Back in the Big City

After a long absence from internet, cell phones and most other signs indicating the current century we're living in, I have returned to Kathmandu and the place has never looked so advanced. All is relative I suppose. I'm only here for a few days. Just long enough to squeeze in a book release, a ceremony at the small library I supported, visits to my old school & host family, editing of a new class 10 textbook to be published and to record my voice for some audio CDs to be produced. Actually it's not quite enough time for all the things I'd like to do / people I'd like to see being back here again, but it looks as if extending my trip by about another year is not quite possible.

My time in Tibet was fascinating, exhilarating and calming all at once. I wrote blog entries in my notebook to try to capture more of my thoughts in the moment rather than a more hazy summary after the fact. There are 4 of these altogether and I'll be typing them up over the next little while (when I find the time and motivation) as I slowly make my way back home. It's far too many words to take in all at once anyway, so any readers still hanging on out there will probably appreciate some short delays between posts. With that said, here we go:

TIBET BLOG #1 - Saturday, June 4 - Tour to THE Mountain

Right now I'm in Xining, China after a spectacular and eventful week and a half since departing Kathmandu. Being in Nepal for so long must've lulled me into a sleepy comfort about the ease of moving about in foreign lands because, I must admit, I came completely unprepared to this new country. It was only after arriving that it dawned on me how little I knew of Chinese or Tibetan languages (zilch) or really the country in general. I'm sure, now, that a big part of what made the Nepal transition feel so seamless and natural was all that I had learned about the culture & language before getting there. All this effort I had completely forgotten, so as I dove in head first, it was with slight surprise in mid-air to find that it was directly into the very deepest end of the pool that I was headed.

In Western China and within Tibet itself, there's hardly any presence of English whatsoever, so I found myself doing a whole lot of pointing, hand-gesturing and laughing to make myself understood. Well, the laughing didn't exactly help with the understanding, but it did keep people from either getting frustrated with my ignorance or completely giving up on trying to help the out-of-place Canadian that wound up in a part of the world not commonly tread upon by foreigners. Simple things like getting taxis and using a payphone at the airport in particular turned into highly amusing processes. But once I met up with my hosts all went very smoothly and I was extremely well taken care of.

I still had a week before my project was to start, so after 2 days in Xining, I boarded the new train to Lhasa, the old heart of Tibet. Up on the plateau between there and the Nepal border, I heard so many times I was standing in front of the highest something (lake, wetlands, palace, monastery, river, blade of grass...you name it), that I almost forgot to be impressed when I eventually laid eyes upon the world's very highest point. But that first glimpse was at a distance on a cloudy day. There was no denying its awesome presence upon turning up right at its feet and sleeping at its base overnight. Sagarmatha to the Nepalis, Qomolangma to the Tibetans, and Mt.Everest to the Westerners, there's probably not a culture in the world that doesn't hold the tallest peak with some sort of reverence. I, myself, must've taken about a hundred photos of its North face in an attempt to capture it under the absolute best of lighting conditions as the sun was setting, though on reviewing those pictures I have no idea how to judge which the very best of these might be.

All in all, I can't imagine a better introduction to Tibet and am now looking forward to heading off to a small place very far removed from anything at all.

A Mixture of Emotions

Well, the span of my experience here in Nepal is down to its final few moments. I’m not sure I had ever thought the last days would actually arrive, but now that it has I find my heart and mind to be rapidly flipping back and forth within a rather extreme range of emotions. It’s with great sadness that I’m leaving this place and saying goodbye to people who now feel very integral to my life. The connections I’ve made to some of my family and friends are stronger than I would’ve ever thought possible. The downside to this is that I will soon be living on the exact opposite side of the world and unable to see them anytime I want. But, the positive is that I know some of these relationships are now too strong to be broken by me moving some great distance away. They are lifelong bonds that I will always cherish. But at the very same time as I deal with the sadness of goodbyes, or perhaps a split-second before and after, I’m greatly excited about my upcoming adventure in Tibet / China and also know how happy I’ll be to be back at home when I finally reach there around the middle of July. It literally is only split-seconds in between these ecstatically happy and depressingly sad emotions, so it’s hard to say at any moment whether I’m more tempted to laugh, cry, dance, sulk, sing or wallow. At times I’ve attempted all of the above at once to the (unsurprising) result of confirming everyone’s view that I am, indeed, losing my mind.

First, to summarize Nepal. Though an impossible task, I would like to attempt to at least touch on what this experience has meant to me. When I think back to the beginning and all the daily confusions, uncertainties, tribulations, and unfamiliarities, I realize not only how far I’ve come in adjusting to this environment, but also in whole-heartedly embracing all that surrounds me here. Daily life in this no-longer-remotely-foreign land has come to feel perfectly natural. Second nature indeed. I will always be first of all Canadian, but I can’t help but feel a large part of me has now turned Nepali. [Wow, writing like this is difficult. I feel like none of my words are adequate to express what has happened in my time here. I now understand why every other volunteer blog I’ve ever read has merely trailed off before the end to leave all the readers hanging in the dark about how it all came to a close. Bear with me as I continue my attempt anyway.] In my time here I have learned a whole lot about myself, the world, and life itself. Being thrown into situations that are unexpected or often times unclear (due to language or other cultural barriers) is a great way for a person to find out how she will react to a huge range of circumstances. It forces a much closer look at oneself as many of the things we do without thinking or realizing can stand out as extremely odd in a place like this. And thus arises the question, “is it odd or not?”. “Which way is possibly the better way?” Then, of course, on the flip side are all the things people around here may do without thinking that struck me as different at first. There have just been so many stimulating thoughts to work out and ideas to consider. I’m glad I was able (and still amazed it was possible) to come for long enough that the thought of leaving didn’t even cross my mind for the bulk of my time here. That is what has allowed me to completely establish myself at the school, implement some long-term projects that I’m extremely proud of, totally immerse myself in the culture to explore all its fascinating depths and intricacies, gain great comfort with the language, and come to know and love many people here not only in their present condition, but also with full understanding of all their unique and varied histories. It’s also what makes it feel like such a painful uprooting at this point in time.

Now on to Tibet. I have a little over a week in between when I must leave Nepal (for visa reasons) and when my Tibetan volunteer project starts up, so after flying into Xining, China I’ll be going by train to tour around Lhasa and then on to the Everest Base Camp on the north side of the border with Nepal. It’ll be nice to have a brief journey as tourist to see at least a few things before joining up with a new host family and seeing more what daily Tibetan lifestyle is like. From Xining, where I’ll meet my host sister, it’s about a 14 hour bus ride in a southwesterly direction to what sounds like possibly one of the most remote places on earth. Having just attributed most of my joy and success here in Nepal to the length of time I was able to stay, it is with slight contradiction that I now head off for only a one month volunteering stint. Though I’m realistically aware of my limitations to make any substantial or lasting contributions in a short 4 week period, I’m still very much looking forward to the experience. I do hope to do some good, and my experience here will probably help me make the most of it, but it’s likely on this next stage I will gain a lot more from it for myself than I can ever hope to return. But I’ll give it my best shot anyway. The plan was to continue in the theme of teaching at a school, but the area was hit by a massive earthquake last spring and is still burdened by the recovery process. So along with teaching, there will likely be the chance to help rebuild as well. Once again, I find myself heading off into largely unknown territory with not much idea what exactly will be in store for me. Even after all this time in its next door neighbouring country, I have only vague notions about what this next stretch of time will be like. I’ll be sure provide as best descriptions as I can, though they may come quite a bit after the fact. I’m not sure how easily I might be able to find internet while there, and with the Chinese government being notoriously strict on internet censorship and that sort of thing, I likely won’t attempt another post until I’ve come back out again. So expect a bit of a hiatus until early July when I’ll be happy to provide a final recount of my experiences alongside the himalayas, this time from the other side. Namaste for now.

Better to Banda than to Break

Today was a nationwide banda (strike), meaning all shops were closed, there was no traffic on the roads and basically not a single person in the country was supposed to do any work at all. The reason for this particular one depends on who you ask. Some would say it's because one of the castes is pushing for splitting up the country and preferential political rights for themselves, others might tell you it was to make a statement about what's sure to be yet another failed attempt at having a constitution written by the (latest) deadline, and others still will cite the main reason as a protest against the continued load-shedding issues and constant water and petrol shortages. I have many opinions about each of these, but don't intend to turn this blog political at all so I'll keep them offline. Regardless, nobody seems to mind these strikes all that much because the average citizen views these political matters either with amusement or indifference and it mostly just means an extra day off work where the men can gather and play cards, the women can sit around a gab, and the kids can take over the streets with their games and bicycles without having to jump out of the way of whizzing motorcycles or lumbering buses every few seconds.

For me, the banda was also much appreciated because it allowed us to finally get the last of the organizing and editing done on our English conversation book. It had been a slow process after finishing the majority of the writing back in January and then facing many delays with the typist. It's interesting trying to get some actual work accomplished in a place where meetings or appointments are almost unheard of. We would agree to a time to go to the typist's "office" , but instead of being able to schedule a block of time and being able to count on it to be used for our project alone, the priority seemed to always go to the most persistently obnoxious of people trying to squeeze through the door. Being able to complain and argue your way to cut in front of others in any sort of waiting situation is quite the art form here. Thus, many long evenings were spent sitting in the tiny space jostling amongst others for some attention to be paid to one's own project. For every 3 hours spent there, I'd estimate roughly 40 minutes of the typist's time was spent in discussions about whose work should be done next, around an hour spent on typing some other's work who had come in with the most urgent of pleas, another hour broken up in assorted 5 minute chunks for simple printing jobs from memory sticks thrown in his face (most of which dragged out with fixing printer jams and ink failures), and a mere 20 minutes devoted to our task. So progress did not feel quick and it seemed we only got any work done at all by being willing to stay the latest, well after most shops had closed up.

I apologize, I did not plan to write an entire paragraph on the typist delays, but as I got started I realized it makes for a pretty good example of how differently (inefficiently?) things can be done here. But anyway, today was a banda and no shop was supposed to be open, so all went very smoothly without any interference whatsoever from other customers. We (the head teacher, the typist and I) were able to spend the majority of the day huddled around the computer putting all the chapters where they ought to be and finalizing things like forewords and cover pages. Editing is definitely a long process. But despite being trapped in the 5 ft by 7 ft room with the metal shopfront pulled down tight, the shouts and commotions of the Maoists out in the street with their long sticks as they stopped anyone attempting to go past on a motorcycle, and only a bare bulb casting its artificial glare down upon us (all of which creating a rather prison-like atmosphere), it was a good day and makes me happy to feel like the end of this one project is finally within sight. Barring any unexpected circumstances, which are about 90% likely, we hope to be able to take it to the publisher tomorrow afternoon.

It rained quite heavily today, which I couldn't see from within my closed off windowless cell but could at least hear. This has been happening from time to time now that the weather's getting quite hot and monsoon season is just around the corner. The other day it even hailed along with the big rain and heavy winds. This disrupted classes for about 30 minutes as it became too noisy to hear what even the person right next to you was saying and we all watched from the doorways of our classrooms. But when the noise died down enough to resume teaching, I made my way to class 10 for an English lesson. Here, with the clouds so dark (and remember no lights in the school) that I couldn't make out anyone's face past the second row, I had to stand right beside the window, accepting some splashes of rain on the pages in order to get enough light on the book to teach from. Regardless of the poor visibility, we had a rather enjoyable lesson making up stories and inventing extra details beyond what could actually be seen in the sketches provided. Not being able to see or read easily: just one of the many possible interferences to teaching and learning that I can't say I ever encountered as a kid growing up in my well-sheltered, well-lit schools. But it's remarkable the way a person can become easily accustomed to these things. In fact, I don't think I even recognized it as a noteworthy day until I sat down to write this blog post. Nowadays it takes a bit of brain-wracking to think of what may make for an event of interest as this all feels exceptionally normal to me. Yes, I could be in for quite the shock when my feet once again hit Canadian soil.

Happy New Year!

Yesterday was the first day of Nepali new year, 2068. To celebrate, the whole family gathered for a picnic near a temple beside the Bagmati River, not too far from our house. In traditional Nepali style, this picnic involved a whole lot of food, much dancing, some tika, a moment for puja, a few games somewhat related to the likes of charades and duck-duck-goose though distinctly different, and, of course, a great deal of...

...hockey? Alright there may have been a little foreign influence on that last part, but I swear it was the kids who insisted on bringing our sticks and jerseys. Yes, we have jerseys.

It seems hockey has become the entire focus of my little nephew's life. I'm quite sure he's the only person in Nepal who can spell everything from Pittsburgh Penguins to Vancouver Canucks and he has quickly picked up the names for all the variety of penalties possible (not to mention become rather effective at putting them to good use). His questions are very specific and cover off every last detail of the game. After I told him about the type of water bottles players use, he poked a hole in the top of an empty Sprite bottle and spent the whole day practicing squirting water into his mouth. But mostly it all ended up down his shirt or sometimes, as he said, "nose going happened". So, as you can tell, I'm teaching him only the important things in my limited time here. Unfortunately, as can be seen in the photos with a Maple Leaf on his chest, he's a little bit confused about which teams are the good ones. I'm still working on setting him straight.

Earlier this week were some interesting meetings amongst other members of the local education community. We were discussing how best to develop government schools in the area. Public schools around here have quite the challenge to retain students because so many private schools have taken root and can promise English-medium instruction and higher rates of passing exams. Not all of them achieve their results in a wholly legitimate way. I've heard reports of some schools, knowing that on the School Leaving Certificate exams only class 10 material is tested and not any previous years, will skip class 9 subjects and teach the class 10 textbook in both class 9 and 10 to give the students 2 full years of learning specifically what they will be tested on. Yet there's no denying that most usually they are the better option if the parents can afford it. Even in those rare cases where they may be left with a small gap where all the information from class 9 is supposed to fit, there's a definite advantage in Nepali society to be learning in English and of course have access to facilities like science and computer labs. So government schools have started to struggle with dropping numbers of students each year, which is of great concern to many, and most of all the Head Teachers.

Sunday is the start of the new school year, and today was a final meeting amongst our teachers to set the daily routine and decide important matters like which class will be in which classroom. Things seemed to get heated on the topic of whether to provide tea to the students or not. Though it's possible I misinterpreted some parts of it. My understanding of Nepali drops dramatically when 3 people are trying to talk over each other all at once and as rapidly as they can. The biggest issue of contention, though, is surrounding school fees. The Head Teacher wants to abolish all fees and make the school completely free. I support him in this attempt to make education available for all, especially in a place where it's very common to send young children from poor families to work at a very early age. But, there's been a lot of pushback from the other teachers who don't think this is possible. In my view, it would be a great thing to put into action. Rather than spending so much time and effort trying to think of how to attract students back from the private schools, as discussed in the previous paragraph, I think being able to attract the students that currently aren't going to school at all is the way to go.

All in all, I'm excited to be entering into a brand new year (for the second time this year), and looking forward to all that's sitting ahead of me on the horizon. There seems to be a great deal in store for the immediate future, including a final 6 weeks here in Nepal, a month in Tibet, perhaps a brief couple weeks of traveling around SE Asia (though the more I think of it lately those couple weeks might be better spent at home for readjustment), and then back to work. It's amazing that all of that can be called "immediate" future now, as returning back home used to seem very far away. I guess that's just the way time works though. It passes. Life happens. The future comes.

Water Wars and Wicket Watching

Well, I'm down to my final two months here in Nepal, and thus the end is starting to come within sight. I'm glad that I've been able to be here as long as I have because up until recently I hadn't been thinking much at all about the time when I'll be leaving. It's allowed me to feel settled here, almost as if this is indeed my own country, and has given me the chance to understand the culture a whole lot more deeply. It seems to me that when I first arrived I thought this place was very different from home. But then after a short time I began thinking maybe it was not all that different after all. Much of the initial shock wore off quickly and I started to think life here was basically very similar. It's only within the last couple months that I've come to realize all the subtle differences that I never could've picked up on in the beginning, but these have been the most interesting to me and seem to give the country it's great uniqueness. Much more so than the obvious initial surface observations. It is indeed a very different place, but not at all because of the reasons that I first thought it was. If I was a better writer, or felt it possible to take up thousands of pages of internet space while still retaining anyone's attention at all, I might attempt to cover off all of these subtle intricacies here. With neither of those being true, I'll have to settle for just as many tidbits as I can manage to describe in not too many words. The rest I'm sure will come out sooner or later once I'm back home and find myself unable to have any normal conversation without excessive use of the phrase "Back in Nepal..." when I'll surely manage to annoy anyone who has to spend much time with me by describing details that will likely be interesting only to myself. Sorry in advance.

Last weekend I discovered my absolute favourite of all festivals. Holi, the festival of colour. People will tell you stories about an ancient miraculous escape of the young Prahlad from one of the Hindu goddesses (or demonesses rather) involving much fire and triumph and that sort of thing. This is the official reason for a day of "worship" on this particular religious holiday. But really when it comes down to it, the whole day seems like just an excuse to attack all your neighbours with as much coloured water as you can muster. It's essentially a nationwide water fight that lasts the entire day. You might think it's only young kids that take part in such an event, but this is not at all the case. The hardest water balloon I took in the face was thrown by a woman who could've been no less than 87 years old. Packs of people of all ages would take to the streets with their pockets full of coloured powder and small plastic baggies to fill with water. At the same time other people will head up to their rooftops with friends and family to launch attacks from above. The people with the tallest roofs have a distinct advantage. Ours is relatively low, so we were easy targets for water bombs from every which way. But, despite being open for attacks from all kinds of unexpected directions, we had strength in numbers and put up a good fight. It was a lot of fun launching water balloons (or sometimes entire buckets of water) at people on other rooftops or down on the street below. Some of the braver boys from the street came running up our stairway at one point to smear the coloured powder all over our faces and hair. Most of the day, we remained united as a household in our pursuit of drenching as many surrounding people as we possibly could. But if there was a lull in streetwalkers for long enough (generally any more than 5 minutes), we quickly turned on each other with our buckets and balloons and thus got soaked to the bone many times over. For the life of me, I can't think why every country doesn't do this at least once a year.

The school year has come to a close now. The students were all happy to be finished their exams and have a couple weeks off to regroup before classes start back up again. They will receive their results this Sunday and in the meantime we've been meeting as teachers to prepare for the start of a new year. We haven't found out yet how class 10 did on their School Leaving Certificate exams (they all went to be graded at the central education office and results will first be published in the newspaper before sent to us directly), but I was proud of the progress many of the students made since their 2nd term exams back in December. The end of the year felt quite successful, and we've got some exciting ideas to lead into the year 2068, so I continue to be very happy working at Vaishnavi School.

In other news, the Cricket World Cup has had any streetside shop with a TV positively overflowing with college kids trying to watch the games. Today's match in particular drew large crowds everywhere (Pakistan vs. India in the semi-finals), but unfortunately the power cut out just at half time so most will have to wait until the morning to hear the result. Being Canadian, of course I knew nothing about the game before coming here. But I find I'm a big fan of any sort of world sporting event where countries are passionately competing against each other, so I've gotten myself right wrapped up in the excitement. I was therefore crushed, but not at all surprised, when Canada was eliminated easily during the round robin, and have already looked up the load-shedding schedule for Saturday's final match so that I can move from our house to a friend's house in another district at the appropriate time to catch almost the entire game. The plan is likely to backfire, as Nepal's electricity providers view their own schedule as no more than mere guidelines and certainly can't be counted on. But, you never know, it might work out. Today's power cut was off by about an hour, which had us all hopefully believing they might've worked in some extra power to keep us going throughout the whole match. Alas, no such luck.

Allowed? Why Not?

The weather is glorious here!!! I'm sorry to start a blog post with such an unexciting topic, but the weather is consistent and predictable here so whenever I mention it the general reaction is, "yea...obviously, why do you feel the need to bring it up?". Being from a place where the weather changes nearly every hour, and is thus a big part of our lives, it's hard for me to go so long without talking about it, so there you have it. The days are bright and sunny, the evenings are warm and pleasant, the skies are always clear. Phew, glad I got that off my chest.

It seems there's almost nothing you can do here that other people will be bothered by. I may have never seen a Nepali person irritated. Sure, there are still all the other emotions. Happy, sad, angry, fearful, surprised, disappointed, indifferent. But annoyed just doesn't seem to happen. It's a very much more live and let live kind of attitude. I used to find myself asking the question, "are you allowed to do that?", quite often. But as with many of my overly Canadian comments, I've stopped. The answer was always essentially the same.

"Are you allowed to just light a fire in the middle of the street like that?" --- "Yea, why not?".

"Are you really allowed to throw litter out of your 2nd floor window?" --- "Yea, why not?".

"They let you drive right along the sidewalk to get to the front of this jammed up mess of vehicles?" --- "Yea, why not? And who is this 'they' you're talking about?".

Nobody's ever stopping anyone from doing anything at all around here. I try to explain who 'they' is that might come in to stop certain behaviours, but quickly realize there is no 'they'. Even at home the chances of an actual authority figure coming along to fine you for any particular transgression is marginal at best. Many perfectly legal activities are prevented just by the threat of irritating our neighbours and fellow society members. For the most part it's frowned upon to walk across a person's lawn, jump to the front of a long line of cars in an exit lane, make excessive noise at any given time (outside of a hockey rink), or heaven forbid be in someone else's way when they're trying to get somewhere in a hurry. In Nepal, I can't even picture someone becoming irritated by any of those things. Thus, "why not?", do what you want to do.

The absence of irritation is particularly apparent when it comes to noises. I believe I've previously mentioned the late night cymbal-clanging that accompanies almost every festival. I've never heard a single complaint against this. Or actually even anyone mention that it kept them awake. Maybe they're just more accustomed to sleeping through noises. In comparison, I know many a person at home who cannot sleep if the faint ticking of a clock is within the room. But there are several other examples as well. Cell phones are the most amusing of these. We sometimes think they're a disturbance at home, but you should see them in a country where disturbances are left entirely unrestricted! When a phone rings, the person will usually slowly take it out, look at it for quite some time (ringing even more loudly, mind you, now that it's been liberated from it's noise-muffling pocket or bag), and then regardless of the situation answer it and start talking away. This happens while in meetings, at training courses, sitting amongst an audience, or even while giving a speech to an audience. I watched with amusement as the head teacher did this a full 3 times while holding a school assembly. All the students and other teachers just sat calmly as he had somewhat lengthy conversations that sounded like they were primarily concerning his dinner plans. I'm just glad none of the students have their own cell phones.

A final example of being allowed to do whatever it is you'd like without anyone minding at all... My nephew has recently become rather obsessed with hockey. When he wakes up, he starts talking about hockey. When he goes to sleep, he's talking about hockey. When we do our special super-secret handshake, it now includes the words "hoooockey game, hooooockey yea!". Weird, I'm not sure where he got it from. But as I was drawing pictures of hockey rinks for him, he decided it would be necessary to paint all those proper lines on our rooftop. Our rooftop, though it used to be a very useful space for preparing vegetables, drying rice, or beheading chickens, has now been devoted entirely to the game. My reaction: "wow, that would be cool, but we'll have to ask your mom". I was expecting the idea to get immediately shut down. Her response: "yea, why not?". Keep in mind, this is the space that's used for all family gatherings, parties, or just anyone who drops by for tea. It would be the equivalent of painting red and blue lines all across your dining room floor at home. I have since convinced Pratik that chalk would be a better idea. You know, things are changing in Nepal. With all these Western ideas flooding in, I could see them 30 years from now, having learned of the 'irritated' emotion, sitting around on the roof and cursing that Canadian who came and painted bright red and blue lines all over the place.

Out With the Cold, In With the New

I’ve become considerably busier over the past few months with more projects building on top of each other. These days I’m working very closely with the head teacher and together we’re discussing new ideas daily for various improvements that can be made. I’m convinced I couldn’t have come at a better time or gotten any luckier with my project placement to find myself at a school under leadership that’s happy to promote drastic and positive change where it makes sense. The carpet has been laid in the library, which I used the winnings of the video contest to pay for, and has made a big difference there to make it a whole lot more welcoming. It makes me abundantly happy to have the many eager students stop by during lunch break every day and ask if they can come in. Their interest caused me to set up a separate storybook section so that they can find the books they want more easily. It’s great to see them so excitedly sit down with books that within the classroom it’d be like pulling teeth to get them to pay any attention to. Aside from the library, my teaching focus has been mostly on class 3, who I’m still with for one period a day, and also class 10, who will have to write their School Leaving Certificate exams after about 3 weeks and need to study hard to get ready for them. And then in less of a teaching role and more of an implementation role, other efforts to make the learning environment more child-friendly have been going exceptionally well. The biggest thing is getting the teachers to make lessons more interactive for the students. The traditional Nepali way is to lecture from the front and have students memorize and recite answers all day long. It was a little astonishing at first to find out how very slight a variation from something they’d memorized would have to be for them to have no idea what the answer was. But some new methods we’ve been getting into place have been doing a lot of good, in my biased opinion, because the students are allowed to think more critically for themselves and be more engaged in their lessons. And best of all they’re becoming noticeably happier. It always makes me smile to see them try out their English speeches in front of the morning assembly or hear them still singing and acting out their new rhymes as they leave school for the day.

On another side of things, the head teacher’s growing compulsion to get me involved in absolutely everything he does has had me working all across the Kathmandu valley lately. He does a fair amount of teacher training, so now I also do a fair amount of teacher training. The first one of these, I was brought along to on the pretense that I would be sitting off to the side and observing / taking some notes / providing feedback after the session. Instead what happened was his love of having me get up and do impromptu public speaking kicked in, and I ended up teaching a bulk of the course. Keep in mind, I’m not at all qualified to be doing such things, so I’m sure it can only be bad news for the future of Nepal’s educators. Since that first one I’ve been more prepared (mentally) for how much involvement will be asked of me, though actual preparation is still limited by usually not knowing 1) when we’re going for the next training session until the day of, and 2) which of many possible topics we’ll be presenting on until we arrive at the destination. Luckily, we’ve fallen easily into a pretty fluid team dynamic presentation style that almost makes it seem like we know what we’re doing and thus far it’s been quite well received. This is good news for me because the invitations out to these and all sorts of other opportunities have kept coming, and I’m very much appreciating the chances to see a great variety of aspects of Nepal’s education system. These have ranged from administering listening and speaking practice questions to class 10 students at one of the best private schools just north of Kathmandu to running an employee orientation session for a publishing company (the one that will be publishing the book we’ve now finished writing and are just going through final edits on). Needless to say, though I guess I will anyway, it’s all keeping me perpetually on my toes and exposing me to a great many things I never would have thought I’d get to see.

Festivals have become significantly sparser since the end of November. As it turns out, my arrival just preceded what could be called “the festival season”, and they’re not quite as common during the rest of the year as they seemed on first impression. But today was Shiva Raatri. A big day for people flocking to the Pashupatinath Temple, many having walked for a month from different parts of India, I’m told. But also the day when packs of small children will block off the roads by holding a long piece of string across it and not allow anyone to pass until some money is given. Fortunately, it only takes a couple rupees for them to happily drop their guard, and when I approached one particular mob that included some students of mine, they dropped it before I even reached them (I think in fear of poor grades on their next pop quiz). And of course, the entire extended family came over to our house for a small feast in the afternoon. Then later in the evening people will gather together in the streets clustered around bonfires and dance the night away. Seems like a great way to close out winter and kick off spring, which has definitely been lingering in the air recently. Nights are warm yet again, lush bright green rice paddies have sprouted right up, and it's possible once more to take an actual shower with the water from the rooftop tanks as long as you wait until afternoon when they've had a chance to absorb enough sunshine.