As a leaving gift I went to the local shop to buy 80 "ChocoPies" they are like wagon wheels, but bigger. Now I had to come up with a plan with class one on how I could get away with giving them one each. One of the previous volunteers had given me a box of small sticky stars. I knew I had about 36 boys in the class so I wrote numbers 1-40 on the little stars. At class I handed them out. Guess what, I ran out, little hands stretched out, "me sir, me sir" the older monk in the class looked at me, very clever he said. I'd still been foxes though, quite a few had more than one star.
"Simon says, hold up your star" gotcha, I was right , four of the little buggers had got two stars. I recovered these and the. Shouted out numbers 1-38 and handed out the "ChocoPies" class two and three would be easier. I did notice that Tenzing D from class 2 had been sitting at the back of class one though. In class two's lesson, he thought he had got away with it.
"Tenzing D"
"Yes Sir- no chocolate"
Honesty prevailed!
As it was the last day, I gave the kids the opportunity to decide what they wanted to do. Games, video or lesson. Class one had chosen games and video, class two surprised me, they wanted me to play music and dance. Now this was funny. Monks doing break dancing to Waka Waka.....
Dishain is one of the main Hindu festivals in Nepal, it goes on for some days. On one of these days in the first week there is a mass sacrifice of animals at various places in the city. It is said that the river runs red with blood. In the days running up to the festival it was amazing to see the literally thousands of animals being brought into town from the villages. There were goats, chickens, ducks. Obviously not cows but pretty much everything else. I had intended, more out of morbid curiosity to go and watch. In the end I stayed at the monastery and went to Puja with the monks to pray for the souls of the animals.
The day of my leaving was a big puja, the 'fire' puja. It was held in the open air and preparation were made during the morning. It was fascinating. Together with most of the youngsters. ( the monks don't actually start going to Puja till they are in class 4). The whole ceremony tool around two hours and involved putting about 20 different foods onto a fire so the gods could smell them. It was done twice and throughout this the monks were chanting, blowing horns and beating drums. They also wore the colourful headdress that is supposed to symbolise the woman. One of the monks was making me laugh as he put the tassels that were supposed to symbolise hair in front of his eyes and grinning. Even in something as serious as Puja sone of the monks still play about. They were 'observed' by a couple of the older monks and some were 'caught out' by being in the wrong place in their prayer books.
My last night should have been spent going for dinner with Lodehayer and Ram. Unfortunately because of the festival pretty much everything was closed. Ram was meeting me at 7:00. When he didn't turn up I just thought "Nepali Time". It happens a lot. He was actually looking around to find somewhere to eat. When he couldn't he turned up at my room with a tray of chicken MoMo and sauce, explaining that there was nowhere open. We agreed to meet for breakfast the next morning.
My last morning I headed out with Ram for breakfast. There had been a bit of a drama the night before. Fighting is not exclusive to the youngsters. A couple of the older monks had an altercation and one ended up with a huge gash on his head and concussion. Lodehayer is the nominated 'first aider' and had the responsibility to take the injured party to hospital. He made his apologies and we agreed to meet after the weekend. He presented me with a Kama Samten Ling pen as a thank you gift.
Again, due to the festival we were limited where we could go to eat. I took Ram to the place I used to go to on a Sunday when the Swoyanbhu cafe was closed. Coffee and Masala omelette for me and tea and omelette for Ram. There is something odd eating in a restaurant with a monk, I don't know why....
On the way back up the lane to the we stopped many many times, it had been raining the previous night. Ram picked up pretty much every work that was on the lane and put them back in the grass. There was something so nice about that. He is a lovely bloke, even after two months of 2 hours of lessons a day he still insisted calling me sir. As I collected my stuff he gave me a hug, even though we would catch up on Monday. I called in to see the principle who gave me a silk scarf and we said our goodbyes.
Leaving was incredibly sad. I had a tear in my eye as I headed down the lane with my back pack back to Thamel.
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Location:Paknajol Rd,Kathmandu,Nepal
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