What a Day




















So Sunday was a wonderful day like any other here. Cristina and I took some of the girls up to the roof and we made up and taught them a dance to the song Jai Ho by the Pussycat Dolls. It's from the movie Slumdog Millionaire and has a nice Indian vibe to it so the girls absolutely loved it. They were super excited to have us teaching them a dance and Gail was videotaping it which made it extra fun. I feel bad because I don't know the boys here as well, but they play on their own and with each other more whereas the girls really like to spend time with Cristina and me. Cristina has the videos on her computer so if anyone is up for a photo/video screening when I come home I'd love to have one!
Alright so everything is going great, the girls are dancing and are so adorable and THEN....dun dun dunnnnn.....Everyone is thirsty. So Cristina volunteers herself to go get water, and when she returned I was talking to Gail, her daughter Erin, and Lisa. When I walked back over to the girls, I saw this green pitcher of water sitting on the side and just assumed Cristina had brought it up. Big mistake! Thinking nothing of it, I helped myself to a few big gulps and it was so refreshing. As it turns out, that was not the water Cristina brought up and was instead some random pitcher of unfiltered water. If you ever come to Nepal, do NOT drink the unfiltered water. I've been sick now for over 24 hours :( I wanted to lay down yesterday but I didn't want to miss the arrival of THE CAR!!!!!!!! That's right, the car came yesterday!!! It was so exciting and it's b-e-a-utiful. I was upstairs with some of the kids when we heard the beep beep as it pulled through the gate, and then shouts and screams of "Maggie! The Car! Maggie's here! The car is here!" echoed through the house. It's going to be a wonderful thing for Kopila.
My stomach held out just long enough to see all the excitement, and then I made my way to bed, where I have been ever since. My stomach is feeling much better so now if my headache and dizziness when I sit up would go away I'd be good to go. So keep your fingers crossed that tomorrow I'm back up and about.
This is going to be a short one since I'm obviously not feeling too hot, but I wanted to give a little update.

Oh and on a positive note, my legs are starting to look human again!! I now worship at the feet of corticosteroid cream as it has allowed my mosquito bites to heal wonderfully :)

And one more thing....please pardon my grammar as I tend to take a bit of a poetic license on here and write the way I would speak as if I were just talking about my day. I hope you don't mind!

That's all for now. Goodbye!!!

La La La La La La La Life is is Wonderful


Nepali workout Phase One - Carry Children
Nepali workout Phase Two - Wash Clothes on Rock
Nepali workout Phase Three - Move Stones

Indeed, yesterday we moved a good amount of stones from the big pile they are currently in to what will be the floor of a new school building. I'll admit, the kids had most of the work done before I even knew what was going on! They're so helpful :) But I got in there too and started chucking the rocks to their new home where they will soon bathe in concrete and become the foundation for more classrooms. As of right now, nursery, kindergarten, 1st class, and 2nd class are held in finished school building while 3rd, 5th, and 6th classes are held in the large open rooms in the house. 4th class is in a building a few yards away from the house where there is also a teacher meeting room. Hopefully within the next few weeks these will all be moved into the new wonderful school building!! And after that the auditorium and stage will go up! Things are moving a little more slowy now that Orr the Architect is gone (I wish so badly I had gotten to meet him but we actually flew into Surkhet on the same day on the same plane that he left on...isn't that weird?), but it will be finished! In the mean time everyone has been working their butts off, and Lisa has been helping the teachers from here so so much with their lesson plans, which they had never had to make before now. And of course Maggie is as busy as ever. We're all learning to stop asking the question "Where's Maggie??" because she is always doing something somewhere all the time. She amazes me. Seriously.

And now for Satsung!!! What is this mysterious satsung I speak of?? Why do we do satsung you ask?? The other day one of the kids said "We do satsung for love and peace." That couldn't be more true. But it's also more than that. This is a family of 30 kids so as you can imagine there isn't really any time during the day when everyone is all together in one place. I mean come on, in the US it's hard to get a family of 4 all sitting down for dinner together these days. So satsung is a special time every single night before bed, usually around 8:00, when Maggie and all the kids and volunteers gather in a circle on the floor of the second story's large room. Here, everyone is given the chance to say anything they may need to about the day, bring up any problems, and also offer any compliments. Then we sing and dance and pray and all the while I look around at these little faces and I can't believe I'm here with them. Whenever they close their eyes to pray and chant I always open mine early to look at them because it's the most precious thing. I really need to get some new adjectives. Amazing and awesome and wonderful and cute and precious and incredible just don't cut it anymore.
Two kids always beg me to sit next to them every night and then most nights there's a little one on my lap too. Tonight I had Maya on my lap, and about 5 minutes into satsung she had made me her bed and was fast asleep on me. Afterwards I carried her down to bed and was in awe of her tiny innocence. I don't know her story, but I know she came from a very bad situation and to see her sleeping so peacefully now in this beautiful place made my heart melt. Well, that and she can be such a naughty child when she is awake that it was extra special to see her cute and sleeping hahaha. It reminded me of when I was little and I would kind of fall asleep downstairs but then mostly pretend that I was sleeping so that my Dad would carry me up to bed :) I loved that. It's funny now to be the carrier instead.
I do love satsung though and I know it's something that I want to implement when I have a family of my own someday. Although I definitely do NOT plan on having 30 thirty children that's for sure! Oh and at the end of satsung we have mangoes!!!!! Which did I mention I now LOVE mangoes?!?! It's actually called pasad, at least that's what it sounds like but I don't know the Nepali spelling. I'm guessing it means snack or treat, so sometime we have apples or bananas or occasionally another tasty morsel, but I always cross my fingers that it will be mangoes. Before coming here the only thing mango I liked was Rita's water ice, but now that I have tasted a true Nepali mango I don't think I could ever go back.
Ok I have so much more to write about, but I'm officially too tired to look at my computer any longer. I would much rather look at this praying mantus crawling on top of my mosquito net and beg it to eat the rest of the bugs that are currently in my room :)

I'm so grateful to have grown up where and how I did. I'm so grateful for my loving family. I'm so grateful for my bed and my home and my old big back yard. I'm grateful for our family dinners. I'm grateful that my parents drove me to school and to practice and to friends houses. I'm grateful that they helped me with my homework. I'm grateful that they love me. That they gave me every opportunity in the world. That they gave me a bike. That they me gave running water and heat and air conditioning. That they fed me. That they gave me their time and energy and everything they had to give me. I'm so grateful for everything they have ever done for me and everything my Dad still does and for every little thing I have been taking for granted all this time and not even knowing it.

Oh and I'm grateful that who ever you are you care to read about my day! So so much more happens in it but I can't fit it all! I wish I could.

Sweet dreams. Namaste :)

Gonna need an ocean of calamine lotion

Well, I have officially been dominated by the mosquitoes. I tried to count the bites, but when I got to 50 on the lower part of my right leg (and this is only below my calf) I gave up and decided to take a picture instead because you cannot begin to imagine what it looks like. It seriously looks like I have some crazy skin disease! The kids today were all like "Oh no! What happened to your legs!" So when we went into the market I opted for my long pants so as not to frighten the townspeople haha. I think 5 "Maggies" (Me, Cristina, Lisa, Frank, and Hannah) walking around was enough of a spectacle. You would think we were naked the way everyone stares at us! Luckily Frank tracked down some calamine lotion for me at the pharmacy and I am currently at ease :) I have showered and lotioned myself thoroughly, and tomorrow I'm washing my clothes! Yay!

Speaking of clothes, today in the market I bought three different fabrics to take to the tailor to have two different shirts and a dress made! I'm SOOO sooo excited. They are absolutely beautiful and ridiculously inexpensive. All together it cost me 600 rupees which is the equivalent of about $8.

School also went well today! I taught Class 1 Health all by myself, and I actually got them to sit and behave....for the most part. I tried to go over how we wash our hands, but it's hard when half the class doesn't speak any English. And having them copy words or notes from the board is pointless because then they're definitely not learning at all. So I resorted to teaching them Right and Left and we did the Hokey Pokey for a little while to practice. I think it was actually really successfully. They were paying attention and participating and using the correct hands so that was really all I could ask for. We're now holding free tutoring after school for the children who have had no experience with English and reading or writing and are just so far behind. We started them today with basic phonetics for a few letters and will add a few more each time. They are very eager to learn, so now we are just keeping our fingers crossed that the next time we see them they will have retained something.

We also started practicing for our show! Yes! A SHOW! We were joking about calling it Off-Broadway....Really Far Off-Broadway. In 3 weeks the kids are putting on a show for their parents/guardians, and we have different fun things for each grade to do. For example, 4th Class will be putting on a puppet show of The Little Red Hen and will make all the scenery and the sock puppets and tell the story. We've put together 5th and 6th Class into one group, and they are dancing to Shining Star by Earth, Wind, and Fire! Cristina led their first dance class today and it went so well!!!!! They are all super excited and did an awesome job. We'll be working on it three times a week during their Specials period, and I already can't wait for the next class. This school is so great for the kids because they have never ever been taught what art is. No other school in Nepal teaches it, and they don't have the supplies or guidance to do it at home. It's really an awful shame because these kids are talented. You should see this one boy draw. He's seriously phenomenal. It's exciting when a kid takes pride in what he or she is doing, and there's so much of that going on here. It's magical really.

Oh and super huge wonderful amazing news update!!! KOPILA HAS PURCHASED A CAR!!! Ok well it's a very large jeep called a Scorpio that will fit many children (Even better!) Maggie went to Nepalgunj and Kathmandu yesterday to car shop and after a very long trip and some bumps along the way, she bought what is literally the very last car for sale in all of Nepal. Nepal is currently drawing up a new constitution and in the mean time all importing of luxury items (such as cars) has been halted. However the car will certainly not be a luxury for Kopila. (Oh and by the way Kopila means flower bud in English. Isn't that so nice?) If you visit Maggie's blog www.blinknow.org and search around last month's posts you will find one that shares all the wonderful reasons a car is so important to have here. She explains it better than I could ever hope to. So in 5 days there will be a car out front here! Very exciting.

Well it's time for bed. Another long but wonderful day at Kopila gone by. I can't believe I'm into my second week away from home. Tomorrow I'll tell about what satsung is and more about the kids themselves.

Goodnight my far away family and friends. I love you!
(and thank you Grandmom for your rain prayers! They are working :)

A Whole New World


Baby Madan! What a cutie



Well I had quite the traumatic experience today. Poor Madan. He is 2 but is so small for his age and is the cutest little thing. But he has boils on his head that have apparently been the for some bit of time. There is one very large one and the infection has spread so he now has several smaller ones also :( Today he must have bumped his head and the large one opened up so we had to shave his little head and clean it. (By "we" I mean Frank does all the work and I assist :) So there I am squeezing Madan so tight I was sure I was going to pop him. I felt like an awful person as he cried and cried but he was kicking and squirming so much that I had to hold him like that so Frank could pop and irrigate the boils.(sorry for the gross stuff) Needless to say, Madan did not appreciate this at all. My poor little baby :( He screamed the whole time despite any cooing or humming or bouncing I did. I sat there wishing I could make him understand as I squeezed his legs in between mine, wrapped my arms around his little body, and held his hands down. I think it was more scary for him than it was painful, but either way it was sad. When it was all over though his head looked a million times better. (not counting the pathetic haircut he now has. I'm shocked that my disposable Bic razor didn't do a better job....not lol) So hopefully the antibiotics Frank put him on will take care of the rest.
The other kids just all have heat rash and lice for the most part. There are a couple sprains and some other aches and scratches and splinters, but the powder for itching and the lice shampoo are certainly the dominant treatments here for the kids. Adults come in too, but that's more Frank's territory. Oh and the kids LOVE the powder. I soon as I get it out it's like suddenly they are all itchy and need it.

In other news.......Yesterday was Shanti's 5th birthday!! She hasn't even been here for a year yet, and it was the first birthday she's ever actually celebrated. Lisa told me that she walked for two weeks with her grandmother to get here, and she was so small and dirty and her hair was orange from malnourishment. When I see her now I can't imagine this precious little child walking for that long in this place. It breaks my heart, but at the same time makes me so overwhelmingly happy that she is here now. She doesn't quite understand what a birthday is yet, but I think her face lit up brighter than the candles on her cake when it was brought out and everyone sang to her. Then she shut her eyes and made the longest wish, and you could tell she was wishing so hard. I almost cried it was so adorable. I'll have to see if I can steal a picture from Hannah because my camera was up on the 3rd floor.

So today was the second and final day (for now) that the kids had off school because of the strike. Yesterday I drew more Disney Princesses than I did in my entire childhood. The kids just wanted to color so I would draw which ever picture they picked from the books Cristina brought and hand them out one after another for hours. I must say I've gotten quite good at drawing Sleeping Beauty :) She is Anjali's favorite. Like this girl seriously LOVES Sleeping Beauty. I taught her the Once Upon a Dream song and she was so excited, and then later I let her listen to it on my Ipod and it was like Christmas or something haha. She is the sweetest most appreciative 11 year old I've ever met. She's really something special.
But it's not just her...they all love the princesses! And then I realized that they've never even seen half the movies..they just know who the princesses are, and they all have a favorite. Tonight we watched Aladdin and they all looked so confused at first when we said what movie we were watching. So then we were like...Jasmine. And they all went, "OOHH! Yay! We're watching Jasmine!!" It was very funny.

Something else that cracks me up is that apparently "Maggie" has become the Nepali word for "white person" in town. Cristina and I took a walk the other day because we woke up super early, and a little girl called after me, "Maggie!" so I thought she just mistook me for her since we look somewhat similar, and I waved back because I didn't want her to think Maggie was ignoring her. Turns out that everyone, even Frank gets called Maggie! We're all Maggies here! I really think that Maggie is going to officially make it into the Nepali dictionary (if that even exists) as the word for white person and will continue to be used for the rest of time.

And while we're on the subject, I've also been enjoying seeing how intrigued the kids are by my extreme whiteness. For the whole first day who ever was holding my hand would take my arm and look at it and point at my freckles and then turn my arm over and go "WOW...so white!" when they saw how ridiculously white and reflective the underside of my forearm is. It was sooooo funny. And it was more than one of them that did the same exact thing. However that has stopped since all my white has turned to red.

So it's back to school tomorrow, and I think I'll be teaching Health to Classes 1 and 2 which I'm super excited about. They're so cute but such a handful. My goal is to get them all sitting down in the first five minutes. Wish me luck. They're in for a fun day of learning about germs and hand washing......woohooo!!!

So yeah, I love this place. I love Maggie. I love the women and men who work so hard here. I love MANGOS!!! I love my mosquito net. I love the breeze we had after it rained today. I love that it rained today! I love that I got to help peel and cut potatoes and greens for dinner. I love that we had water today. I love that our power is on. I love satsung. I love Kopila!!!

Goodnight!

Too many lice, too little water

Well the water situation at Kopila has been improved and the tanks are now full (although it's only a matter of time before I turn the faucet and nothing comes out...oh well), however I think the lice is just getting worse. But I've shampooed a few heads with the special lice shampoo and if it turns into a pandemic in the house we may have to cut the girls' hair, which they are all very sad about. Especially since I gave the older girls all of my hair ties and bobby pins and some clips which they LOVED. I've been wearing my hair in french braids because it's cool and easy, but then Maggie goes "Oh that's smart.....it will help keep the lice out!" Bonus!! Haha

So anyway this is our second full day here at Kopila and it is just the greatest place in the world. Everyone is so welcoming and has truly made this home not just for the kids but for Cristina and me too. There are several women who work here and make the house run smoothly and they are so wonderful. They make sure everyone has plenty of food, and don't even get me started on the tea! I have no idea what's actually in it but it is SO GOOD. The kids have a lot of respect for these women and they are amazing people.

Yesterday I woke up to a rooster crowing. Oh and the goats baaaaah-ing and some dogs barking and some kids screaming. There are cattle and goats and chickens all over the place. Roaming around the roads and pretty much just everywhere you turn. And since Nepal is the land of no lanes or street signs, it makes travel quite interesting. And by interesting I mean feeling like you're going to be in some sort of traumatizing accident at any moment. That's more so in Kathmandu though. In Surkhet it is not so bad.

But wow, talk about culture shock. We flew in on what I had begun calling "The Death Plane". It wasn't so bad for a while, and flying over the Himalayas was such a beautiful experience and I felt so blessed. Then we went into a cloud and the shaking began and I felt death upon me. I have always wondered what it must feel like to be in a plane crash (weird, I know) and I think I can safely say that I now know. I mean obviously we didn't crash, but I SWORE we were going to at one point. Each time I would see a cloud coming I would just think, Here we go again, and brace myself for imminent doom. But we kept making it out alright and finally we landed at the Surkhet Airport....aka single building that appears to be falling down. Our flight was a few hours late, but we lucked out, and a girl that was on it is friends with Maggie and she and her brother took us to Kopila. It felt so good to finally be there. We were greeted with all these tiny smiles and instantly I had a girl on either side of me holding my hands and walking me inside. We were home.

The kids here LOVE be near you and sit on you and hold your hand and climb you. And when I say climb you I mean you don't even have to pick them up. They just scale you like a ladder and the next thing you know you're carrying one around. They're seriously the strongest kids I've ever met. They are all so cute and helpful! And if you are ever looking for a good workout, just come to Kopila and put Shanti on your back and Bindu on your front and run up and down the hallway about a hundred times like I did last night. They tired me out! But if you could hear Shanti's little laugh you'd know why I just couldn't stop.

Yesterday we walked the kids to BulBule which is a big park about a mile and a half away with beautiful flowers and fields and also has a large spring. Since basically no one in the area had water, it was full of people bathing and washing clothes. The spring is like a big stone pool that has spouts on the side which you can stand under. All around it is a big stone ledge where you soap up your clothes and then scrub them against the rock to clean them. It was really pretty cool and I liked being a part of it. And the water was so cold and felt amazing considering that there hasn't been a single second that I haven't been sweating since I got here. Anytime I would be home and complain to my Dad how hot the house was he would reply with "I'm just training you for Nepal!" He wasn't kidding! Although no New Jersey heat could have truly prepared me for this haha. I'm getting used to it though. At night it feels so good up on the roof I just want to sleep there. The power is currently out and we are running on solar so no fans :( Oh well.

Today was the first day of school that I was a part of. It's really amazing what Maggie's done here, and seeing all these kids learning is so awesome. It's a lot of work for the two other volunteers Karen and Lisa who are teachers and teacher trainers since the rest of the teachers are from the area and have never had to make lesson plans before now. They're doing such a great job though. I went to the Health classes with Frank and helped out, and I'm going to take over teaching them in Class 1 and 2. The kids in there are so cute but gosh are they a handful! All day it's "Teacher! Teacher! Miss! Teacher! Toilet! Look! Teacher! Miss! Water! Miss! Miss!" So we are working on self control :) Cristina, Hannah (Maggie's friend and another volunteer), and I will also be teaching special classes and we're going to be working toward putting on a show in three weeks that all the classes will be a part of. It's gonna be great!!!

There's so much more to tell, but for now my body is telling me to get under my mosquito net (Thank you Maggie!!!) and go to sleep. Oh and we had a big lizard in our room last night. That was fun too. He was cute and I didn't mind him, but I just kept picturing Matilda and the newt, and then I thought about waking up with a lizard on my face and I just wasn't ok with that. So thank you again Maggie for tapping at it until it exited back out the window.

It's lightening here, so hopefully the rain will come soon. We got a few drops but we need more!!!! Everyone do your rain dances! Have a wonderful beautiful day, and I will try to update again as soon as possible. I SWEAR I'll try to put pictures up tomorrow. There are so many cute ones of some relay races we had tonight. I've never seen anyone who loves to be in and take pictures more than these kids. Who knows what's even on my camera.

OK I'm really going now. Sleep tight!

Kelly

I wrote in my journal while in the airports and on the planes so that I could remember everything to share it. Here's what was going on!

Thursday 6/17/10
Today I watched the sunrise while talking to a Buddhist monk. And I'm not even in Nepal yet. We've survived the first two flights and now I'm sitting in what I like to call the holding tank. Of course it's not actually a tank, but an area where passengers who are transferring flights and thus do not have visas to enter India are sent to wait. The part I am in is a long glass room with surprisingly comfortable semi-reclining chairs. However, it totally feels like a fish tank as people pass by and stare in through the glass at me. Maybe it's because I look like I'm 12 with my braided pigtails and my teddy bear sharing my seat. I just couldn't bare to leave Thomas at home though! He wants to see Nepal too :)
It is SUCH a TEASE flying over and into countries and not being able to leave the airport. Especially when I have 16 hours to kill. Germany looked so beautiful from above, but I guess that trip will have to wait for another time. I almost wished I ate meat so that I could say I had a frankfurter in Frankfurt haha! The coolest thing though was that when we got to the gate for our flight, instead of stepping right onto the plane we got on a shuttle (that I was totally skeptical about at first but really I was just happy to be outside again) and it took us right up to the plane! We climbed up the steps to board! It was very cool. All I was thinking was - This must be what it feels like to be Posh Spice.
Gosh it's been two days and so much has happened that I can't even figure out how to organize it into an understandable account of events. So I apologize for how extremely long this is.
Ok. First. Three thumbs up for Air India. Best. Plane food. Ever. I got to eat tofu on a plane! How cool is that? Anyway....Huge plane, very nice people. Cristina got a nosebleed halfway through and then proceeded to spill water all over herself, so that was a minor setback, but other than that it went very smoothly. Oh except when her contact spontaneously popped out of her eye. And the man next to me told me that there are a lot of happy people in Nepal which of course put a smile on my face.
Our second flight was even better. It wasn't even half full so everyone spread out and either had an isle or window seat. I finally slept :)
And that flight brought us to our holding tank where we have made our three new friends. First there is AJ from Indiana who is going to Afghanistan for travel and to visit friends. Then there is Ester who if from Hungary and is also going to Kathmandu. She is currently unemployed at home and she decided to go abroad to teach. Lastly is Ani Kunga. She is a Buddhist monk from New York going to Kathmandu to study and teach in a college where they help visiting foreigners with their English and other languages. She is extremely interesting and has graciously shared so much that I did not know about Buddhism. She is a very peaceful and kind soul. I also met a girl from Germany and one from the Netherlands, although they were fortunate enough to not have a 16 hour layover and are now long gone.
So here I sit with my little group. Cristina and Ester are sleeping. AJ wanders periodically which is actually nice because he's quite a talker.....despite the fact that I'm clearly reading or watching a movie on my ipod. But he means well and is friendly. Ani is tapping away on her computer. I must say, I've thoroughly enjoyed the people watching from inside my glass aquarium, but I'm itching to get to Kathmandu!!!! For now I'll just sit and try to comprehend the fact that I am in Inida.
I'm enjoying having my stereotypes broken down. I like talking to people from all over. I love learnings things. I love seeing what's out there. I love seeing how much people are just like me. And how they're not. I LOVE that the punishing fourescent lights overheard just when off because it is now bright enough outside! I love that I'm here. I love that my family supports me. I love that I am not alone. I love being enlightened by a monk at 5 am. I love the universe and all it has to offer me. And all I have to offer it. I love that 28 kids are waking up in Nepal and I'm going to meet them all tomorrow.


well I think this has been about long enough. I'll share more about Ani soon and hopefully get my pictures up! I have to get a power converter in Surkhet first so I can charge this baby.
Have a wonderful day!!!

"Your only limit is your soul" - Ratatouille

Oh the anticipation

Tomorrow is the day! This is pretty much just a test post. I'm sure I will have more exciting things to say the next time I can write :)

Love,
Kelly

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