The youngsters are amusing. Always happy, always more interested in games and videos than learning. Like most kids. The challenging class is Class one. Apparently the kids are streamed according to their ability in Tibetan. Hence, the age group in class one is 6 to 14. Quite a difficult spread, especially as their skills in Tibetan don't always align to the skills in English.
On Fridays we have a treat. Games and a video. Last week was Bingo. Foolishly rather than pre-preparing the cards I asked them to draw a 12 number grid and populate it themselves. Off we went. When a "full house" was called the little monk came up to have his numbers checked and claim the prize of a pencil, sharpener and eraser. Unknown to me, while I was checking the numbers the rest of the class were busy erasing their numbers and putting the numbers already called into their cards. Suddenly, everyone had "won" .
I've had to break up more than one fight, they are constantly kicking and punching each other. A couple of the monks in class three were going at it like 'gud-uns' the other day. I promptly separated them and we got on with class. As we finished, I'd cleared up and was just leaving the classroom when an iron chair went sailing past towards one of the protagonists, fortunately it missed. The other party had decided that the score still needed to be settled. Most of the little ones have scars somewhere from their mishaps or fighting. Barely a day goes by with one of them coming to school with something wrong. One on class two arrived one morning with a broken nose. He had fallen down and smashed his face in. No hospital visit, I have a feeling he may have a bit of crooked nose...
My 1-1 lessons are going really well. I do five now, the latest addition is actually the odd job man in the monastery, he is really eager.
One of my students, Ranjung is a 25 year old Monk. As skinny as a rake and when he first asked me to teach him I thought he looked quite unwell, in fact, I was chatting with one of the other monks one day and he was standing behind me, he coughed and some blood speckled spittle landed on the book, to be fair never thought anything of it...
Arriving at the third lesson with Rangjung, which we do in his room, there was a hypodermic needle on the side. "what's that " I asked. His room mate pipes up. "It's his medication, he's had TB." Fuck me I thought.... Hope it's not catching, that's the last thing I need.
"There is money in them there Monasteries....." The head monk, I've been told it is a Guru but everyone refers to him as Lama, has just returned from Manang where the Samten Ling have another monastery. When asking where places are I'm used to the response. "you go to such and such then walk for three days" I was quite surprised when the head man tips up in a brand new 4WD. I was chatting to his helper and naturally asked, how long did it take you. Not long was the reply, we came by helicopter.... Bloody hell, There were about 6 of them in the entourage.
The guys I'm doing private lessons with vary in competence so the lessons are quite interesting. Ram has been a monk since he was 6, some 18 years ago and Ranjung is the same. He is a lovely guy, I met him the first day I arrived and was taken by how thin he was, he really looked ill. A few days after I had been working with the kids and agreed to help with Ram 1-1 lessons on his IELTS preparation.
I was also approached by Lodehayer. He is in his mid 20's and is very smart but doesn't speak English very well. I'd asked him to meet me later on in the evening and tell me what he wanted to learn. He was very clear, he had a text book and would be having an exam sometime in November and wanted to pass. He was very focussed and we had some great lessons. The format was very similar to IELTS but significant more complicated. Lode was great at reading and comprehension so we spent a fair amount of time on speaking, indeed I became quite an expert on Phonemics and the phonemes. I really enjoyed the 1:1 lessons and it gave me lots of experience that hopefully I could use at a later date.
Sumadp, one of the workers at VIN did a lot of running around visiting the various volunteers (unlike my co-ordinator who did none) occasionally, in the afternoon when I didn't have lessons she asked if I would like to go along. One thing I did want to see was the "village" where most of the projects that VIN were involved in took place. I arranged to meet her and we took the micro bus out into the hills visiting the medical centre and the schools, it was a very interesting afternoon.
The following day a Czech girl, Maria who had been working with VIN teaching in a monastery for just a month was leaving to go home. I'm really not sure how she had found time to do any teaching as in the month she had been in KTM she had done visits to Pokhara, Kathmandu and been paragliding and bungee jumping. On her last day we had a bit of a leaving party in Thamel. The venue was the shisha bar in Thamel. It was a great night, live band, beer and good music. We even had a coked up 60 year old man dancing to entertain us.
My monastery is a bit out of town, I had been used to taking my washing into Thamel on my day off but the fact that the weather at this time of year is so unpredictable and that the washing is dried in the sun it sometimes wasn't ready for when I left. I made the decision that washing your own clothes in a bucket of cold water couldn't be that difficult. Actually it isn't, it's the rinsing that is difficult, getting all the soap out when you don't have any running water is a real ball ache. That said, I did it, I have to say, in the whole of the time I was there I did not have dirty clothes. They are pretty much ruined though. I guess I will have to start again, definitely before I get to Australia. I'm pretty sure, if I tipped up with some of the stuff I have, they won't let me into the country.
I'm now starting to think about the next steps of the journey. My plans at this stage are to head west towards India and the kingdom of Sikkim. After that I'll be heading south to Darjeeling and then west to Varanasi, New Delhi and then Agra. I haven't got into the detail yet but the plan was to do the vast majority of the journey by bud and train. I had mentioned what I was doing to one of the younger monks. He is Nepali but his mother is living in India.
" Oh no sir, don't go on the train, they will steal your money and shoot you"
" Who told you that" I asked.
" My captain, he is very good, he protects us from the devil"
He then went on to tell me that quite often the devil tries to come into the monastery and the captain of his room, the older monk has been telling him that the devil comes in an tries to take their souls. I'm really not sure what part of Buddhism this is!
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Location:Samten Ling, Swoyanbhu, Nepal
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