First post from Budhanilkantha, Kathmandu

Today is the most auspicious day in the Buddhist school so is, Tenzin tells me, a very lucky day on which to begin teaching.  From lunch time onwards was to be a time of prayer and then free time for the children as I only ended up teaching Class 1.  The lessons are 90 minutes long, which I feel is far too long considering the limited concentration span of young children.  I mustn't forget though that these are children who get up at 4.30 EVERY day of the week to pray and meditate before breakfast.  On school days they then have lessons until 4 but then have further prayer time in the evening.  They don't go to school on Friday or Saturday but most of Friday is taken up with cleaning their rooms and washing their clothes.  I had such butterflies in my tummy while I stood waiting for my class to arrive.  When they did I went through my warmer exercise, took their names and then, to my horror, found I'd been given the wrong course book for their level so all my lesson planning was for nothing.  Horrors!!! A 90 minute lesson and nothing prepared!  As they are the youngest class I just ended up going through the alphabet to try to ascertain what they know.  I made a game out of getting them to think of words for each letter of the alphabet by throwing a ball to them in turn and the catcher would have to think of a word.  I knew that would be one of the best things I bought!  At the end of the lesson I went back to the letter "b" and got them to guess balloon, then gave them each one of the balloons Janet gave me to bring across.  For hours after the sound of bursting balloons could be heard around the school.l

I should really have begun by describing the journey, the arriving, my first impressions - to be honest my senses are still so completely overloaded I don't know where to begin!  The protest peaked and was under control just before I arrived.  Tenzin insists that this is yet another auspicious sign for me!  He was waiting at the airport with a driver which was wonderful as, although I would have loved to have seen Dharamsala, the thought of carrying over 40kg of luggage (!!! I know!  I barely got charged for it though - lovely guys at the airport) was more than I could bear.  He settled me in the house where I'm staying which belongs to Manju, a cousin of Rinpoche.  We talked about the school and then he said that obviously I was tired so he would only come for me at 9 the following morning!  I could have wept but next day there he was on his motorbike dead on time and, although I'd hardly slept the night before (or the night before that) I was really excited.  I spent the first day being introduced to the other teachers and to as many children as possible and discussing the curriculum with Tenzin.  He's actually very impressed with the books I've brought with me.  

Manju's house is in a rather well-to-do area.  It's 3 stories high and she rents out the ground floor of it.  My room is on the 2nd floor which I share with her elderly father and stepmum (my new Nepali teacher).  Manju has her room on the 3rd floor which is where the kitchen and dining area is.  That floor has a balcony area and stairs leading up to the roof where the prayer flags are strung.  That is my favourite spot of all and to stand there in the evening with the mountains sweeping up around me and houses and temples dotted on the hillside, prayer flags waving everywhere, is as close to heaven as you can imagine.

Just as an aside, somehow I've messed up my background colour settings.  I'm too tired to figure it out tonight so it'll have to just stay looking like this until tomorrow.  Off home for my yummy Dhal Bhat now.


(Just to confuse matters further I lost heart yesterday which is actually when this blog was written.  I left it unposted but thought today that better to submit a post with rubbish settings a day late than write nothing at all.  I must mark homework so have run out of time to do more tonight)