Monday was your average day at school, playing with the little kids, getting my glasses bent so badly one of the lenses popped out (i got them mostly bent back), and visiting the houses of children after school. The kids at the Himalayan Helpless Child Academy are wonderful, they fight over who gets to have us over after school. On Monday we went to Saru Rai's house. She served us with ice cold cokes (freshly bought) and cookies (also bought). The house is a bed (plywood attached to the wall with a thin mattress on top), a single element, a television, a few shelves, and a couple water jugs. Simple. Her father greeted us and welcomed us into their home, her mother is either in India or in the field working (not quite sure which). It was very nice.
On Tuesday, we had another Bandh....this time, we went to the children's homes we had visited earlier in the trip. I went to Mann's house (Self-Help Nepal) with Tina, Gerrit, and Isha. We played Uno for an hour, played outside most of the day, enjoyed chow chow soup with mann, his wife, and his best friend and his wife (who are coming to Canada in July), played a bit more, watched some Harry Potter and came home. It was really fun hanging out with the kids and not needing to teach.
The next couple of days we were at school again. I split my time between getting to know the little kids and teaching the older kids. After school we went to Monica and Bipaana's houses, both of which are in the same compound that Saru Rai lives in which is next to the school where the carpet factory workers live. Again, we were very kindly welcomed into their homes. Bipaana tried to feed us Tang with water that we couldn't drink so we made up a story about how we would drink it on the road and poured it into our waterbottles. Genius!
Today (Friday) we had another bandh. This time, it was the maoists who are striking. They are supposed to be giving up their weapons, but they don't want to. Apparently, a bunch of buses were burnt as part of the protest and men with bent rebar and guns were at Samakhushi chowk. We went to the children's homes today and kept to the back route. We aren't in any danger being tourists, but we want to make sure that we don't get caught up in anything. The constitution is supposed to be done by tomorrow, so I guess we'll see what happens! Apparently we should expect a strike tomorrow, and Sunday is a holiday...so a few low key days ahead of us sounds good. We are all pretty tired and many are sick, but we just keep on trucking. Tomorrow night we're having dinner at Mann's house and the following night we're going into Thamel for a Camosun Thank You Dinner for a few of our key supporters here in Nepal. It's crazy thinking we need to start saying our thank yous and goodbyes. But I guess every amazing experience has to come to an end eventually.
Between this post and the last one, I think I've given everyone enough reading material for quite some time....less than 2 weeks to go!
Namaste
On Tuesday, we had another Bandh....this time, we went to the children's homes we had visited earlier in the trip. I went to Mann's house (Self-Help Nepal) with Tina, Gerrit, and Isha. We played Uno for an hour, played outside most of the day, enjoyed chow chow soup with mann, his wife, and his best friend and his wife (who are coming to Canada in July), played a bit more, watched some Harry Potter and came home. It was really fun hanging out with the kids and not needing to teach.
The next couple of days we were at school again. I split my time between getting to know the little kids and teaching the older kids. After school we went to Monica and Bipaana's houses, both of which are in the same compound that Saru Rai lives in which is next to the school where the carpet factory workers live. Again, we were very kindly welcomed into their homes. Bipaana tried to feed us Tang with water that we couldn't drink so we made up a story about how we would drink it on the road and poured it into our waterbottles. Genius!
Today (Friday) we had another bandh. This time, it was the maoists who are striking. They are supposed to be giving up their weapons, but they don't want to. Apparently, a bunch of buses were burnt as part of the protest and men with bent rebar and guns were at Samakhushi chowk. We went to the children's homes today and kept to the back route. We aren't in any danger being tourists, but we want to make sure that we don't get caught up in anything. The constitution is supposed to be done by tomorrow, so I guess we'll see what happens! Apparently we should expect a strike tomorrow, and Sunday is a holiday...so a few low key days ahead of us sounds good. We are all pretty tired and many are sick, but we just keep on trucking. Tomorrow night we're having dinner at Mann's house and the following night we're going into Thamel for a Camosun Thank You Dinner for a few of our key supporters here in Nepal. It's crazy thinking we need to start saying our thank yous and goodbyes. But I guess every amazing experience has to come to an end eventually.
Between this post and the last one, I think I've given everyone enough reading material for quite some time....less than 2 weeks to go!
Namaste
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