Hi everyone :)
Sorry about not posting for a month (oops) but have been wi-fi problems at the hotel. I've had truly incredible time over the past month and I've got plenty to tell you about :). Let's get started!
All in all teaching is going very well across the board and I've seen a marked improvement in Class 5's writing skills which I'm very pleased about. We've got to know some of our fellow teachers very well, especially Ragaram (our coordinator teacher who looks after us) who likes to check up on us often and make sure we're ok.
Two weekends ago Rebecca and I visited Sophie and Laura in their village, Godawri, to watch them perform in their school's annual talent competition. They did a great bolly-wood style dance routine in some amazing red Saris. The whole school were impressed and we all had a great time. The kids were pretty good to, with some great dances and some comedy sketches that had the audience in stitches (well, apart from the four of us....). And what talent show wouldn't be complete without phone-in voting? Yup, that's right in the middle of Nepal we found a school talent show using phone-in voting. Just like in the UK!
The four of us just before Sophie and Laura performed
After the show was finished we walked back to Sophie and Laura's house for a quick visit. Their house is VERY nice, complete with dining table and chairs and a seated toilet! (I sit on the floor to eat and use a squat toilet!). After lunch of noodle soup it was back to Kathmandu for me and Rebecca. It was pouring with rain and we got very cold on the walk to the hotel. Didn't help that there was no hot water for showers at the hotel either....
The week before last was my final full week of teaching before our month off (more on that later). Had a true comedy moment in class five on Monday morning when a curious goat decided to pay a visit. Maybe he was a secret English student? Rebecca got a day off that day to go to a party in Kathmandu with her family but I wasn't going to be missing out. I was invited along with the rest of the teachers to a coming of age party (or Banjabunga ceremony) just up the hill. Whilst we only stayed for an hour we enjoyed some great food (buffalo curry and Barfii, milk fudge, being the stars of the show) and I was introduced to yet more members of the village.
Last weekend showed the beginnings of a holiday atmosphere :). We were all back in Kathmandu and enjoying ourselves, I also had my first warm shower for three weeks (my shower in the village as one setting: VERY Cold, and the hot water at the hotel is provided by a solar heater - and it hadn't been sufficiently sunny 3 weekends in a row)! We also had another Nepali lesson with Ram, the teacher we had on our second day of the trip, and he invited us to his school on Monday to watch a dance programme. His school is huge! It's one of the best in the country and has nearly 8,000 students (for perspective, Rebecca grew up in a town of 6,000 people!) and is the size of a university campus, complete with two swimming pools! The dance programme was very good and lunch was very kindly provided, ice cream for dessert aswell!!
This past week only saw me teaching on Tuesday and Wednesday as I had some visitors arrive in Kathmandu on Thursday afternoon: Mum and Dad! Nepal has been on their bucket list for a while now and it just so happened that I was in the country when they found time to visit! After a catch-up dinner on Thursday night I spent Friday morning showing them around Sawabunath (or the "The Monkey Temple"). My Nepali got a workout that day, although it paid off with bartering for taxis and souvenirs for Mum and Dad (the crowning achievement being getting Mum two paintings for 1,000 rupees down from 3,500!). They headed to Pashupatinath Temple in the afternoon to watch traditional funeral ceremonies whilst I took it easy.
Me and Dad enjoy the local brew, "Gorkha", on Thursday evening
Saturday saw us all head to the village (by local bus, I wanted them to have the full Nepali experience :p) to spend a few days with my host family. They hit it off straight away and Dad spent the afternoon teaching the kids how to juggle in our front yard. We even persuaded Susma and Rajan to have a go! It was a great afternoon and everyone had fun.
Dad's afternoon juggling class :)
Sunday was a day I've been looking forward to for a long time. It was the day of the Holi festival! Known as the "festival of colour" it's a Hindu festival where everyone spends the day throwing coloured paint and water balloons over everyone in the area! As for the event itself it was a truly amazing experience. It seemed like the whole village came together to have fun and get into the spirit of things. Some of the kids had been up since 3am as they were so excited! We had a group of 14 Australian Rotary Club members (who are funding the new building for the school) join in the fun who were a great addition. They really got into the swing of things. The event itself was chaos but that's part of the fun, powder flew in all directions with people smothering your face in with powder or emptying buckets of water over you (as happened to Rebecca!). There was dancing (complete with a local drummer under the bus shelter), singing and chants of "Holi, Holi!" (One of which I led after being hoisted onto the shoulders of some of the villagers!). The young kids were especially accurate with water bombs (they got me in the head with one en route to the school in the morning) and whenever I opened another packet if powder I had 5 kids ready to ask for some. It was a truly amazing day and spending it with family and great friends (both Rebecca and the Australians) in the "real" Nepal was an experience I'll never forget. It was a hundred times better than staying in Kathmandu for it.
On that note, over recent years the authorities have tried clamping down on the "Holi chaos" in Kathmandu. Mainly due to the all out madness but also because of the harmful chemicals in some of the powdered paints along with balloons filled with polluted water. It's not uncommon for some locals in Kathmandu to lock themselves away for the whole day to avoid getting hurt to covered in harmful paint (sadly two young children died yesterday after falling three stories).
Despite this we had a fun and pain-free Holi in the village and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I guess the only really downside is getting clean afterwards, I must have spent half an hour trying to wash off the colour and today my scalp is still red and there's paint in my ears two days on!
Me, Mum and Dad at the start of the welcome ceremony for the Australians
Getting into the spirit of Holi with the locals :)
Me, Rebecca and Zoe (who will join us on our trek) after the chaos ended.
On Monday we said goodbye to Susma and Rajan to return to Kathmandu, I won't return for a month as the group are off to travel Nepal and Tibet. We all met up in Kathmandu for dinner at Or2K and caught up on our Holi experiences. Today will see me and Rebecca extending our Visas whilst Mum and Dad will be going home to Oman tonight :(. I'll be sad to see them go but I've had an amazing time with them over the past few days and I'm glad they were here for Holi.
Now our month of travel begins! Our first trip is a 7 day Langtang trek (starting on Thursday), followed by 3 days whitewater rafting and a safari in Chitwan National Park, 3 days relaxing in Pokhara and to round it all off an 8 day tour of Tibet (with a side trip to Everest Base Camp en route!). We all can't wait to get started and take a break from teaching for a while :). After we get back I'll only have a month left in Nepal! Time has passed very quickly and I'm halfway done! Plenty more adventures to come though, I'll keep you updated.
That's it for this entry guys, thanks for reading and take care.
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