November 19-25: The Start of The Day



By the time I was taking these photos the villages on the mountain ridge were already 2 hours into their day. The prority in this part of the world is to not waste a second of sunlight. All of Jitpur Phede is moving well before first glimpse. I asked my family at dinner one night if they had ever been wakened by roosters, they just laughed and laughed. Each day grows colder and clearer as this journey ends. The onset of winter could easily fit the cliched-sleeved metaphor as that  which is cold and frozen is a pre-cursor to another day and new life. There are good-byes on the horizon and they will be sad, but honest, and filled with the realization of all the once-in-a-lifetime sceenarios that occurred over these past seven weeks. 



November 19-25: I Tried To Not Let Them See Me

November 19-25: Origami Brother



There was a night I was sitting at my desk working through my lesson plan for the  next day and little brother Bijaya was sitting in the room with me. All of a sudden he got real quiet and  I could sense he was working on something (I had my back to him)  In the nicest way I have to tell you there was seldom time Bijaya was quiet when he was in the room with me so this was a treat. I turned around and he was half way through these little creations. From this day forwarded we coined him as Artist Bijaya.



November 19-25: What's In A Name?



Had a great conversation with these two sisters on a cold and rainy day and the younger sister had a good laugh when I told her my name.



November 19-25: Vision and Focus



Do you see the genleman in the gray jacket to the left of the girl with the scarf? His name is Depak and he is an English teacher at a school approximately 3/4 of a mile in the direction he is walking.  Depak makes the walk to the bus station every morning for a ride to his school. This photo is unique because on the days we would pass each other he would be by himself, and every one of those days he would call out to me before I would even see him. In this photo he is already 600 yards from his home. What you don't see in this photo (blocked by the kid in the wool cap) is in Depak's right hand is a white cane. Deepak is totally blind.  Without fail, as we would meet he could hear me coming or sense the heaviness in my step (I wore steel toed boots).  He would call to me "Namaste Thomas, How are You?" Depak and I would shake hands, wish each other luck in our day, and part ways on this road almost every morning.



Week of November 19 - 25: He Told me To Just Call Him Brother

As I mentioned before, one of my favorite times of each of my days was working in the field at the bottom of the valley from the school where I started my days.  The gentleman I worked with, a longtime villager and veteran of working the land, asked me to just call him my older brother (he spoke no English by the way).  Nepalese for older brother is "daaju" (pronounced: Da-Zu). He called me his younger brother which is "bhaai" (pronounced: BYE). He was 68 years old and everyday would offer me a cigarette even though I told him I didn't smoke and he thought that was just the funniest thing in the world, a man who worked the field who didn't smoke. Great guy.  Last time I saw him he hada 15 kg (35 pound) bag of tomatoes on his right shoulder embarking on a 1/2 mile walk to the nearest bus station, in flip flops.

Week of November 19-25: The Hats.......all of These Hats!!!!!

As I was preparing for this trip to Nepal my wife, Janelle, who traveled to Nepal in 2008, let me know that among items the people of this country enjoy receiving from the western world is baseball hats. Through the years I have been known to collect, buy, and, acquire tons of baseball hats. Before leaving Chicago, I opened my closet door, where my collection is stowed (some not worn in a long long time) and filled a suitcase half full with all of my hats.  When I arrived to Jitpur Phede I stacked my hats on a table in my room and gave the request to the the Dahal family to give the hats to all of the villagers. As they see fit they should grab hats from the table and spread them among the land as if they were the holy word. One by one like rats sneaking cheese I noticed the stack of hats decrease and as I would walk to and from school and to and from the field on each of my work days I would see more and more of the hats on the heads of the villagers. There was even one afternoon I was on a microbus into Thamel, a microbus packed with people on top of peole, baskets of turnips, and a live goat and a propane tank under a seat, and two rows ahead of me was portly gentleman with polished shoes, slacks, a great looking sweater, and, within and through the quagmire of humanity and cargo I caught a glimpse of my ole New York Mets hat on top of his bald head. He looked great! In the photos below there it had been raining at the end of the day as we all gathered back at the house and Bijaya and Ranju and I created a contest of how many of my hats we could balance on our head.  Take a good look and see if you can recognize any of the hats.

Week of November 19-25: Megh Dahal's Birthday



One morning, after breakfast was over, Megh (my host father) calls me upstairs and back into the kitchen. He wanted me to bring my camera. It was his birthday and he allowed me to take photos of the ceremony. The Dahal family is Hindu and what you see in these photos is a local man of the cloth from one of the temples and a family friend of the Dahal's. On your natal day this person from the temple comes to your house and winds and weaves you through several scriptures which are repeated. Each of the dishes and platters you see in front of Megh represent a significant step in the mortal and after life. 



Week of November 19-25: Power Outages

 

One of the challenges the people of Nepal have to contend with, on a regular basis, is power outages.

A couple of ways these occur: One, by a mandated shutdown through the Nepali government to ease the strain on the power line infrastructure or Two, the power infrastructure just collapses on its own due to overuse and for, sometimes, up to two hours there is no electricity.  For this past week we experienced blackouts every night and a couple of evenings more than once.  The villagers do not flinch when the lights go down; grab candles, light’em, and continue on. 






This photo is taken during one of the backouts. Bijaya and Hementhe challenged me to find them in the dark through the eye of my camera and take a picture of the their different poses. I am probably 12 feet from them and could not see either them or a shadow of them. When the lights go out, it is really dark in this village. In this photo I caught them by blind luck (again, no pun intended) and just hit the shutter.



Without them telling me Bijaya and Hementhe moved up on the porch where I was standing and at maybe 2.5 feet away I could not see them at all.



The candles are the only light in the kitchen. L-R Davaki Dahal (my host mother) Ranju Dahal (sister) Subha Dahal (paternal grandmother) and Sirju Dahal (sister). Ground Corn (Maze) is what is being placed on the plates, and is eaten as if you would cornbread.  You use it to sop up Daal which is, for westerners, no different than Lentil Soup. Damn Good.



Bijaya's headlamp is our only lightsource in this photo.

  

November 12-18: Taking Advantage of the Sun




Along my walk to and from School, this woman dries rice while she can and while the sun is out.

 


This gentleman was out early as the sun was beginning to break through the fog. He and his sewing machine are on the roof of his house ovelooking the Kathmandu valley



November 12-18: Photos of Swayambhunath Temple



Monkeys Rule.




Sound asleep at the Top of the Monkey Temple





These photos do not begin to illustrate how large these structures stand.



November 12-18: Swayambhunath Temple (Monkey Temple)

Monkey Temple

Last Saturday, on our day off, a good ole boy from the UK named Tom McIver, who is one of VIN’s lead volunteer coordinators, and I visited what is known as Monkey temple.  Legend has it that centuries ago the entire Kathamndu Valley was under water and basically a lake. From this lake sprung a large, an extremely large, mound.  It mystified the natives of this land so much that both Hindu and Buddhists built, on top of the mound, a monstrosity of a temple in addition to many little temples where people of both religions can worship.  Over the years several families of monkeys have migrated to this temple (formally called Swayambhunath Temple: PRONOUNCED: SWAI-EN-BOO) and they are all over the place and so comfortable with the foot traffic that you are warned if you use the temple for a place to have a bite to eat, as snack maybe, the second bite of that snack will belong to the monkey. There are even stories of these animals taking a swipe at cameras.  Wonder how many rupees they could get for a camera?  Wikipedia Article on Swayambhunath Temple



November 12-18 One of my seventh graders as we walk to school.



November 12-18: Photos of the Farm and Jitpur Secondary School



Yes....Yes I am, as a matter of fact,..... teaching them how to whistle the theme song to The Andy Griffith Show.....
YouTube Clip of Andy Griffith theme Song



November 12-18: Teaching and Working on The Farm

Teaching and Working on the Farm

The lessons continue with my 6^th and 7^th graders and this past week we worked on using the phrases “I will” and “I won’t” as well as what it means to tag a negative statement on the back of a question/ statement combination, for instance:   You are late for school (the statement), aren’t you? (the question) And then here comes the reply “No, I am not.”  There are times I jump off the book and get creative with the lesson and we are now at the point where the kids are taking the chalk and doing some of their lessons on the board. Both classes are lousy at doing their homework but it is hard to lay blame. Resources are scarce and many of my kids are without books and/or writing utensils but they soldier on and as long as they are in their desk each day we will find a way to get as much English into them as possible.

After my classes I take about an hour walk through the some trails to the farm lower in the valley. I have found a couple of routes to take and change up the routine every few days. The gentleman I work with on this farm speaks absolutely no English but we understand what needs to be done and through hand gestures get our messages heard.  My job is still pruning the plants and getting all of the weeds out of the way.  The crop here in Nepal as you might imagine has a set-up more primitive than what you would see in the States.  I was a little discouraged on Tuesday as I realized maintenance of the plants; stringing them high or binding them to wooden or bamboo stakes was not going to happen quickly. The water weight of a tomato is not supported by the stalk of the plant, never has been and never will be. You have to tend to a tomato as you would a newborn, and constantly monitor when to help the plant up the next vertical step by tying each additional spurt of growth to a stake or to the roof of the shelter or the stalks will break and you lose your fruit. Tomato plants need tons of water too and although we have been getting some rain, all of the crop is wisely under sturdy bamboo and plastic shelters so there needs to be concerted effort to get large amounts of the “Jesus juice”, as I like to call it, (although that wouldn’t fly over here) on these plants.  I did make a call to the VIN office to talk to one of the people who started the ag-farming program regarding the opportunity he was missing and wanted to know what was allocated for resources in the budget, and if there was a chance a larger headcount could be on the farm maintaining the plants.  It was a good conversation.

 This is the first year of the Ag-Farming program in this part of the mountain and the VIN organization sees the same limitations and growing pains (no pun intended). They were able to get me more people out to the farm the next couple of days. There is already a contingency plan to make up any loss the project might incur.

You might be wondering why I am speaking about any form of agriculture in what is, as I type this, 6 days from Thanksgiving.  All crops should be in and planning for 2012 in motion. The notion kinda stymied me too, but, over here, there are a number of weeks remaining before growing season is officially over. Still in the ground is cauliflower, radish, tomato, and even potato.

November 12-18: Photos of the Hotel Premium






This is Lisa Skoogs from Sweden and Tom McIver from the United Kingdom, fellow volunteers, but, if you look off to the left you will see a maroon sign.  That is the location of the Hotel Premium. This is on the outskirts of Thamel Square in Kathmandu and a meeting place for the volunteers on our one day off when we roll out of the mouintains and monastaries.



November 12-18: Hotel Premium

The weeks continue to roll on with a 6 out of 7 day schedule allowing for Saturday as the off day. Most of the volunteers use Friday afternoon to get into the city and get a room at our home away from home which is also away from our homes, the hotel Premium.  You get your basics at ye ole Premium,  a bed, hot water and access to semi fast wifi. A single room will cost you 600 rupees which on the US exchange rate is right around $10.00.  The owner is a gentleman named Ohmis (Pronounced O-MISS) who has, in addition to booking us rooms weekly, been extremely helpful to all of us when needing directions or suggestions for navigating the Kathmandu area.

November 12-18: Cold Weather: Clouds and Rain



From the top of the Temple steps in Phede, this has been the extent of the sunsets.




More rain than usual for this time of Year.



November 12-18: EARTHQUAKE!!!!!!!

Earthquake

The year was 1989 and I had taken my ‘78 Ford Fairmont, pointed it west, placed my foot on the throttle, and, by the time I looked up, found myself in California’s bay area, just south of San Jose, in a farm town called Gilroy.  Through my father’s younger brother I was able to get a temp job in the stockroom of a computer company called Amdahl.  My commute to and from work was one hour each way.

October of that year was big for the Bay Area.  Both baseball teams were in the World Series and for Game 3, our company treated us to catered food at a local sports bar.  In an outside beer garden, moments from first pitch, while I dug into an avocado BLT, the entire ground rattled like a high hat.  I mean it really shook for 20 seconds (look at a clock, 20 seconds is longer than you might think).

As I watched the ground roll it dawned on me I was the only at my table.  The protocol of running to the clear, during a quake, was lost on me.  By the time I stepped outside the majority of people were returning and we gathered around the TV’s inside which, as many of you might remember, began to show vivid pictures of destruction at The Bay Bridge, The Marina District, and remote areas of Northern California namely the town of Watsonville, the epicenter, which is just across the mountain from Gilroy, where I needed to return via Interstate 5.  All the way home they only lights were headlights as power outages and blackouts were rampant.    

Wikipedia Article on Loma Prieta Earthquake

Last Sunday at 5:40 a.m., in a driving rain storm, the ground shook once again for me and brought the entire town of Phede to a rousing beginning of the day. My host mother barreled out of the house yelling “Bhainchaalo” “Bhainchaalo” “Bhainchaalo” (pronounced: BUN-CHAI-O) which is Nepalese for Earthquake.  This was a smaller event than the Loma Prieta quake of 89 but it was big enough to get folks from this mountain up and at’em.  My host brother Bijaya, checked the news later and the official word was 5.0 on the Richter scale and no damage on the mountain or in the city of Kathmandu. 

Later at school the kids and I talked (as best we could with the mixture of English and Nepalese) about the quake and they were all awake when it hit.  All of it provided a nice slice of energy for the start of the week.

November 5 - November 11: Walking the Ridge Back Home at The End of the Day



As I moved the Camera to the Right and Caught sight of the Red in her Dress, the photo seemed to wink at me. 



The Most Difficult Part of My Trip To Nepal: The Dogs



Dogs are absolutely everywhere. You, unfortunately, can not risk reaching out.



Street Just outside of Pashupatinath Temple, as we enter.



The Pashupatinath Temple is off in the distance and you can barely see the roof. It is huge. Off to the right, on a dogleg, is the river and foot bridge where you are able to view the cremations.  Many travelers come here for Peace.



November 5 - November 11: Pashupatinath Temple

We also visited the Pashupatinath Temple (still do not have a clue how to pronounce) which is a famous Hindu temple on the outskirts of the city. It sits on the Bagmati river which is a polluted little stream. This is the temple where the dead are cremated and their ashes are dumped in the water. Families travel here from far and wide to meditate, grieve and pay reverence to those they love who have passed on. There is a little foot bridge where you can watch the cremation take place. Not to be too indecent about the topic but when we were there we can only see and smell the ash burning. This was a place where I did not take photos.  

Photos of the Garden of Dreams

November 5 - November 11: the Garden of Dreams

Garden of Dreams

Last week while in the Kathmandu, some of the other VIN volunteers and I found a great little place about 400 yards outside of Thamel Square called the Garden of Dreams. It is a great little enclave of quiet in the middle of this strange strange and loud city. 

These Kids Run the Place: More Students



Tons of Energy and Eager to Learn. These are three from my Sixth Grade Class.



November 5 - November 11: Teaching School

Teaching School

The week at the school has been full of challenges but productive.  We have moved on to learning how to write in the possessive and what it means to write comparative phrases (big, bigger, biggest, fast, faster, fastest…..etc).  The Nepali word I have been using this week is “ramro” (Pronounced as it is spelled) which is Nepali for “good”.  Another word we are using is “dayaan” (Pronounced DIE-ANN) which is “listen” as well as “paaunu jawaab” (Pronounced PIE-E-NOO  JI-WAB) which is “find answer”.  I have also come to devise a system with both of my classes, but especially my 6^th grade class, where I have designated two students, a girl and a boy, to be my lieutenants and these lieutenants are in charge of each group of the class and if said groups get out of line, then these two little lieutenants take the fall and will be in trouble. Now, between you and I there is nothing I would do concerning punishment, but they do an awesome job of keeping the kids in line who are in their designated groups, and I continue to encourage them and thank them for helping me keep the class in line. 

There are so many opportunities and times I think of my mother and father and how I watched them in their classes during their careers and seeing myself emulate them.  All of this is hard work but rewarding. Even creating the lesson plans at night and seeking out tricks or methods to keep them locked in is as much of the puzzle as the execution the next day.



Tomato Farm in the Valley where I work the second half of my days.



November 5 – November 11: Tomato Farm

I have had a great week here. There have been many challenges and many many rewards. I was given a new job in addition to teaching school. The last part of each of my days has me on a tomato farm pruning the plants and tilling up the soil for next year. The VIN organization is renting the farmland from a local and making use of the space to generate produce for the community and families who are willing to work the land and make money by selling what is grown.  There is a big section of land for cauliflower and rice and radish as well.  Working in the farm adds a cool element to the day.  You can never go wrong with becoming one with the dirt.

Marigolds are Absolutely Everywhere.



During the festival these Flowers are used by all of the villagers to make garland which hangs in homes and businesses. Nepal's version of making popcorn strings.



Photo of Some of My Students



These 5 are from my 6th Grade class.  About to explode out the door on a Friday.



The Handsome Harry's of the Mountain



L-R Sudendra, Bijaya (my little Host Brother) and Hementhe. These three roam the hills as if there were rockets on their ankles.  Good friends and next door neighbors.



October 29 - November 4

October 29 – November 4

October 29 brought us to the end of the 5 day festival known as Tihar and I have to say it was too long. By its end, I was ready to get back to my classes and the students with whom I have been building a rapport.  Climbing in front of them on the morning of the 30^th we returned to our lessons of negative and positive statements and questions, contractions,  and the latest instructions on which pronouns to use for certain words and which words to use for sentences dealing with time.  During one of the classes I showed the kids a map of the Kathmandu valley, I had purchased earlier in this trip, and had them all get out of their desks, come to the front of the class and show me their village of Jitpurphede (pronounced JIT-PUR-FADEE).  There are many opportunities where I dovetail the lessons off of the English language and on to geography, math, social studies………nice change of pace.

These kids are really good and throw me challenges regularly forcing me to mentally, and creatively, dash and gash; discovering new tactics to keep them moving forward. One of the tricks I play with them, when I sense their focus bleeding out, is a count-clap game. I walk to the very middle of the room in between the two rows of desks and ask them "if they are ready?" and I have done this enough that they know what is about to happen.  Without saying a word I place the back of my hands, fisted, at the side of my face and flash numbers to them. Their job is to clap the number I have showing.  Sometimes I do just odd numbers, and then I will switch to even numbers and many times I will change it up again and mix odd and even.  Incrementally, I have been increasing how high the numbers are that end the sequence.  As soon as we end the count clap we jump right back into the lesson at hand with a new-found concentration and energy……….

To build my Nepali vocabulary I have been throwing a Nepal word into each class. The latest is the Nepali word for “to remember” samjannu (pronounced SOME-ZEN-NOO). (In Nepalese, if the letter “J” is inside the structure of a word it takes on a “z” sound.)  I have them chant this word in between the paragraphs of the reading exercises, which we do together and out loud. They need to remember the content of the stories we read as at the end of each one I ask them many questions about the story and they must answer me in past tense, present tense, using pronouns, and the correct verbs.

One of the nice surprises of this teaching assignment is the dialogue I have with the other teachers at my school.  There is an English Literature teacher for the 9^th and 10^th graders who is Nepalese, and the two of us find time for conversation about her upcoming lessons. She is from a large family of teachers (her brother, father, mother, and her husband) and inevitably before the day begins she will ask me questions concerning poems or short stories, which are part of her lesson plans, and we speak on interpretation of the pieces.  She asks great questions and has a high level of curiosity concerning word choice, and sentence structure, and also has an understanding of metaphor and specific phrases having larger meaning than what it is communicated in the literal sense.