Baneshwor

Hello everyone,

Wow, it's been an eventful week! Immediately after I last posted on the blog I had two hours of teacher training. This consisted of a nauseatingly enthusiastic man giving me a three-point-lecture on the bloody obvious. One pearl of wisdom was "for a well-planned lesson you need a lesson plan". Why didn't I think of that?

First thing on Tuesday I went to visit the kids at Rasuwa Langtang Orphanage. There are forty-one children (including a two-month-old baby) but only twenty-six beds. The orphanage is on three levels with an accessible roof – and it’s here that the kids spend most of their time flying kites. In fact, the moment I arrived a cheeky little git called Bikay conned me into buying a new kite for him, then promptly snapped the string on a neighbour’s TV aerial. In general the children seem perfectly happy and are always pleased to see me, but I must admit I have three favourites already. They are Surya, a three-year-old boy who won’t leave me alone, Kanti, his unbelievably cute two-year-old sister and Amala, a fifteen-year-old girl who is so rubbish at maths that she can actually benefit from my tuition. I brought some craft materials with me from England and I gave Surya one of the foam stars from a ‘space pack’. Within ten minutes every kid in the orphanage had asked for a star from me. They don’t do anything – they’re just crappy foam stars – but I suppose it’s a rare opportunity for them to own something. Generally the orphanage is a lot of fun but there are occasionally upsetting moments; when I asked one of the children how old he was he replied that he didn’t know.

On Wednesday I went to The World Peace Monastery to observe a lesson. Unfortunately the teacher didn’t show up so I had to take the class myself. I don’t think I have ever been more terrified – I hadn’t prepared any kind of lesson plan (despite the repeated, enthusiastic insistence of Teachertrainerman) and had no idea what level of English the monks had. It went predictably badly; I started with very basic stuff, merely receiving bored expressions in return, so then took an inexplicably huge leap towards explaining conjunctives, prepositions and phrasal verbs. To twelve-year-old monks! I also managed to complicate simple explanations; my favourite example is when I drew a picture of a man and described him as 'short, rotund and jovial'. One smart-arse stood up in his seat and addressed the class; "he means little, fat and happy". My second lesson, with six more advanced students, went much better. The biggest challenge here was not glancing too often at the large red swastika on the far wall. I know it’s an ancient Buddhist symbol for eternity, but since the whole Hitler debacle it makes for some intimidating décor. And they call themselves enlightened!

On Wednesday evening I tried eating rice with my hands for the first time. There’s actually a very intricate technique to it – they don’t tip food into their mouths, but arrange their fingers so they can transfer rice up each digit until it reaches the top, where they chomp it down. It’s quite messy but strangely enjoyable, like being a kid again.

On Thursday I observed two lessons at the Mahendra Lower Secondary School. I didn’t think the teacher was very good, and she made several mistakes such as pronouncing leopard ‘le-o-pard’ (like ‘leotard’) and growled ‘grew-led’. When one of the kids pronounced ‘growled’ perfectly, the teacher scolded and corrected him. After school I caught a bus to Baneshwor for lunch, and found a place called Meatco that does an amazing chowmein. I’ve had this same lunch every day now for a week – by the time I get to China I’ll be sick to death of both rice and noodles. I finished lunch with a refreshing Gaylord ice-cream then walked to the monastery for my first over-prepared lessons. They went really well, the kids looked much less confused and I started to feel like a real guru. Every day since I have grown in confidence and now I’m not at all nervous about teaching lessons. This is actually a little disappointing – I thought teaching would be my biggest hurdle (due to my crippling fear of addressing groups and my lack of experience with kids) but I’ve conquered it already! I’ve also been going to the orphanage every evening and basically doing Amala’s homework for her. I had heard a rumour that Europeans smell of milk to Nepalis so asked Amala if this was true. She confirmed that I smelt milky to her. I told her she reeked of daalbhat and stormed out.

On Friday I taught my first class at the school. It went okay, but it’s often difficult because the classrooms are only separated by a half-wall, so every noise penetrates the entire building. I looked quite foolish when I was telling my kids to shut up, then realised it was the class next door. On Saturday – the single day off in the week – I got up a little late and went to the VSN office to meet some of the newcomer volunteers. There was an American family (Mark, Laura and daughter Aubree) and a Polish/British girl called Lucyna, who I ventured into Thamel with in the afternoon. We ended up going to several travel agents to look at possible trips from Kathmandu. There’s a three-day safari trip to Royal Chitwan National Park and a sixteen-day trek to Everest base camp. While we were in Thamel we saw a cow walk over to a market stall and start eating the produce. The owner simply stood there and watched, unable to do anything. I know I should respect different cultures and religions, but it seems grotesque to me that families go without food while there are several well-fed bovine wandering the streets.

On Sunday I was back to work. I found some good internet phones during my lunch break, but the delay makes every conversation like speaking to your grandparents. I met volunteer Natasha in Baneshwor and took her to Meatco for a chowmein! It’s actually very rare to see another Westerner around town, so it was odd to see how much she stood out. Whenever you do see another tourist it’s mandatory to nod acknowledgment, which feels a little sectarian to me. Anyway, after lunch I went to the monastery but didn’t manage to get to the orphanage as no buses were running. I later discovered this was because there had been a bus-bomb in Kathmandu, killing two locals and injuring several more. This is the first bomb since the peace treaty two years ago, and I’m praying this isn’t the start of another spate of bi-weekly Maoist attacks.

On Monday I awoke with a very sore eye. At first I thought it was just an eyelash but it didn’t shift after two-hours of clumsy prodding. I had to teach all my lessons with one eye half-closed, which was fine until it came to drawing cubes and cylinders on the blackboard. At the school I was told that I shouldn’t go back until the infection had cleared up. Sugandha told me not to go to the monastery or orphanage either, so I went for a beer with some of the volunteers. When I woke up yesterday my eyes were virtually glued shut. I bought some eye-drops which simply seemed to transfer the problem from one eye to the other. Instead of work I went into Thamel with Lucyna to sort out our trip to Chitwan, and we booked it from next Wednesday to Friday.

Today I woke up and my eye infection had subsided a little, but I still wasn’t allowed to go to work (woe is me). I am feeling quite guilty about the orphanage, as I now haven’t been since Friday and I’m having three days off next week, but there’s nothing I can do (except give up the safari trip, and I’m not an idiot!) There are six volunteers now interested in the Everest trek and we’re meeting this evening to discuss when to go. Two of the others are experienced trekkers, so we’re considering simply booking flights in and out of Lukla and doing one of the routes independently. I’ll definitely get a porter though as I’m far too lazy and unfit to carry my huge rucksack the whole distance. Our highest point will be Everest base camp at 5545m, but as we have to go up and down valleys, we will actually climb over 9000m.

So that’s about it. On Friday there’s another drunken outing to Thamel, but this time with people who aren’t sodding off the next day. And hopefully my eyes will be okay so I can get back to work tomorrow. I haven’t told the monastery or orphanage about Chitwan so I really need to get back.

All the best,
Joe x

PS. Did I really begin this entry with "wow"?