My Monday, I was feeling much better. Nothing too exciting happened Monday-Wednesday. I went to the CDC in the mornings, went out to lunch or made lunch in the house, walked around, watched movies, hung out with people.
On Thursday, I went to the Monastery for the first time to teach English. We have to leave the house by 7:30/7:40. We then walk for about 20 minutes to the bus stop and look for the bus with the yellow sign. The bus ride is about 40-45 minutes and should drop us right outside the monastery. The best part is it only costs 25 rupees (25 cents)! The bus we got on today didn’t take us right to the monastery though. Apparently there are two different yellow signs. The signs say different things on them but I have no idea how to read them. One bus takes you past the turn for the monastery up a huge hill to a national park. The bus driver will let us out at the turn for the monastery which leaves us only with a 5 minute walk, but if we are not paying attention and go all the way up the hill, it will be a much longer walk. There are three 45 min classes with 15 minutes in between at the monastery. They serve us tea after the first class and lunch after the third. The first two classes are working on improving their grammar and learning some new vocab words. We read children’s books like the Bernstein Bears, Dr. Seuss, Pinocchio, and Hansel and Grettel with them. We pick out some words they don’t know and have them write sentences with those words for the next class. The third class has much better English but no confidence. The first two classes range in age from about 8-14 but the age of the third class is about 18. We just practice having conversations and making them talk in front of the class. After classes, we get lunch which is always Dal Baht, the traditional Nepali meal of rice and lentil soup. Once we are done with lunch we head back out of the monastery to catch the bus back into the city.
On Friday we managed to tell the difference between the two yellow signs and got on the bus that takes us right to the monastery. We had given the older class homework to prepare a short 2 minute talk on any topic but they didn’t prepare anything! We didn’t let them get away with it and taught them the expression “to wing it.” They each ended teaching us something about Buddhism/life of Buddha because it was all they could think of on the spot. They’ll know for next time to do their homework! For dinner Friday night, we all went out to eat with one of the volunteers, Eric, and his parents and sister who were visiting for spring break. It had poured that afternoon and the streets were completely flooded at some places. It really showed how pour the drainage system is in Kathmandu. It was an adventure dodging puddles, cars, people, and trying not to get splashed all at the same time.
We are down to six volunteers but three of them were away for the weekend so it was just me, Diana, and Jesse. Diana and Jesse left early Sunday morning to trek to Everest Base Camp for two weeks so the weekend was basically spent lounging around/helping them get ready to go.
On Thursday, I went to the Monastery for the first time to teach English. We have to leave the house by 7:30/7:40. We then walk for about 20 minutes to the bus stop and look for the bus with the yellow sign. The bus ride is about 40-45 minutes and should drop us right outside the monastery. The best part is it only costs 25 rupees (25 cents)! The bus we got on today didn’t take us right to the monastery though. Apparently there are two different yellow signs. The signs say different things on them but I have no idea how to read them. One bus takes you past the turn for the monastery up a huge hill to a national park. The bus driver will let us out at the turn for the monastery which leaves us only with a 5 minute walk, but if we are not paying attention and go all the way up the hill, it will be a much longer walk. There are three 45 min classes with 15 minutes in between at the monastery. They serve us tea after the first class and lunch after the third. The first two classes are working on improving their grammar and learning some new vocab words. We read children’s books like the Bernstein Bears, Dr. Seuss, Pinocchio, and Hansel and Grettel with them. We pick out some words they don’t know and have them write sentences with those words for the next class. The third class has much better English but no confidence. The first two classes range in age from about 8-14 but the age of the third class is about 18. We just practice having conversations and making them talk in front of the class. After classes, we get lunch which is always Dal Baht, the traditional Nepali meal of rice and lentil soup. Once we are done with lunch we head back out of the monastery to catch the bus back into the city.
On Friday we managed to tell the difference between the two yellow signs and got on the bus that takes us right to the monastery. We had given the older class homework to prepare a short 2 minute talk on any topic but they didn’t prepare anything! We didn’t let them get away with it and taught them the expression “to wing it.” They each ended teaching us something about Buddhism/life of Buddha because it was all they could think of on the spot. They’ll know for next time to do their homework! For dinner Friday night, we all went out to eat with one of the volunteers, Eric, and his parents and sister who were visiting for spring break. It had poured that afternoon and the streets were completely flooded at some places. It really showed how pour the drainage system is in Kathmandu. It was an adventure dodging puddles, cars, people, and trying not to get splashed all at the same time.
We are down to six volunteers but three of them were away for the weekend so it was just me, Diana, and Jesse. Diana and Jesse left early Sunday morning to trek to Everest Base Camp for two weeks so the weekend was basically spent lounging around/helping them get ready to go.