The Nepalese Adventure: Day 11

Day 11

• Had a bit of a dental nightmare last night!

• Seemed to have a piece of chicken bone fragment lodged in my back molar (“Right Maxillary 2^nd Molar” I believe J). No amount of worrying with my tongue would free it. Could just about get hold of with my fingers but ended up slicing my finger open! After some juggling with 2 iPhones (handy!) 1 as a torch and the other with front facing camera I could just about see it, only to discover it seemed to be a piece of metal – maybe part of a filling or some dental structuring. Decided to leave well enough alone but to avoid it rubbing, I used the “fish scaling hook” implement from my new penknife to push the metal back into place as much as possible. All was ok until I came to clean my teeth: One of the bristles of my toothbrush snagged in it and would not come free (but broke away from toothbrush).  Tweezers from penknife would not grip it. Luckily penknife also has pliers. So there I was, late last night, 2 beers down  (60p), juggling 2 iPhones and with a pair of pliers jammed in my mouth. If teaching doesn’t work out, I might try dentistry!

• Relatively sleepless night. As usual. Followed by rude awakening. As usual.

• 7 am knock on the door from electrician coming to inspect the installation. I think rather than this being an electrical safety inspection (absolutely no point in that), he’s going to complete the install of the electric sockets and lighting. Possibly prompted by my suggestion to Dhim (Homestay Father) that I would do it for him!

• No critters in my room today.

• Been no water (through that hose) in the village for 2 days now. Hoping it will be on this evening (only allowed to be used morning and evening)

• Breakfast at 9:30, school for 10:00.

• At 10:30 went into the staff room to get some keys and the headmaster said to me “Good morning sir. Please sit down.” (indicating a chair beside his desk). He then continued with paperwork he was doing, did some filing, made a few notes. All the while making me wait. I started to get nervous and fidgety. It’s been a long time since I had to sit beside a headmaster’s desk and believe me, there was NEVER a good outcome in the past! Eventually he asked me what country I came from. There wasn’t much more than that. (His English is extremely limited.) I stretched out my answer to fill the void in the conversation with mumbled comments and actions about how it’s always cold and raining in England . Then, at the first opportunity, I legged it, snatching the keys I needed from the hook as I went!

• No lessons until after lunch so worked on the full teaching plan which needs to continue after I’ve left here. This is what I got so far:

NOT my friend! Now Dead!

• Forget the “no critters” comment above. Just killed 2 cockroaches in my room. Now I’ll have to search everywhere again if there’s any chance of me getting any sleep at all!

• Braved the staff room again to find some boys being given school ties. One of the female teachers pushed this little lad in my direction for me to teach him how to tie it. Did my best but no man can tie a tie on someone else easily! The boy wasn’t that interested in learning anyway - just wanted to escape and I suspect the tie will remain with that same knot for some years and just be slipped over his head each night

• Had computer class for Year 6 today. (Years 7 & 8 yesterday). I think this will be the youngest year I’ll teach. Today’s focus was a walk-through of the main components and then functions of a computer (Input -> Process -> Output). Skipped all the HDD, ROM, RAM, BIOS stuff – that’s for the older kids. Then the rest of the lesson was “hands on”. But only of an unplugged mouse whilst they learnt how to how to hold it and got to grips with single click, double click, left and right. It’s a tease, they can see the computers in front of them and all they want to do is play! Same as they saw the other kids doing when they gate crashed their lessons yesterday.

• Quite satisfying today when I heard kids in the playground/yard calling left, right, left, right from yesterday’s lessons. Also heard some of them singing One Potato, Two potato which is one of the games/songs I was teaching the random turn ups who appeared at the school on Bank Holiday Monday.

Road into village (from Shower)

• After my lesson I went and changed out of my teacher clothes and started painting the final classroom (formerly the staff room). Managed 2 walls. Looks just as poor a job as did the first room but I’ll give it another quick coat tomorrow.  Was being heavily distracted by the 3 little kids who overcame their shyness and wanted to practice their English. Shirt, Skirt, trouser, eye, nose etc. Hard to focus when on top of the "ladder" so when I’d used up the powdered mix in my bucket I gave up and went for a shower.

• The kids are so cute here. Initially really shy but once they get past that they are sooo inquisitive. Was reading my Kindle after breakfast this morning whilst waiting for Hindou and a couple of lads came in. One simply took the Kindle and started looking at it and swiping the screen. (Oh go ahead and lose my page why don’t you!!) They were amazed at the fact that this was a book. In fact many many books. They are familiar with mobile phones, though if they exist in a household (rare) there will only be the one. But a Kindle, whilst being so much less, is also so much more. It’s a book. An electronic one. And look, there’s even a pop up light!

Looking back down the village road

• The other notable thing about the kids (and to some degree the adults too) is the variable state of cleanliness. Some are relatively clean and well turned out, whilst at the other end of the scale, there are those that are absolutely filthy dirty and look like neither they, nor their clothes have seen soapy water for weeks, if ever. Imagine taking a kid, rolling him in dust and dirt for several days in his school uniform. Then sending him to school. He’s dirty, his clothes are dirty (Tie is shiny and new of course. For the moment). But no one seems to notice this. There is no differentiation or ostracising the “dirty” kids. They all just play together happily.

Quick Selfie before anyone arrives

• Showers deserted again this evening so managed to get this quick “timer” selfie in. And you can see how the showers are quite literally at the side of the road.

Someone arriving to do laundry as i left

• Played Uno before dinner with Hindou and a couple of other lads.

Me & Hindou (other Volunteer) playing Uno with the kids

Me & my little friend playing with
imaging software
 on iPhone 

Me and My little friend

• Still no water. Maybe tomorrow. Alternative is carrying water in containers from "The Source"

• Off to bed at 10 o'clock.

• Oh – one piece of bad news. I head there are 4 more volunteers coming (there are only the two of us at the moment). So what’s the bad news? There are only 2 bedrooms! So, unless the volunteers are all blonde Scandinavian girls, it’s going to get a little too cosy. 4 Scandinavian girls will also be cosy but perhaps not such a struggle to come to terms with! Fingers crossed for me please.