Thanksgiving

        A WAYYYY while back was Thanksgiving.  This was my 3^rd time missing the holiday (my first time in China and the second in Botswana) although you have been away for it before, it doesn’t mean that you become numb to the sensation of missing your family or eating the best food of the year. The second one is only accentuated more while living in a county with limited dietary variations. Now there are a considerable amount food items which I miss. But to save me from the agony, I will not go into the foodthatmustnotbenamed.

               

Fulbright obviously knows this and for Thanksgiving they did us a solid.

                Ovens in Nepal are about as elusive as a yeti.  Any ‘baked good’ you purchase here must be judged on a totally different scale than back home. Even in Kathmandu, the only houses I have seen with ovens are those of embassy employees.

                For Thanksgiving, Fulbright had arranged a van to take us back to Kathmandu so that we could celebrate with everyone and have a real Thanksgiving meal.  Spending Thanksgiving with all of Fulbright, along with many people from the Embassy, was wonderful but the true highlight was when the van that Fulbright had arranged came a day early to deliver us pies (real pies, apple and pumpkin!) for us to share with our families.  Needless to say, we were stoked. That afternoon we went from house to house sharing our pies with our families.

Cutting the pie with the family

Julia and I being true cross-cultural ambassadors, drinking roxi with are apple pie

Krista and her host fam

We also celebrated Thanksgiving with our ACCESS Program. And because who wouldn’t want to eat mashed potatoes and Nepali Turkey (chicken) two days in a row, we split the group up into two. The night before, we met up and prepared mashed potatoes:

Only to realize the next day that 10kg we had prepared the previous day with garlic and milk had turned sour. Having not cooked for several months and thus not had to worry about refrigeration, we had completely spaced until we smelled the rancid pot of potatoes.  We quickly were forced to make the meal again, but it turned out just as tasty and with a little less food poisoning.

Our Feast: For some reasons the canned corn was a complete failure. Students would not eat it.

I don't always wear pinstriped pants when I serve mashed potatoes, but when I do, it's in a rural Nepali town

Some other things we did while on our break in Kathmandu:

We prepped for our upcoming trip to Everest. This is Julia sampling some alpine gear.

We also found these guys

The ‘In Brine’ was the selling point

Underdressed and Overimpressed

        I always had a suspicion that my focal person for Fulbright in Gorkha, Bom Sir, was some type of G (I mean you sort of have to if you have a gold ring with your initial on it), but a night a few weeks ago solidified it for me.

I was in Kathmandu when I received a call from Bom Sir inviting me to his son’s post wedding party/dinner. Stoked, I rushed across town only midway through to realize the reason for me being in Kathmandu and what that dictated about my appearance. If it hadn’t been for a pesky ear infection that day, I would have been somewhere in the middle of a whitewater kayaking trip. To put it bluntly, you don’t really pack pinstriped suits for such trips (although you do for school).  I arrived at the ‘Party Palace’, a circus tent with a mix of AstroTurf and shag rug laid down, walking past several police in riot gear with my cleanest articles of clothing being my down jacket and chacos.

Bom Sir was looking as good as ever and as I approached he said, “The Prime Minister is arriving." I laughed at his obvious jest at my appearance giving him the Queen’s wave and in my most grandiose voice saying “Thank you, thank you.” To which Bom Sir said “No look!” I turned around, thinking that it was some nickname for his son, only to see four Armed Police Force trucks pull up, their guards unload and out of a white SUV climbed a man whose face is on the front page of the paper nearly every day, Baburam Bhattarai, The Nepalese Prime Minister.

Now here is a photo of a Bom Sir and the man in the black hat (referred to as a topi) who is the PM of Nepal:

     Turns out the PM is from Gorkha and he and Bom went to school together, throw in the fact that Bom’s son is a high ranking police official (with less-than-secret-service milling about) and the PM had to come.

     It quickly became clear that I was the only one in attendance who possessed a camera that also didn’t make phone calls and was thus given the task of documenting the PM’s 15 minute visit. I followed him and his entourage around as their personal photographer, capturing the moments as they greeted the wedding party and presented gifts before leaving just as quickly as they came.

    As the military procession drove away and I snapped my last few photos, it left this soon to be unemployed college graduate wondering, can I put this on my resume?

The PM

Bom, his family, and me (can you spot me? Hint: I'm the one smiling)

Physical Education

My KG Class

                 The past few days for the last period I have gotten to lead Physical Education with the 4^th graders. Yesterday with my beanbag juggling ball, we played 3 Flys Ups. The concept of catching the ball three times then becoming the ‘flyer’, or as I tried to make it more relevant to them by borrowing the term ‘bowler’ from cricket, was totally lost on them.  For them a victory enough was just getting a chance to touch the ball. So I spent a solid hour making them field pop flys and grounders.  The closest thing to baseball outside of cricket Nepal has ever seen.

                As I was leaving I saw a group of KG and 1^st sitting in a circle with one student in the middle and two running around the outside.  They were mimicking Duck Duck Goose which I had taught 4^th the previous day! The concept of Duck and Goose was a little difficult for 4^th and it quickly developed to becoming  ‘Dog, Dog, GOES!’ KG and 1^st had evolved the game even further replacing ‘dog’ with any word (English or Nepali) that began with the letter ‘d’ and then with a big slap on the back of the head to alert the chaser it was her or his turn.

This is a photo of me and the fam playing dominoes last night. Sajana, 19 is in yellow, Nilima is in front and she is in 6^th grade, Nischal is in the back and he is in class 9 and Aama is in the bottom left.  We had to postpone eating dinner for twenty minutes for Aama to try and win out only for Nischal to have a late game surge and go from last to first in 3 games. Obviously, Aama wouldn’t let it end there so as we ate our meal we had to start another game only to have Aama midway through the game, after she was getting severely beaten, tell us all to go upstairs and study for our exams. I don’t even have exams and she made me feel guilty about procrastination! 

Corporal Punishment

As I have stated before, teaching has been one of the most challenging, yet rewarding experiences of my life so far. Through this journey I have learned a lot. I have also developed an ever deeper appreciation and respect for many of my previous teachers. Coming up with not one, but multiple lessons on a daily basis that are not only engaging and entertaining, but promote critical learning and teach something is a skill that I am still in the process of developing.

               

There are many differences in the system here and  the system that I grew up with, from infrastructure to class sizes to teaching for the test only. But the difference that I have grappled with the most and will never get used to, is corporal punishment. 

               

I have heard contradicting statements on how the government views the act of beating children but whatever their official statement may be it still is a common occurrence in school.  I have a co-teacher who, until I asked him to cease would regularly slap a student on the back or smack their hand with the wooden board eraser if a student was talking while he was or the student didn't complete the homework.  I have also witnessed on several occasions lines of students who are regularly late or absent or failing head to the teachers’ lounge each to get ridiculed and then hit on the hand with a stick.

               

It makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable. And angry.  The justification for it is that the students won’t show respect or learn if they are not beaten.  But many teachers here do not beat their students and still able to maintain order in the class and have students learn.

               

It is something that I struggle with regularly. There are students that know that I will not hit them no matter what they do and they take advantage of that and do not show me respect and talk over me and do not do the work. But they are a minority. From my experience, I have found nothing gains more respect from the students than an engaging and sometimes fun, lesson plan.

Conversations with Students

While walking to class the other day I had one of my 7^th grader students, Rupa, approach me and say what sounded like, “You are very haughty, sir”

“What?” I replied confusedly.

“Haughty sir, haughty”

To which I wanted to reply: “I am disdainfully proud of what?” Before I could come up with a proper response, my face gave away my complete and utter confusion and she tried to repeat herself slower with more emphasis on pronunciation.

“Hay-tee sir, hay-teeeee” Was she trying to make some analogy, comparing me to a 3^rd world country in the Caribbean?

As I stared blankly at her, attempting to decipher this code, she repeated herself.  This time, raising her hand from her head to the level of mine, “You’re very haytee sir, you have much hate.”

“Thank you Rupa” I replied, “I am very tall.”

As she ran off to class I hesitantly said, “Namaste” now all too aware of some of the problems that can arise with improper pronunciation.

To be perfectly honest, I have no idea who this man or his incredibly cute baby are. They approached me at the temple and asked if I could pose for a photo with them, my only stipulation was that they do the same for me.

Myself at Manakamina Temple

Ian and I lounging around at our conference.