--Sing Songs As You Go--

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Chris, your beans finally grew!

Working hard to move Katie and Sean out...

Aayush and Sohan do NOT believe Sujit.

Sushma concentrates on a dish

D and Pat watch the sunrise in Pokhara

'The Moms'

Babu turns one year old

'Umm, sure.... I'll help with soccer....'

Sushma and Suz... matching North Faces!

Kindergarten Cop

Don't worry, I've got this head lamp...

How to begin a blog after so many months? As usual, the details are lost in the everyday. Even for me, they are very often only felt, and therefore very hard to squeeze into a one-page update. I hope this finds everyone well. When last I wrote, we were saying goodbye to Chris and hello to a new school year. Now we're climbing out of monsoon season and seeing Katie and Sean off within the week.

Mom and Suz came to visit, and I can't begin to tell you what it was like to see those faces after so many months. It reminded me of a reality that had gotten lost. ‘Home’ and loved ones are always with me, to be sure. But to be able to tell jokes face to face, to monopolize on mom-hugs for a week and a half, and to sleep on a mattress on a stone floor with a snoring Suz, well that's something else entirely. In short, we had a ball.

Speaking of balls, Denise fell playing soccer at school and severely tore some ligaments in her ankle, jump-starting a long, frustrating battle to ensure proper health care in a country where the majority of citizens do not have access to medical care at all. Nevermind the solidarity questions this raised in all of us; Denise remained incredibly more patient than I did, in a purple leg cast and all. I won’t forget the image of her in a busy Kathmandu emergency room, packed with hundreds of people, most of whom would not be seen that day. While they tied Denise’s smashed and swollen leg onto a board of wood (seriously), she made calming, funny faces at the 2-year-old in the next bed, receiving stitches from a severe, bleeding head wound.

And speaking of stitches, Pat got seven in his chin for a nasty gash a few weeks back. This was from a slippery fall during a run in the rain. A majority of our students now believe an alternate version, that Sarah Miss clocked him in the face after he made a rude gender comment. Both Denise and Pat are back up and running. Literally. (I feel the need to point out here that Caleen and I have suffered no serious injuries in the last four months.)

Babu turned one year old last month. If you ask him in Nepali what butterflies do, he looks up to the sky and flaps his hand in the air.

My homeroom put on a stirring rendition of “Let It Be” last week for our class assembly in front of the whole school. As you’ve probably gathered, I teach a combination of English Grammar, long-term reasons for the Civil War, Latin idioms, and Beatles history. They do me proud.

After I spent a month being sick on-and-off, ‘Mommy’ decided that enough was enough and called me over the next morning for my first Shaman healing. I had heard that Guru, our martial arts teacher, office manager, odds and ends extraordinaire at school, was a Jankri, a Shaman priest (a faith healer) but had never experienced it for myself. I went over on an empty stomach around 5:30 on a Tuesday for some early morning gossip with Guru’s wife, a friend of mine and also a twin. (She has also taught me a lot of dirty Nepali words and is partially responsible for D’s impeccable Nepali dance skills).

Anyway, Guru did what’s known as a “phuknu” treatment to release whatever curse had been on me since someone looked at me while I ate and wished me bad health. Apparently at the time I would have had no idea this was happening. The person might have even said, “Hey Sarah…. tasty?” It was an complex process, but the long and short of it involved Guru sucking the goodness from the air over sacred rice and then releasing it by blowing it back onto me. Then I ate the rice on opposite sides of each hand, after all of which I was finally allowed to have tea, which was, of course, ready and waiting for me.

The most remarkable thing about this experience is that what might seem like an intense, serious, inexplicable Hindu ceremony was really just a morning with friends. Guru’s sons filtered in and out of the kitchen along with the morning sunlight. Jamana (Guru’s wife) asked when Suzie is coming back to visit. Mommy scolded me for letting it go so long without going to the doctor. Guru himself stopped the ritual to ask if I needed the shed unlocked after school for games. Days later, Jamana shouts to me on the path by her house, wondering if I “still have to go to the toilet immediately after eating…” No no, I tell her, and thanks for shouting it, and then continue on my way. And that’s the truth of it; the sacred really is in the every day, in the familiarity, in being taken care of by the people you love. One way or another.

So in short, I’m doing well. I am singing Paul McCartney with my kids in the rain on the way to the bus. I am ringing puja bells at sunrise with Mommy. I am watching village boys play mud football. I am buttoning the school shirt sleeves of tiny souls. I am telling stories and learning as I go. And thinking of you all along the way. Until next time.

--Sar