Merry Blogsmas!

5B on Sports Day

crossing the river rapid with D

my "interested" face

Chris and I overdoing it at a buffet

My girls: Sushma and Kaalu

Hi folks! As usual it's been a couple of months since I last typed, and a lot has been going on, so let's see what kind of picture I can paint... in list form.

--We did go on that trek, I swear, and it was beautiful to say the least... 5 days up to Sandakphu (good old Sandakphu), where we saw the sunrise along with Everest, and 1 day back down 1500m of descent, which rendered us unable to use stairs for a couple days. I'm just glad I got to use all that gear I got last year for Christmas. The picture you see is the 4 of us pretending to understand what Denise is showing us on the map.

--After a bus ride home that makes Greyhound seem like a luxury liner (I know Suzie, it's a bold statement)... we made it back to Godavari on the biggest tika day of Dashain--the biggest Hindu festival in Nepal. Now, Dashain is a beautiful holiday full of culture, family and opportunities for learning, but let's be honest... they make giant swings out of rope and bamboo and hang them from trees! They're called pings and they were the highlight of my October.

--Two weeks after Dashain came Tihar... where the real fun happens. This is the festival to honor your brothers, but as I quickly learned (as I did with the endless dancing during Teej) it's really about lighting hundreds of candles, stringing up Christmas lights, singing carols door-to-door, and eating until your face falls off. I spent the 4-day holiday with Sushma and the whole gang, putting tika on "my brothers," Suraj and Subash. You were there in spirit, Ed. The picture you see there is me showing off MY tika. They cut a very fine slit in a leaf, place that on your forehead, and then put every color down, so that when you peel the leaf off, you have that banging strip of color down your face. Sushma's mom was initiated into the world of my digital camera, took about 200 pictures in 15 minutes--about 10 of which actually had people in them. And then I lost them all along with my pen drive... but I digress.

--After Tihar we got right down to business at school, preparing for one of the biggest productions I've ever seen... SPORTS DAY. If any of you are familiar with the Waiting for Guffman Christopher Guest films (and this mainly goes out to you, Phillips), I've found the inspiration for his next project. You would have thought that the 2008 Olympics were being held at St. Xavier's Godavari, for crying out loud. I've never seen anything like it... 2 months of practice, 5 days a week, during class, team patrons, new team uniforms, running, jumping, crawling, biscuit-eating contests, teacher's 100m relay! It was a blur. After the 2 day EVENT, I'm proud to say that we, the Panthers, took home the prize (a trophy taller than me that's been in the school for 30 years, thankyouverymuch). Denise and I ran the relay with the rest of the gals in our stunning puke-green khurtas. Chris dominated Tug-of-War. Sushma won Best Athlete. I could go on and on. I'm in the process of trying to post a picture of my 5B kids in their SPORTS DAY get-ups.

--That brings me to the more recent present. This just in... it's freezing. We teach in hats and coats and gloves, refrigerate things on the kitchen table, and despite our successfully rat-proof house, it is that season, and we've had a couple traumatic experiences, including one night when Denise faced down a particularly acrobatic banister-scaling little guy, swung at him like a baseball, and swatted him out of our lives forever with her walking stick. It was heroic. And terrifying. Now I know what you're thinking.... nasty. But rest assured that this has only happened once or twice. Usually it's just a middle-of-the-night suspicion that brings us all out into the hallway in our long johns and winter coats to laugh our heads off and then go back to bed. Half-awake we play out hilarious rat-swatting scenarios in which Chris and I continually miss, hitting Denise instead, in the stomach over and over while the rat escapes. You get the idea. Ultimately, we clear the room and go back to our sleeping bags until the next adventure.

--While everything at home and in the classroom is as great as ever, we're in the middle of a pretty rocky time at our placement, with the people in charge and our presence as volunteers in general. It's a frustratingly long story and we're still right in the middle of it, so I won't say much more. We're taking it one day at a time, and I feel confident in those with the power to make decisions. Keep us in your thoughts. Of course, if you're curious, don't hesitate to ask (or I'll refer you to my better half [who has high-speed internet and, of course, all the details]). I hope this finds everybody knee-deep in snow and having a magical Christmas. Miss you all. Until next time...

--Sar

This month's Blog title comes to you courtesy of Mr. Drew Lazzara: choclazz@gmail.com

I now feel the need to give credit to the (late) titles entered by Suz and Jake.

Deck the Halls with Boughs of RATS

Kathmandu you hear what I hear?

Come Nepal ye Faithful

and, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Mountain Goat

Hoosiers in Nepal, Here Comes the Fall

Well it's been a quick minute, but I thought I'd get a blog up before our big 3 week break coming up for Dashain. It's the biggest holiday in Nepal, and we're headed to Jhapa on the Indian border to visit another St. Xavier's, go for a nice long trek, and spend a few days at a Bhutanese refugee camp. When we get back we'll jump into Term III and before we know it, it'll be cold enough to refridgerate anything left sitting out in the kitchen. Can't wait.

It's been a pretty busy couple of months, with 6-day work weeks, some bomb blasts in Kathmandu that had little to no follow-up (don't worry), and the arrival of Becca Polk in Nepal. It was great to see a familiar face and know that a best friend is just a country or two away (really need to work on my geography). We had a great time and I was thrilled to have someone see my everyday life here in Godavari. Another highlight of the past couple months was my 5B class assembly. Usually there's just a small skit (about bullying) and then a song that they've been singing since the 1970s. I decided to spice it up a bit, and taught my kids "All You Need Is Love." They performed a dramatic rendition in front of the whole school, and then finished it off with a skit about global warming. Becca was there to help, I was a nervous wreck, and it was a hit. Denise video-taped.

In mid-September we got to enjoy the Nepali holiday of TEEJ where women fast, wear red, pray for their husands, and dance all day long. After observing for 3 days I decided the whole thing is just a guise that allows them to ignore all the men and dance till they collapse, which I was fully on board with. Denise and I spent the majority of it with Sushma's family, and all the gals. My favorite aunt (Aunty) is in that picture making me laugh by teaching me dirty Nepali words. On the last night of Teej, we were woken up at 4:00 in the morning by Sushma's mom (cold water to the face) to go down to the river where all the women bathe and do puja (Hindu worship) in the dark. We stumbled down and watched as they all lined up on the river bank, threw water at each other, showered in the freezing water, and built a fire on the rocks. It was gorgeous, to say the least.

I'll close this already abnormally long blog with our most recent adventure (relatively speaking). While we were cooking on Wednesday night, the gas tank for our stove ran out mid-simmer. As luck would have it, we came to find out that Godavari is in the middle of a gas shortage. Long story short, we spent a week roughing it (and by that I mean eating mo mos and complaining till we were blue in the face), until this morning when we saw a beautiful sight out the window... a truck full of gas tanks barreling down the road. Denise and I threw on some pants and sprinted out the front door and down the hill to the shop, waving and screaming at all of our favorite Nepalis on the way, "Gas! Gas! Let's cook!!!" Usually we just pay the guy and they deliver it later that day. Naturally, they weren't providing that service today and we probably wouldn't have gotten the gas at all, had the shop not been owned by my student's uncle. He suggested we just lug it back ourselves. And so we did. Keep in mind the thing weighs about as much as an average-sized human, and we live at the top of a hill. We reached the kitchen panting, sweating, and extremely proud. We made a banana bread and a pot of tea immediately.
So that's the latest from Godavari. Things are good, and to top it all off.... we've got gas.

These are a few of my favorite.... Nepalis

I hope everyong gets the Sound of Music reference there... cuz the hills are certainly alive here in Nepal (I should just stop now). I know this is uncharacteristically frequent of me to be blogging again, but it's been an eventful monsoon season, so I thought I'd shoot out a quick hello. We just finished our big English Elocution contest at school. It's more exciting than it sounds. My Class 5 kids busted out some Tolkein and Class 6 did dramatic renditions of the Prologue and Epilogue from Romeo and Juliet. I had every intention of video-taping for posterity but I was just too nervous. The Nepali version of a Spelling Bee starts on Monday... should be interesting.

The bottom photo is Sushma and her little brother Suraj; I spend most of my free time over at their house. Sushma studies at St. Xavier's, not in any of my classes, but will be on my basketball team if we ever actually start practices. I've gotten to be really close with her family, including all the cousins, aunts, uncles, babies, chickens, etc. They live just down the road in Godavari, so it has really helped me to feel like I have some roots here, a second home even. This was taken on a random Saturday of trying to bake cookies on a stove-top. And yes, Suraj is wearing a t-shirt with Kurt Cobain on it.

The top picture is of me and Jonu (see last blog) on one of those rare sunny monsoon days. About a week after this picture was taken, Jonu (finally) had her baby--a little boy. She was home within a few days, but there were some complications that had me pretty worried for a quick minute there. They're both home now, safe and sound, along with half of their extended family to help take care of the baby. Nepalis don't name their newborns until 11 days after they're born. I was pushing for "Sarah" but last weekend they went with "Nishan" at the Nwaran--Hindi name-giving ceremony. Another teacher from school served as the Brahmin priest and performed all the rituals out on the back porch while I "helped" all the gals in the kitchen. It was an all-day event and probably one of the coolest things I've gotten to see since I got here.

So that's my story for now: It's still raining every day... We built a new path over the lake that is our front yard... School is hectic as ever... I'm over 6 months into this roller-coaster ride... We've perfected Nepali tea... Everyone is well... And baby makes 10. Love you guys. All for now

"Miss! What What things you're telling?"

-

Hey gang, it's been a while. As it is, I'm squeezing this in between the insanity of Parent's Day and the hectic-ness of Term Tests. I'm busy in a good way, but still wanted to get an update posted while I had a quick minute. I haven't been getting much sleep lately because the Tibetan community down the hill has been keeping drums going for 12 days straight, which is standard for a wedding or a death in the community. It's beautiful, but not so great for getting shut-eye, even with ear plugs :)

The pictures attached are from the big Parent's Day program that my students pulled off this past weekend; I don't think I've ever seen a school take something so seriously, even the magazine sale for all you IC alums. It was incredibly fun, but I feel like I haven't actually taught English in ages. Sirish Maharjan is on the right, the star of my English Drama, "The Tricky Fox" which was equally a blast and a total disaster (should have known better than to include a live chicken). The girls in the picture with me are a couple of my class 6 girls. I promise that Archana on my left smiles 99% of the time; we were just caught in the midst of Parent's Day exhaustion. She's also not 7 feet tall... I'm sitting. Within the next couple of weeks I'll be posting a whole slew of pictures from the weekend and the past couple months, which is way overdue.

As difficult as it would be to miss the beauty in a typical day here, I find it even more difficult to describe. Any given rainy Tuesday is a full day... a day of running to homeroom with six girls crowded under my umbrella... of leeches and monsoon showers during 3rd period (and 4th, and 5th and 6th, you get the idea). It's a day of 47 deep breaths after the bell, of inadvertantly brilliant answers, of "Miss, you're so tall!", of tying the shoes of restless boys on their way to lunch, of mountain peaks and rushed daal bhaat with the staff, of class after class after class after dress rehearsal. It's a day of tiny flippers in the swimming pool, of seeing Ashish make an effort, of the twins in 3A holding hands all day, of "Miss, have you been in love?" and monkeys on the roof during 4th period. I chase the boys up the slide, help the Class 9 smarties with questions before some test, and go off on tangents in the classroom that leads to shouting Shakespeare at my confused 6th graders. In accordance with Nepali culture, we stop quite often throughout all of this to drink tea.

I hop home like a lunatic in my futile attempt to avoid leeches. Chris is studying Sanskrit with a teacher from school in the kitchen and Denise has gone to the store to buy more onions, which we never have enough of, while I throw the frisbee with the kids who live downstairs. Sambid attacks his father with a bamboo stick and they disappear past the gate. Kagendra Sir fires the frisbee too hard and Sampada (in class 9 and one of my basketball girls) clings behind me for dear life. Kagendra's wife leans against the porch post in a beautiful picture that's not being taken. She laughs every time I make the throwing-up motion when we talk about her morning sickness. It's every morning these days as our strange little makeshift family expects a baby any day now.

Buddhiraj Sir has escaped Sambid's attack while his wife is pulling the spinach apart for dinner and telling me I'm not fat enough. I could never eat enough rice to make Nepalis happy. I tell her once again that if she'd cook for me every night, then maybe we wouldn't have a problem. Another frisbee throw cuts me off mid-sentence and I yell and swear at Kagendra Sir in Nepali even though he's my superior at school and speaks fluent English. When it gets too dark for frisbee and the mosquitos come out to join the bats, we head inside to make dinner, tell classroom horror stories, do impressions of our students, and fall into bed exhausted. And then it's Wednesday.

I see myself very clearly on days like this, except it's through the eyes of the people around me, particularly my students. I see myself as they see me. From class 1 to 10, I think the consensus is the same... older, taller, whiter. But most of all, I see what they see... that I love it here. It's not perfect and it's not easy, but days like this one are real, and the view from their eyes is certainly a good one. As always, thanks for being there to hear about it. It means the world to me to hear from so many of you as often as I do. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading. --Sar

Nepal: A Country of Extremes

Hello, friends,

It's been a while so I'm due for a sizeable blog and have plenty to catch you all up on. As most of you know, teaching has begun and it is going amazingly. I teach about 6 of 8 periods a day, alternating between 4 classrooms and 2 subjects (literature and grammar). I'm greeted every morning by an enthusiastic chorus of "Gooooooood Morning, Miss!" from almost 50 energetic 5th graders, and after a blur of grammar, monsoon showers, recess games I don't understand, unintentionally brilliant answers, unnecessary eraser-clapping in my face, eight million "Good afternoon, Miss" es, and endless high fives on the way to the bus, the bell is ringing and another day is done. Hopefully somewhere in there I've managed to teach some English.

Some Nepali school teachers are on strike for better wages, so we are currently in the middle of an unplanned holiday. It came in the middle of midterm exams, so it'll be difficult to jump back in, but for right now, we're enjoying what amounts to the familiar joy that used to come along with snow days. I think we're more excited than the kids. Speaking of snow, they say Nepal is a country of extremes... blistering cold and desert-like heat, depending on the season; absolute wealth and utter poverty; the list goes on. Nepal even boasts both the world's highest peak and its deepest valley. I have definitely felt those extremes so far in my time here on a much smaller scale, of course. Buddha taught the idea that life is full of 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows--that there is an equal balance, and trying to tip the ratio one way or another is what leads to unhappiness. We often reference this idea on our way through town accompanied by beautiful inscence smells and those of the butcher's... or when we open the window to look at the gorgeous Godavari night sky and a then a bat flies in the house. You really don't have to look too far to see this idea. Anyways, my attention was drawn to this stark disparity in a big way last week.

On my way to homeroom on Wednesday, I saw my students sticking their heads out the windows of our classroom. Just as I caught myself thinking, "Oh no, what are they up to now..." I noticed the blackboard covered in Happy Birthday notes and drawings. My birthday was not until Friday, but I didn't even have time to be confused. As I walked into the classroom, they all shot out of their seats to sing Happy Birthday and the 6 kids in the front row reached into their pockets and came back with handfuls of confetti that covered me instantly. As they screamed and sang, I noticed a big box on the desk covered with flower petals and cards. When they finished the song, Samriddhi Karki pulled out my desk chair and all but pushed me into it. As they all came running up to crowd around the desk, standing on chairs and hanging onto mine, I opened the box to see a "Happy Birthday, Sarah Miss! We Love You --5B" birthday cake. I pretended to need their help blowing out the candle, so I made my wish and then 47 heads leaned in to blow it out with me. They held balloons over my head and handed me a pencil to pop them. They were full of confetti, so as it showered down over us, I managed to ask if they were doing all this because of the rumor that we wouldn't have school the next few days because of the strike. Through the rain of confetti, they shouted back, "Yes Miss!!!!!" and I found myself holding back tears.

Somehow I got them all back into their seats for our morning "eyes-closed, deep breath" and all across the classroom I saw 47 smiles beaming with accomplishment. I explained to them how hard it is to be away from home on your birthday and how much much easier they had all made it, and all their tiny faces seemed to be saying, "We know." Those were among some of the most overwhelming moments I've had in a long time..... 10,000 joys.

After somehow administering their exam, I moved along to 5A for their Literature test, and as they finished, I noticed one little girl had hardly answered any questions. I had her stay back with me during break to talk about how if you're absent you have to get notes. Luckily I wasn't too far into my speech when she just looked at the floor and said, "Miss, my mother." I sat down and listened for about 10 minutes while she went on to talk about how her mother had been killed a couple weeks ago in an accident and how this was her first day back at school. I took a deep breath and listened, assuring her there would be good days and bad, but that I'd be there for both. Walking back to the staff room, carrying my cake and dozens of little cards and presents, I found myself fighting back a different kind of tears.... 10,000 sorrows.

Every day seems filled with this difference, and in the long run, I'm grateful that it's there. It's hard to describe how these kids are exponentially enriching my experience, but I hope this story gives a glimpse. As always, it would mean much less if I didn't have you all to share it with. I hope this finds everyone well and happy. Until next time...

-Sar

The Big 2-3

This blog goes out to a certain 23 year-old in Chicago, Illinois. She's a devoted Cubs fan and has the patience for a classroom full of first graders every day. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, it's my best friend STINA LLOYD. And this is the Nepal JVI rendition of "Happy Birthday S-T-I-N-A." We all took birthdays pretty seriously at IU, and I thought this year should be no exception. A year ago this time, we were scrambling around decorating the apartment for a tripple party to celebrate Stina's 22nd, Stina's last day of student teaching (goodbye, Bedford!), and my Nepal placement. (This I find particularly ironic since my teaching starts on Monday, yikes.) Right about now we would have been trying to squeeze the keg into a bottomless trashcan in the kitchen, eating footlong Subway subs (a serious tradition,) and trying to find room for the enormous balloon displays so graciously sent by Mrs. Lloyd... how I miss those impossibly low ceilings.

This year, Stina's birthday had the lucky distinction of falling on the Nepali New Year... Happy 2064!!! Thanks to the Nepali calendar, I can cross "time travel" off my list of things to do before I die. I'd like to share some really exotic and interesting birthday traditions celebrated here, but so far all I've been witness to is the fact that on your birthday, it's your job to bring treats to the workplace. So Stina, your fellow teachers might have made you an enormous cake to eat at recess, but in Nepal, you'd have been up all night baking brownies in a makeshift oven :) To celebrate your birthday, we all went to the wedding of a former volunteer, which was held at a hotel in Godavari. There were so many people out celebrating the New Year that the Maoists were collecting a road tax from everyone travelling to and from the village. It's always fun trying to convince officials that we really do live here. Then we settled down for some tea, ate some raw cookie dough, and took this picture.

I wish I could be there for the big 2-3, but there are ways to still feel close by, and I'm slowly figuring out what they are... I think this obnoxious picture is a start, and I'll be thinking of all of you as you help Stina celebrate. But Stina, know that your dorky roommate is thinking about you on the other side of the world, that her four community-mates got more excited for this picture than you would think, and that we now have a giant birthday poster and nowhere to put it :) I miss you, have a great day. Everyone else, thanks for reading, and stay tuned next month for another exciting installment from your favorite Ne-pal. All for now --Sar

HOLY Tika to the Face

Hey people. Well I promised myself I wouldn't post a blog until I was feeling relatively settled, so as not to bum out even Debbie Downer herself with some melancholy entries at the start. Most of you know me well enough to understand that transitions are tough, and that Suzie-less places can be pretty dark at first glance, but over a month into my time here in Nepal, I'm already starting to feel incredibly settled and relatively at home in my placement.
I also hesitated to begin because writing without a specific audience is difficult and I was unsure what to explain, having seen and done so many random things since I got here. And then it dawned on me... what better to write about than the universality of the water balloon. Let me back up for a minute. This past Saturday was the festival of "Holy," celebrated annually by Hindus in Nepal. It has evolved over the years into a day filled with throwing water balloons from rooftops at unsuspecting passersby and smearing Tika all over people's faces. (Tika is the red pujaa powder Nepalis wear on their foreheads for religious reasons). It started a little early this year, as I got drilled with a water balloon on Wednesday coming back from the grocery store. To tell you the truth, it has gotten a little dangerous and out of hand in recent years, and it's best to steer clear of Kathmandu if at all possible.
We woke up on Saturday, made a huge breakfast, and sat in the kitchen deciding if we felt like "celebrating" or not. While we all sat there, looking pensive, our 10 year old neighbor, Sambid, busted into our kitchen and smeared tika all over our faces before we had the chance to say "not on the hash browns!!!" And so, the decision was made for us, as we all got decked out and met on the roof for the execution of our battle plan, which involved filling about 200 water balloons and beseiging our downstairs neighbors from behind potted plants and water tanks. I'd have to say the real turning point was our decision to use our entire stock of baking flour from the kitchen to really bring it on home. (baking flour in place of tika... can you say 'foreigners'?). Needless to say, it was a fun afternoon, and the picture posted here captured us near the end, fading fast, as you can tell.
Strangely enough, celebrating this Hindu festival with the Nepali families living below us, it felt more like a weekend in Bloomington or home in Columbus than any other so far. And so I'll close with the notion that certain things really are universal: water balloons, good friends, good attack strategies, and the fact that flour, along with tika, shampoos right out. That's all for now... Thanks for reading. -- Sar.