "checked" out from school. (!) If students miss class, I've found it's been because they've been working in the rice fields. Even our principal wasn't there yesterday because he was doing the same thing. When students are called on or volunteer an answer, they stand and answer and only sit when the teacher allows them to (sometimes this is the thing I forget. . . I move on to something else and this poor child is still standing because I didn't excuse them.) When the class is over, the teacher leaves the room and the children all stand up and say "Thank you" in unison.

At the beginning of the day, the students from nursery on up to about class 8, join together in the dirt courtyard that separates the primary grade and secondary grade buildings . The buildings are almost open air, with cement floors. They do not have electricity nor even glass windows. Of course there is not air-conditioning nor plumbing as we know it. The secondary building where I do almost all of my work is not even finished. The first floor has 4 small functional classrooms and then there's a cement staircase leading up to a very unfinished second floor/doubling as roof. We go up there and sit on benches just to feel the cool breeze and to look at the rice paddies below. I cannot believe that no child has fallen off the top because it's just a straight drop!

Like I was saying, at 10 in the morning most of the 300-number student body line up in perfect lines and they practice their "attention" and "at ease." They do some stretches too. So cute. All of this is happening in Nepali so I really don't know everything that's going on, but I know that the PE teacher at my school (who is totally into this whole militaristic type of thing) would be drooling if he could see little 3-year olds in school uniform doing stretches in unison.

They also sing the Nepali national anthem every morning! The students seem to love to sing---the people as whole, actually seem to love to sing---but they are not so hot on keeping a tune. I thought I might have the chance to teach some music while I was here, but right now, the immediate need is for me to teach English (there isn't a piano here either which doesn't completely rule out teaching music; it would just be a little harder). They don't have arts or sports classes or electives; everything is pretty no frills utilitarian. And yet the kids are happy and they never complain. They are always telling me how they like this teacher, or they think that teacher is funny. They go to school through most of the summer, and students from class 8 and up go to school 7 in the morning and stay until 5, sometimes 6 in the evening, and still they do not complain.

Right now I am teaching English conversation classes for classes 8, 9 and 10, and I am teaching an English grammar class for class 7. I think that they are also adding an additional English grammar class for either class 5 or 6 to my schedule because there are some there are some teachers out on training. I am happy to be busy because I had so much free time when I first arrived at the project. I am having to create the curriculum for the English conversation classes and that has already been challenging; I would be scared to death if I hadn't taught English class on my mission (especially) or if I weren't already a teacher. It is also difficult to plan because the English speaking skills vary so much from one student to the next. For the advanced grades, most of their courses are even taught in English. I saw their their written exams and their English was beautiful! But some can speak a fair amount, and many cannot really at all. English is used a lot in Nepal in general---but always with a LOT of holes and grammatical mistakes in it (you would die seeing some of the signs in print or things on television; you would think that there would be someone in the country to proofread!)---so it's also hard to gauge what they really know and what they're faking, etc. For the other classes, there are no extra books so I am basically winging it the whole time, as I show up to class and borrow books from the children as we go along. Again, if I didn't practice this teaching thing everyday anyway, I would be drowning!

Despite still being somewhat speechless about the whole respect thing, I still much prefer teaching my kidlets in America. For anyone worried that I won't come back, thinking that I've found my teaching paradise here in Nepal, well, you definitely don't need to worry about that.

Field Trip!

(actually written a day previously) I am having major internet angst today. It all started yesterday (when it got so bad that I had to email my friends and give them my passwords to get my credit card bill paid because I couldn't get it done here). Today, however, it took me a solid 30 minutes to be able to send a simple email. Frustration! To prove my dedication to the blog which, after 45 minutes has refused to open completely, I am writing this entry on an email that I will later cut and paste. I almost half wonder if the internet places around here make the internet service slow on purpose so you have to sit on the computers longer, thus having to pay more money. Luckily, everything here basically costs me pennies compared to what it would in the US, so at least I'm not annoyed about the financial burden of staring at the little green squares forever updating at the bottom of my computer screen.

The students have school six days a week, from Sunday to Friday, with Friday as a half day and Saturday as the national holiday (our equivalent of Sunday). The sad part about Saturday is that it really feels no different from any other day here. Everything is still open and runs on the same schedule, and no one really abstains from any specific activities because it's a "holy day." (Usually I can't tell if their telling me it it's a holy day (sacred) or holiday (vacation or bacation---they switch their b's and v's around all the time just like in Spanish; saying their f's like p's is another big one). One thing I do credit Hindus for though, is the fact that religion doesn't seem to be something that they set aside for one day a week. They stop by their temples and shrines everyday---they're just about as commonplace as our Mormon churches in Utah---where they mark themselves with the tika (the red marks on their foreheads, I'm still trying to figure out what it all symbolizes) and walk around their statues and pray to their relics. Just for your information, 0.15% of the population here (about 26 million) is Christian. There is essentially no mention of Jesus Christ here in any kind of discussion. People know of Him and it's not even that I feel like it is frowned upon, but I think it doesn't even enter anyone's consciousness as being relevant. I think this fact alone might be the reason why I continue to struggle with my feelings of isolation and loneliness---because I am truly alone out here.

Well this past holiday/holy day of Saturday, I had 9 EXTREMELY eager and giddy 6th/7th grade girls escort me on a fieldtrip of some of the local sites. They asked me to go with them the first day I came to the school---Tuesday---and I think I was reminded no less than 20 times a day that they were going to come to my house to pick me up at 10 in the morning. The main place we were going was called Naghada, a local pond. It is a very serene and beautiful place, with a lot of local religious superstition surrounding it (I guess a lot of people routinely die there.). We walked around admiring the flowers (throughout the course of the day I received 3 handfuls full of flowers from the girls---flowers that most of us can only find at the florist (or Costco, ha ha) and the lily pads and lotus flowers.

Then the girls pointed to a hill a fair distance away and said that that there was a Hindu temple that we could hike up to. I was totally game, but was skeptical looking at the girls that we had assembled at the pond. (Imagine a group of young young teenage girls who speak only very broken English taking you up to hike the "Y" with no water, wearing sandals, etc.) It had only been about a 20 minute walk to the pond and some of them looked pretty feeble already. Knowing full well that I'd want to poke my own eyes out in a few hours, we set out to tackle the temple Santaneashor.

We walked through the beautiful countyside---I am fascinated with the terraced rice fields and paddies on the hills. I see it everyday from the house where I live and I still can't be anything but in awe of it. Everything is so green and wet. Including the dirt road. I was only wearing flip-flops and so I was basically sliding through the mud. I probably would have had better traction going barefoot. It was so humid and the girls had the luxury of being able to drink irrigation water or random water from a random hose. . . I can't even brush my teeth with tap water, so I can't even imagine how sick I would get if I drank that. They kept pushing it on me but it was basically lost in translation why I couldn't drink it. Eventually, we reached a drier area, but it was mostly uphill. We hiked through little village settlements and watched people bathe from wells (well, not WATCH,watch, but you know what I mean. . .) The sky was looking very ominous and I was worried about rain, especially considering the already existing state of the paths and roads we were taking. And of course, the girls wanted to sit and rest every 5 minutes.

We finally reached the 5 million, I mean, 357 steps ("ladders" as the girls kept calling them) for the final ascent to the temple. Again, it was much of the same thing---some of the girls were racing up tothe top and climbing trees and hanging off the edge, and others way down at the bottom, hanging onto each other and looking like death. I think I was somewhere in the middle, being the "mom" (being a teacher has killed whatever fun I used to be able to have and now my maternal instincts have kicked in and I need to make sure no one is talking to strangers or getting run over) and trying to keep track of everyone despite the major language barrier and my all terrain flip flops.

FINALLY we all got up the top. I thought it would never happen. The breeze was SO cool and refreshing, and the view was pretty spectacular. One amazing thing about Nepal is that you can be in the tropics one moment, and then the next second, you're walking through a high altitude forest with pine trees. Then we came down the hill from the other side. We saw some boys from our school and you should have seen these girls: they literally shrank into nothingness and could barely acknowledge a hello as they passed. So funny. (Give them 6 months and that will all change.) On the way down, I actually misjudged a step and fell down right on my wrist (and man to I have a nasty bruise there!), breaking my watch that I had gotten a week earlier in Kathmandu. I was really okay, (I think thanks to my watch) but these little girls were so scared that I was angry with them because they had allowed me to fall. Of course I wasn't, but they were probably subconsciously picking up on the fact that I was a little worried that it was already drizzling and we had a long walk back in the mud.

We made it back home, again at a teenage girls' snail's pace---I'm learning to relax though (because I obviously didn't learn the lesson when I lived in Italy), nothing is very hurried here in Nepal; simple pleasures, like a beautiful walk, are to be savored and enjoyed---and without major incident or weather emergencies of bibical proportion. That happened about 2 hours after I got home and it poured for like 12 hours straight. Despite my joking, it was so fun to be escorted around by a very attentive, well-intentioned and sweet group of students. I don't know how many students in America would necessarily do that.

A low-key group of very nice girls from the older classes, 9-10, approached me today and asked me if I wanted to go to see some of the famous temples and pagodas (did you know that the pagoda style of architecture you see in buildings all over Asia was actually exported from Nepal centuries ago?) in the nearby city of Patan on Friday. I am already excited at the prospect of less drama, and am relieved to know that it won't take me 2 days to recover afterward.

Just because. . .

Just because everything has to be more difficult in this country than it really needs to be, of course my USB drive is not wanting to connect to this computer, and so I haven't been able to upload any of my sweet pictures yet. I am determined to make it work soon.

Random Observation 2

In a world that has been taken over by the McDonald's corporation, you might be pleased to know that there is still one last section of frontier that Ronald has not found. Yes, my friends, there is no McDonald's in Kathmandu. I would wager a guess that this is the largest metropolitan area in the world to not have one. And while this is a VERY good thing, it's also a shame too, because McDonald's abroad tastes so good.

My Host Family and Other Tangents

So my host family is pretty much the coolest. The dad is some kind of local hero in this neighborhood (I think he just does a lot of good things for this community.) He is a pharmacist in Kathmandu and so I get the feeling that his family is pretty comfortable, even though they don't have a car, and in the house there is no flush toilet, there is no real enclosed bathroom, I take cold showers in another little closet (and I'm actually getting used to it), and there is no refrigerator.

But there is a TV. And I have to say that Mexican TV is no match in cheesiness to Nepali and Hindi TV. Everything is about 15 times more dramatic than it really needs to be. The acting is very, very bad. It is funny to me now, but I think in a few weeks I will think it is not so funny. Alright, so back to the family: the father's English is pretty broken but he always talks to me and you can tell that he's such a joker. He is not a big man, except he has this jolly pop belly exactly like Santa Claus, and he's always wearing this tank top that's about 2 sizes too small.

In Nepal, if someone says that you're fat, it's actually a compliment. I think it is a type of status symbol, like you are well enough off financially that you can eat well. Most everyone is very skinny. Another unusual indication of social status here too is a long pinky fingernail. We volunteers first noticed that our program coodinator had one very long pinky nail and were hoping that he wasn't on drugs or something; I know that that's the first thing that comes to my mind when I see that in the States. However, what it actually means is that you don't a manual labor type job and you're priviledged enough that you don't have to work with your hands (like in the fields) and thus you can grow your pink nail really long. I'm not really a fan.

Speaking of fields, my host family has a rice field across the street from the house where they live. We are close to Kathmandu, but far enough removed so that it is cleaner and more peaceful, with addition of rice fields intermingled with the buildings. My family owns the entire building where they live, with a little shop---a 7-11 on a very reduced scale---on the first floor, rooms to let on the second, and then we live on the third floor. We eat all of our meals from the open air patio (there is not really a dining room) and even from there, the view of the hills is fabulous.

I had no idea that Nepal would feel so tropical. Supposedly, I am here in Nepal at the worst time possible. May through August is the monsoon season and so it rains and rains, and when it's not pouring the view of highest mountains in the world is impeded by clouds (I did happen to happen to catch a glimpse of a couple a few days ago when I was up in the hills though, and it rocked my world. We were already at 7200 feet elevation and these mountains towered over us. There are no words!). It is also the most dangerous time to go trekking because of the rains, and mudslides and leeches, so even though I looked into that, I decided that I wasn't into sliding down a mountain and setting blood-sucking leeches on fire while still attached to my leg. I DO have my limits.

We can also easily go the the roof of the building and the view is even more spectacular. We go up there when there's a power outage (which is often; Kathmandu has rolling power outages because there is simply not enough power to go around. They simply turn off power to neighborhoods for a couple hours and then they turn it back on and cut the lights for someone else.) We also go up there to watch flights take off and land from the airport---it's like our own little "Inspiration Point." The airplanes start to come in as little dots from the clouds, and before you know it they practically fly right by us and then we can see the ONE runway of Kathmandu airport lit up to guide them in.

I have my own room in the house and it has been a relief and a half to have some privacy (of which there was none when I was at the hostel with the other volunteers in Kathmandu. As an endowed member of the Church it was causing me a great deal of stress. I also have a very nice bed. Okay, it's pretty much hard, but much more forgiving than the planks covered with blankets that we had at the hostel. The pillows are so hard here too! What is up?

The mother doesn't like to let on that she speaks English, but I think that she is just embarrassed because I can tell that she understands so much. There are 3 children: 15-year old Manisha, 11-year old Anisha, and almost 8-year old Anish. Just in case you can't tell, the two oldest are girls and then the youngest is a boy. He is my little monkey. I LOVE playing with him. His English is pretty rudimentary, but we still manage to have so much fun. The two girls are pretty good with their English and they are my salvation, especially Manisha! She is zany and funny and is the one who explains most everything to me. Anisha gives me some pretty intense dance lessons on the roof and teaches me how to cook. She is at that age where she is taking offense to everything and because it is hilarious, Manisha and Anish tag-team her and purposely try to antagonize her. It is sad and funny at the same time. I have seen Anish pull off a couple dramatic tantrums as well---he is still really such a little boy. Hanging out with the family is so fun and they are SO incredibly good to me. It is nice to live with a family with little kids again. Just like how I had mentioned that the personalities of the students in their grades completely translated from country to country in another entry, it is the same with the family. The dynamics are just the same and that is a great source of comfort to me in a country where everything is so markedly different from that which I know.