Hooligan Herding

Teaching is a pretty sweet gig here. Mostly because of the hooligans that I get to hang out with all day, but partly because school doesn't start until 10 A.M.! In theory this would allow me to sleep in until 9:55. However, the friendly neighborhood Hindu temple finds it necessary to start ringing bells, singing songs, and blowing horns at about 5:00 A.M. No matter though, I now use it as my morning reminder to go shoot a sunrise time-lapse, spend an hour stretching, or waste time with a multitude of other tasks.

At 10 we make our way to the school where we are greeted by 60-70 smiling kids in their school uniforms. Most of the kids have a either a torn up backpack, ripped seams or shredded holes on their shirts and pants, or shoes that are falling to pieces. But, this doesn't phase them. They are HAPPY; happy to be with their friends, happy to see their teachers, happy to kick a flat soccer ball, and happy to learn! It's a little reminder that a life lived simply is a life lived happily.

The bell rings, the kids line up for assembly. Songs are sung, jumping jacks are jumped, and fingernails are checked for length. The kids are dismissed and file into their rooms. Here's where the real fun begins.

Assembly

I open the door to my first class and hear a collective "Goooooood morning teeeeechaaarrr." That part always puts a smile on my face! Before I can sit down, I'm being swarmed by the entire class. "Sir!! Sir!! Andrew Sir!! Sir!! Andrew Sir!! Homework Homework!" A flurry of homework papers are being flung at my face to grade. "Hold on, Hold on. Everyone sit down!!"  We have prayer, more songs, and a memory verse. Now I check homework. Yesterday everyone told me they understood what the assignment was and how to do it. Today, I'd be lucky to find that half of the class did half of the assignment! Ohhhh well... Time to learn!

2nd Grade: The Energizer Bunny on RedBull

Sometimes teaching in English doesn't bode well for me. Like last week. We were forming sentences about a steam engine. "To start the fire you would shovel _____________ into the boiler."

OK guys, to start the fire in our train what do we need to shovel into the boiler? It is a black rock...
 Of course I got the blank stare. Then one girl shouted proudly, "CHILDREN!!!"
I couldn't help but laugh hysterically. Noooo! We don't burn children!
"Brains?" shouted another student. 

The knowledge will fall into my mind.

Lately I've been trying to use as much Nepali as possible since the kids don't seem to understand much of what I say in English. This often proves to be an unsuccessful tactic since the kids like to teach Nepali more than they like to learn English. Either way, it is an absolute blast hanging out with these kids. Lord willing, we will soon find a balance in which we can both learn from each other!

More to come! (I could write pages and pages about these hooligans)

 

A life lived for...

It seems like every time we walk out the door here there are so many things to discover and so many lessons to be learned. Yesterday was no exception. A couple Nepali friends told us that they were going to take us on an all day hike to some Buddhist sites.

The first site was a 1000 step staircase to a massive Buddha statue and temple. It reminded me of something similar the temple staircase in "Kung Fu Panda". It was as if it were intentionally made that way in order to evoke an awareness of our journey in life (the journey to enlightenment for a Buddhist).

The way to Enlightenment

Big Buddha

The second site, called Namo Buddha, is a spectacular sight and one of the most sacred Buddhist pilgrimage sites. It is known as the place where the Buddha, in a previous life as a prince, gave his body to a starving tigress and her cubs. While there, we saw many pilgrims as well as Buddhist monks, both young and old. These people have dedicated their whole life to achieve a better understanding of what they believe in. They know what they believe and they live a life centered around those beliefs. Despite our many differences in lifestyle and religion, these people are spiritually inspiring. I hope that we all can live a life fully dedicated to what we believe in.

Namo Buddha

Gorgeous Scenes and Jungle Steams

It's hard to believe we haven't even been here for 2 weeks! We've seen, explored, and tasted so many new things already. Thankfully, we still appear to be healthy despite some of the worrisome things we've consumed. Our experiments with cooking for ourselves are looking more and more positive, and the best part is that we just bought 20 lbs. of produce for the equivalent of  $5.5! We've also been practicing our Nepali with teachers, students, and friends. We are finally able to decipher the once foreign sounds and pick out a couple words from conversation. The good news is that we have 8 1/2 months left to learn!

Nepali girl tending to her goats. This is only a 15 minute walk from home! In a couple weeks we should be able to see the Himalayas from here.

Another gorgeous day in banepa.

The women here are superheros! They make food for the entire family, clean the house, do the laundry, take care of the kids... Oh and they work in the fields all day with 50-100 lb. baskets that they strap to their forehead. Needless to say, Elliott and I feel pretty weak in comparison.

This year we are based in Banepa, but we will be doing a lot of traveling to more remote villages to do various types of outreach. Last Sabbath was our first village trip. Elliott went to the village of Capin and I went to Kosideka.
We started the morning an hour later than planned for the 2.5 hour bus ride. We crowded onto a local bus with about 30 too many people inside. Naturally, every person in the bus had to stare at the American giant clumsily towering a foot over their heads. We were glad to have a relatively uneventful ride to the end of the bus route where we proceeded to walk for another 2 hours to get to Kosideka. While walking down the trail I went to take a picture of this mud and bamboo shack only to realize that it was the Kosideka church. We had a great time at the church in Kosideka but had to leave in a rush to catch the bus home. Somehow the village kids figured out that the huge pair of shoes outside the church belonged to the American, so they filled them with a parting gift of dirt clods! We hiked out a different way than we had come. This time, we were in for a HOT and SWEATY hike out through the jungle. When we finally made it to the bus stop, we were stoked to end up on the same bus as Elliott and the Capin group! We all shared our snacks and told stories about our adventures.

The Kosideka Church

Kosideka Girls

The hot and humid hike out with my buddy Alex.

Thanks for reading! Hopefully the next post should have some pics of the school kids!!