I am happy to report that lizard women successfully survived washing her hair in a cold shower. The trick is to wash your hair first under the lower faucet then wring your hair out well so that cold water does not drip on your back while also staying out from under the shower as much as possible! It’s the small victories that are the satisfying ones- and yes I am quite proud of myself, silly as that may sound. So much of what we can or cannot accomplish is mental and then when faced with a particular situation, practicality takes over and – No big deal. I did wait until a fairly hot day though, so I stacked the deck in my favor….

The featured image and this image are the view from the house I am staying at. It has been raining a lot and I am looking forward to a clear day.

I arrived at a great time to transition into work here as Monday and Tuesday were holidays so the children were off from school. Monday was Buddha’s birthday and Tuesday, Labor Day. Even though Monday was a holiday for the children, we worked on construction for half a day. Tuesday was a rest day for everybody. Sunday was a school day so I had an opportunity to observe and teach class that day. Today, Wednesday, things were back in full swing so I jumped right in. It seems I am going to be a third grade teacher.

May seems to be a popular time to visit this project, at least this May anyway. Over the last few days we peaked with 19 volunteers and the place was bursting at the seams. I am not sure that Shamser tries to actively regulate the flow, although with any volunteer situation like this there will be fluidity as people change travel plans at the last minute. We have been joined by a French couple, a guy from Brazil, a woman from Australia traveling with her five year old, two people from Kenya and a guy from England who was here two weeks ago and returned from trekking today. The guy from Indonesia left Monday, the German couple left today and one of my roommates left today too. I immediately got a new roommate, another woman from England.

The house I am staying at with Shamser and his wife and most of the volunteers The shower is down the hill.

There are two major projects ongoing- teaching and construction. Shamser started the school three years ago and is still in the process of building it. There are classrooms built and in use for up to grade 4 and the volunteer team has been working on building the classroom for grade 5 as well as upgrading the path connecting classrooms from dirt to concrete. The other project is teaching. Volunteers teach in the classrooms when the Nepali teachers are not available as well as, it appears, cover grades 3 and 4. Apparently in the mountains school attendance for both teachers and students is fairly fluid and unpredictable. Having extra bodies available to fill in is helpful, although it keeps the curriculum somewhat dynamic.

It is not clear to me that there is enough sustainable work for everyone but with the various schedules of people coming and going I expect that we will be back down to about 12 or so in another week. Being one of those volunteers with a fluid schedule, I can always decide to leave early if I don’t feel like I am being useful. One of my personal goals during this trip, however, is to get some serious writing (non-blog) done. So far I have been able to schedule time for writing, the people are nice, and the views are spectacular so I am inclined to stay put for a while.

In case you are looking for something to do with used beer bottles, here is an idea.

On Monday I was part of the team of people who wandered around the village looking for beer bottles. Sounds weird, doesn’t it? Well, even weirder is what we did with them once we collected them. We took them down to the school to put in the foundation that is being laid for the grade 5 classroom. The foundation, when finished, will be composed of dirt, then a layer of bottles, then a layer concrete. I can only assume that the bottles are acting as kind of an insulation layer. Since I have been fascinated with construction since arriving in Nepal, it is fun to be in the middle of it!

In the afternoon we walked, more or less straight down the mountain- oh, my poor knees, to Besishahar to eat lunch and shop. The walk was about 45 minutes, much shorter than the bus ride up because because the road has to wind from switch back to switch back up the hillside. The walk was a bit tricky as parts of the path were slick due to the rain we have been having but I managed to make it down without falling (chalk one up for the old chic!). We had a nice lunch and most importantly, went shopping for fruits and vegetables. I went nuts and bought cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, carrots, bananas, and apples. I also got some cookies, because, well, why not? As the afternoon wore on our backpacks got heavier and heavier with loot. Then it started raining. That was enough for us to decide to negotiate a jeep ride back up the mountain. Normally the 45 minute walk down turns into an 1:15 trudge back up, which none of us were looking forward to. Having committed to paying for a jeep ride, we decided to get most of the supplies we were going to need for Friday’s pizza party.

The jeep ride was a bit more comfortable than the bus but still an adventure. It started out as the eight of us, six adults and two kids plus one local and soon, as we slowly worked our way out of town and up the mountain, we blossomed into a 22 person hoard. There were four, including the driver, in front, four in back, one boy hanging on each side of the rear passenger doors and the remainder, with all of everyone’s cargo, piled and sprawled in the back. I wish I could have gotten a picture!

The rest of the evening was spent meeting the new arrivals and winding down.

Since Tuesday was a day off I decided it was “cleaning day” for both me and my clothes. That project took some time but I think I got everything more or less clean enough that no one will want to run away from me. I do have to say I appreciate washing machines for their ability to get ingrained dirt out of things like socks. I am not sure my socks will be really clean until I get home – or to a good laundry service in Kathmandu at the end of the month. After my cleaning spree I tackled some cooking. I decided to make a salad for lunch; the pull of all of those recently purchased fresh vegetables was too tempting to resist. I have a pretty strong stomach having survived eating foods from markets in the Russia of 20 years ago, Tanzania, Peru and so far here in Nepal, but nonetheless decided to proceed carefully in my salad preparation. Consequently I made a batch of iodized water to soak the apple and cabbage in just in case. For the carrots and cucumber I decided peeling the skin off was sufficient.

Salad making kit.

Final salad I think it needed another apple actually.

To prepare the salad, a kind of cole slaw, I chopped up the cabbage and used a grater on the carrots, apple and cucumber. I added olive oil and crumbled up some butter crackers, both of which I bought in town, and borrowed some marsala spices from the Belgium family and presto, whamo- a lovely, if overly orange- looking, salad. The salad was a hit at lunch, accompanying the yummy potato pancake like thing (called a chapati) that was served. What was really great was that I spent the whole afternoon writing so in all it was a completely productive day!

Today we were back to a normal schedule. Marta, the woman from Spain, and I taught third grade in the morning, focusing on science, English, and math. It is rather challenging as the students are being taught totally in English which means as a teacher, you have to deal with the language and the concepts simultaneously. In addition, like any classrooms, there are some students that catch on quickly and others that take a bit longer. Thus we have to figure out if they are struggling with the language or with the concepts, or both, when they have trouble. I am very thankful that over half of the volunteers here are professional teachers so I can learn from them how to be more effective. Finally we do not have a lot of resources so we have to be a bit creative in our approach to lessons. I have a lot to learn yet!

Third grade classroom. We have 16 students, but so far I have only seen 10.