Back in the saddle again. . .

Yesterday I finally got to go to the school where I will be teaching this summer. I was so scared for some reason, you'd think that I'd be used to "first day of school" jitters by now. I have seen so many COMPLETELY precious school children all over Kathmandu during the past week and these children were no different; perhaps a little poorer than some of the others I had seen, but still so adorable. In fact, the children here are simply beautiful. To school the boys and girls alike wear long-sleeve button-down shirts (pink and dark blue on alternating days at my school) with striped ties. The boys wear slacks and the girls wear pleated skirts with knee socks and bows in their hair. Just so cute. Especially the little ones. But that is really all of them, because all the children are just so tiny (most of the grown people are very short too). However, in my limited experience here, it is very obvious that the personality traits of the ages and grades are the same here in Asia as they are in America.

Either it is because it is a disorganized school or it is because many of the secondary classes (classes 7-10, translating to roughly the same grades in America) have been taking monthly exams, many of the students have had an inordinate amount of time to make me their new pet. The combined class of grades 9-10 (which is the class I will definitely start teaching first) has been most busy with exams, but truthfully, they have seemed the least impressed with me, like "Yeah, we've seen an American before." Class 7 thinks I'm just terrific though. Almost a little too terrific, as they very very clingy and needy, with the girls being especially possessive of me. They lead me away and stroke my white skin (they love white skin here!) and play with my hair and plant kisses on my cheeks and ask for me to sign my autograph on their hands. It's CRAZY!. Frankly I'm exhausted after just a few hours. Class 8 likes me too, but it's toned down to a manageable fever pitch. They are "cooler" about their teacher worship. They are more interested in helping me with my Nepali and their personalities are hilarious. You can tell that in this class the girls and boys are already less scared of each other. It really is just the same in America.

Right now I am hopelessly trying to memorize all of the students' names in classes 7-10 and it is nearly impossible. All the children still look so similar, and the names are SO SO foreign. They don't resemble anything that we have in America, and I am drowning! I get a pretty funny reaction when I tell them my name too, as Camila (as they say it) means "ant." You would crack up to hear me speak English to them; it is so slow and I think I am picking up a weird Nepali/Indian accent (I was hanging out with an Irish girl last week and her accent was rubbing off on me, so I suppose I am more easily influenced than I thought!).

I have so utterly crazy and bizzarre things to tell you and I can't wait to hear your reactions. I am missing home probably more than I ever have in my whole life because everything is just THAT different.