The Nepalese Adventure: Day 2

Nameste!

Day 2 - Orientation

• After a fairly decent hotel breakfast I was collected from the Hotel and taken to the office of the volunteer organisation for orientation.

• After we collectively failed to get the overhead projector working with the MAC (lucky I don't work in IT any more ☺) reverted to a Windows PC for a slide deck on:

• Nepal Facts
• Birthplace of Buddha
• The world's only non-quadrilateral national flag
• A bunch of other interesting things
• Do's and Dont's:
• Don't go out after dark - no streetlights and actually nothing happening anyway
• No prostitutes
• No other illegal things
• Do join in everything (except the above of course)☺
• Do just relax and go with the flow - everything is on Nepali time!
• Followed by a quick lesson in how to speak Nepalese (I can now tell the kids to wipe their noses). The basics but some essentials as very little English spoken or understood in the village where I'll be heading tomorrow.
• Seems one of the focus aspects of the volunteering work I will be doing is teaching IT basics, not just to the pupils but to the teachers. This is in a region where the internet is only just being installed and most will never have touched a computer! (Luckily not much hope of being found out I've been blagging my IT skills for the last 28 years!)   

• "Interesting" pillion ride on the backup of a moped (I'm not sure i could have ridden myself because the roads are crazy!) to Swayambhu Temple, also known as the Monkey Temple. Much of the temple and the adjoining monastery have been totally destroyed in the earthquake (2015) and are reduced to rubble. Work was underway to rebuild even whilst i was there. (Tools back at the hotel though so i couldn't help much!)  

•  Tomorrow I'll be taking a 6 hour bus ride from Kathmandu to Gorsyang. I'm told to prepare for bumpy and narrow streets. There's some concern over the fact that I have a suitcase: If the bus can't make it due to wet weather making the roads impassable, a suitcase will be difficult to wheel. Errr, Its 90 Kilometers.........!!!  I'll let you know how i get on.