My teaching is going well, now I am over my upset stomach, I am really enjoying it. I am even used to getting washed in cold water, the rather basic living conditions and doing my own washing. the after affects of the food poisoning are pretty awesome. I'm not sure how much weight I lost but most of the clothes are hanging off me now. I have made the decision that when I leave the monastery I'm going to throw my stuff away. Most of the shirts were pretty cheap and they are beginning to look pretty grotty with the hand washing. Buying new T-shirts and shorts is not going to break the bank.
I am really bonding with the kids, whenever they see me they come running over to say hello. Often in an afternoon I will sit in the courtyard and. Chat with a couple of them or some of the older monks. They older ones are interested in knowing where i come from, and am I married. That's a question that always comes up.
Sundays is usually pretty boring in that my favourite cafe is closed so there is no sitting down for hours chatting with the owners or checking on the Internet. This particular sunday will stay with me for some time. I still can see the episode in my minds eye.....
It was just before 6:30 and I was in the middle of my lesson with Lodehayer in the ground floor classroom. We were doing a lesson on the two auxiliary verbs 'be' and 'do'. I was giving some examples and then going through some exercises on the whiteboard. As I was writing on the board I felt a strange experience. It was as though a train had gone past the building. Which of course was impossible. I looked at Lode and he looked at me and almost simultaneously we said 'earthquake!' and rushed outside. The large monastery courtyard was just full of screaming monks running outbox the various buildings like headless chickens, robes flying in the wind. It was over in about 30 seconds but you could actually see the building move. Within minutes the chaos had turned to excitement with the chatter of the monks as they realised what had just happened. At that point the electricity went out too. I'm not sure I'd like to go through that again.
The following morning Rangjung showed me the newspaper, apparently it was a biggy. 6.9 on the richter scale. The biggest in Nepal for almost 25 years. The paper said if it had gone on for another 10 seconds the city would have been devastated. The epicentre was to the east of Nepal, just over the border in the Indian state of Sikkim, not far from Gantok which just happened to be the place I was headed after Nepal. I might need to rethink my itinerary !
On the Monday I was meeting Sumadp and Michiel to go to visit one of the new volunteers in a monastery just on the outskirts of Kathmandu. I had got instructions on where to meet them and it happened to be quite close to where Ram went to college so I jumped on a Microbus and headed off into town with him. I had expected quite a big college but in reality it was a few rooms on the third floor of an old building. Ram is studying for his IELTS (International English Language Testing System) this is the accreditation you need to get a study visa for any English speaking country. I had been helping him and was becoming quite expert. The accreditation includes writing,reading, speaking and listening. I had done quite a bit of research on the exam and had a few applications that were helping him.
Because his lesson started at 8:00 and in was not meeting the others till 9:30 I sat in the lesson. I'm beginning to think I may start to teach this myself.
After the lesson we walked to Rattan Park where in was catching the microbus. The monastery was about 45 minutes out of town and then an uphill walk of about 2 hours. It's funny, no-one in Nepal talks distance. When you ask how far, the answer is always, it's 3 days walk. The main highways in Nepal are not numerous and every few hundred yards there are small tracks that lead into the hills and the villages.
The weather was warm and the walk up to the Monastery gave spectacular views over the valley and the city. I hadn't had breakfast so stopped for a couple of samosa (wrapped in the usual newspaper). We eventually got to our destination at midday. It was a pretty impressive place. I would liken it to a Resort monastery, it was pretty new, all the monks were clean and it even had a canteen. All it was lacking was a pool. Josh expected the whole of Kathmandu to be flattened by the earthquake and seemed a trifle disappointed to learn that the only collateral damage was a fallen wall at the British Embassy which had killed five people.
I ha an interesting conversation with the Guru there and we left for the long walk back down the mountain after an hour and a cup of sweet tea. Unfortunately the monsoon had not quite finished and we we treated to a downpour on the way back. The micro returning us to the city just happened to go back past Swoyanbhu so I jumped off there. Later Ram told me in would have been better going the opposite way around the ring road. I was still back in time for my two evening lessons.....
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