Whew! This week has been crazy! I've been extremely busy teaching the three english classes all week. I love teaching the people here, and they are really excited to learn which makes them very easy to work with. However, it does take a lot of time to prepare three separate lessons, and to travel to the different places that the lessons were held. This week, I woke up at 6:30am, and left at 7 to ride with pastor Nanda Simon, on his motorcycle to his church where I taught a lower level english class (pictured). They were really great, and Nanda is such a fun man to be around. He only knows a little english, but he doesn't let that stop him from talking! Where is lacks english vocabulary, he makes up in emotion, expression, and various sound effects to get the point across! At 9:30, Nanda would take me back to the moravian church, where I quickly ate some breakfast, and began the more advanced class. It was a small class but they had a lot of really good questions for me. Yesterday, friday, was the last day for that class, and they asked me to explain the difference between "the" and "a", and when to use them...(for those non-linguistics people, Nepali doesn't use "the" nor "a", so I was pretty much explaining an abstract comcept that has no equivalent in their native tongue!). At 12:30pm, I had a couple hours break, which usually were spent writing the lessons for the next day! At 2:30pm, I would start walking to start my journey to Khokana. The class there was usually 5 moderately proficient english speakers, and they were also very fun to teach. At 6pm, I began my hour and a half journey back to the Moravian church. Once I got there, I had usually had a few minutes before we had to wash up for dinner. After dinner I finally got about an hour to myself, before we all prayed together and went to bed. Whew...busy, to say in the least!
This week we were invited to eat dinner at Shanti and Vani's house, and it was amazing. As I've told you, they spent the last three years in America, so I feel like of all the people here, they really understand the culture we come from, and it's much easy to relate to them and talk with them. They are a really fun family, and I'm very grateful for the time we've spent with them. Also, they brought back ACTUAL coffee from america! (Here, they reall only drink tea, and the only "coffee" is instant with more milk than water). As a self-proclaimed coffee snob, it was a relief to finally drink the coffee with them.
One interesting thing that happened this week occured on the bus on my way back from Khokana. As the bus reach the top of a a hill, at an intersection, a crowd of people was gathered in the street, watching something. I couldn't quite see what was happening, until finally one man cut through the crowd and hopped onto the bus. His eyebrow was cut pretty badly, and he was bleeding everywhere. His shirt was ripped to shreds, and he used it to soak up the blood off his face. He was only on the bus for about 5 minutes, and hopped back off, and walked down another street. I asked soem people in the village the next day and they said that he and another man got drunk and decided to have a street brawl. The thing that shocked me the most about the situation was not the fact that he was injured and covered in blood, but that you could see on his face an expression of just brokeness. You could tell whatever happened, not only hurt him physically, but inside as well.
Tomorrow, Laura and I are leaving for Pokhara, a small lakeside town, for a few days. We are meeting Saran, our trekking guide friend there. We'll be there for the next few days until our flight back to the USA!
Well, I think that's all for now. be posting soon!
matthew ;^)