Rambling about The Village

Haven't got time to make this concise but I'm in a very good mood so I hope you don't mind if I ramble a bit!

I'm staying in a village now. Its a world away from Kathmandu, its so laid back. I stay with the headmaster’s family and each day we leisurely stroll the 1minute walk to the local school, consistently arriveing 10minutes after the offical start time and a good 5 minutes before the other teachers arrive (one his neighbour, who I imagine looks out the window for when we set off, and another his daughter). The majority of the first lesson inevitably is spent in the staff room due to some unforseen necessity such as handing out textbooks, uniforms or debating changes in the routine. When these problems are not forthcoming they just chat for a good half hour, and in fact do this in between lessons and after lunch too. Avoiding these chats is seen as bad form.

But this is not to bad mouth them in any way. In contrast to my Kathmandu school the teachers are all incredibly friendly, enthusiastic, genuinely love the children and have taught there for ages. The children consequently are well behaved and happy. This probably also because they get to play outside, they get holidays, the day is much shorter, the teachers never use a stick for discipline and admittedly the classes are much smaller (don’t get me wrong though, I loved the other kids too in Kathmandu). Anyway, the kids all picked bunches of wild flowers for me to welcome me on the first day, there were so many I was sure they must have eliminated a few rare species. They also all take immense pleasure in shaking my hand each morning, quite an exotic custom out here. I have become a bit reluctant to shake hands since I realised there is only one tap in the school and I have in 2.5 weeks not seen a single child washing their hands in it (and they don't use toilet roll here).

Have taught them the joys of Bulldog, Simon Says and 'Whats the time Mr.Wolf' (though I made it Mr.Tiger) and they have taught me 'Kabadi', the national game apparently (you may have seen it on TV, its excellent if a bit crazy, will have to teach you all when i get back). My Nepali is coming on now so I am even teaching class 1 who speak no english, but are worth it because they are very very cute.

After school its too hot to do anything so go back home and lounge around, watching the occasional Hindi soap or playing noughts and crosses the headmasters 7 year old grandson. Then when it cools down a bit, we go for walks ('ghumnu' in nepali, which appropriately means 'wander' or 'go round in circles'). This is the main social activity (and lets face it, there's nothing much else to do there). But its great! We walk, chat with people on the way, walk a bit more, have a cup of tea, walk a bit more, stop for a drink and snacks at pub, and walk back in time for dinner. They also go for walks in morning before school when its cool (they get up ridiculously early here). By 'we', I mean my new nepali friends, a group of late 20somethings who have sort of adopted me. The headmaster doesn't really approve of the their card playing, 'raksi' (homemade rice whisky stuff) drinking habits, so I have to pretend i only drink 'coke'. As a result, I actually have v little free time and am never bored. The few times I've gone for walks by myself I've ended up collecting a Pied Piper-esque following of small children, who I tried to lose by going near the local 'jungle' but then they told me there were bears and tigers so I got scared and came back.

This is all wonderful, but sadly the downside has been that I have been ill quite a lot in the village. Whether it was the 'raksi' or the dubious hygiene, for a week I had on and off mild and not so mild stomach aches and other ailments which did give me my first bout of homesickness. I lay in pain behind my mosquito net in the heat, dreaming of proper toilets and toilet roll (I won't go into this, I don't think you can handle it) and nice bland cheese sandwiches, while losing patience with their village remedies. They kept feeding me strange yellow rice (good for stomach aches apparently, but I just wanted white rice or biscuits), suggesting I drink more raksi because its 'like medicine', or even better exlpaining that my longish hair was the cause of my stomach troubles and that I should cut it. My favourite was perhaps when they fed me some foul tasting ayurvedic digestion pills, which I had some sort of allergic reaction to and woke up the next day a funny pink colour and with a hand the size of a *swollen hand-shaped thing* (can't think of good simile).

Despite these trials, I'm really loving it here. Unfortunately though, I've had to say goodbye to the kids because the head decided at lunch time yesterday that the kids needed a summer holiday, so starting from today they have 3 weeks off, and the day they come back I fly to India. So with more than a trace of regret, my days as a teacher are officially over (for the meantime...). However, I am still needed in the village... for walking. There are still many places I haven't walked apparently, so I am sticking around (but now steering clear of raksi (bottled beer only) and armed with some antibacterial handwipes).

Ok, better get back to the village, got some walking to do.
Michael

p.s. yes, a bomb exploded on a bus far from where I am, and admittedly one was intercepted nearish my village. We're hoping it doesn't spell a new strategy for the maoists. At the moment though people here are very calm and not worried and the tourist areas are as always safe.