IB results, poster madness and a frenchman

I am completely in the routine of teaching. Teaching really feels like a job now. I love it. The last week has had only one interruption (which is a teeny tiny small amount compared to the past few weeks) meaning that I have been teaching a full week!

Hold up. I just realized I haven’t actually given a detailed account at all about what has been happening the past few days, and by past few days I mean the past week. I apologize. It all started on the 6^th; the day that the IB results came out. The IB (international baccalaureate) is an international 2 year high school program, and it’s super tough. The 6^th was coincidentally also the Dalai Lama’s birthday; so we had another day off. There is usually some big celebration in one of the cities, with dancing and music, but because of the problems between Tibet and China, and the close connection between the Nepali and Chinese government there were cops on the streets all day, preventing all monks from going anywhere (sending them to jail if they did try to take the bus! Ridiculous). This happens every year. So the monks had been planning a picnic for the last few days and that was supposed to be the celebration of the day. BUT the morning of, the monsoon decided to show itself (it had been pretty nice weather the day before) and huge rain drops were falling from the sky; we called off the picnic.

Chulten covered completely
in mud... what a winner

I spent the day with one of the older monks, Tsering, going from tea shop to tea shop in the village and reading, waiting for the 6:00 pm mark on my watch; the time when the IB results would go live. Because I hadn’t gone to Kathmandu this weekend I really got to see how the young monks spend their days off. Answer: playing football. They constantly played football all day, and at around 4:30 pm after they’d had their tea break at the monastery they invited me to go with then. It was so crazy watching them shed their robes to reveal the football uniforms underneath. And for a couple of hours in the heat of the sun they weren’t Buddhist monks, they were just normal teenage boys; shouting and playing and getting covered in mud (which the morning rain had created).

Then it was 5:30 pm and it was time for me to make my way to the sketchy tea shop that has wifi. The monastery has wifi, but it’s barely there and only works on my iPod, not on my laptop. So I still have to go to the tea place to upload blog posts or send important emails OR check the results of my finals. So I walked the 10 minute walk all nervous. Got to the shop, and surprisingly the internet Gods were kind to me; I miraculously had 5 bars of connection in the tiny shop in the Nepali mountains. Had a little fiddle with the code (thanks for the help mom!) and then boom, there they were; my results. 39 glorious points. I was a happy camper and may or may not have cried in the middle of the tea shop with Ramsaran-ji looked worriedly at me, desperately offering me “Tea?” “Donut?” “Juice?” trying to console me (he knows me so well; food makes everything better). I later got one of the monks to explain to him what was going on, he looked relieved…

I phoned the parents (mom in Abu Dhabi, dad in Saudi) and informed them of the good news and they were both over the moon. They had a bet; mom had predicted 36-38 points and dad had predicted 40 points… with the 39 neither of them won; that’s what you get for betting on your daughter’s exam grades mom and dad!!! Only joking (or as my monks always say “joking-REH”). I was feeling a bit down about the English grade (a 5/7, when I’d been predicted a 6/7) and the TOK grade (a B when I had always had a predicted A) but really, those were only minor details. I should probably let you know that this post will consist of a lot of thoughts about my results; they were a big part of my week! Apologies that it is completely unrelated to the monastery experience!

The next day was Sunday, the day that Paulin (my classmate that I randomly and totally coincidentally met at a road side restaurant on the way to Chitwan) and I had decided to meet up. We had it all planned out; he would get dropped off by the Chitwan bus to Kathmandu at around 2:00 pm, he’d then take the bus to Boudha (following careful instructions from me on how the Nepali bus system works) and meet me at Boudha. At 1:30 pm I was ready to start making my way to Boudha and as I walked out of the monastery I bumped into a group of my students (of course dressed in their football uniforms) and they all informed me that the picnic was starting in an hour! THE PICNIC?! No one had told me that the picnic was back on and now all of a sudden I was expected to go? I asked them what time it finished; “5:00 pm”. I then asked them whether one of them could walk me down to the bus at around 2:30 pm; “Zizi are you crazy?! The picnic is up up in the mountains”. My heart shattered into a million pieces; I was going to miss out on the picnic up in the beautiful green mountains… but I’d made a promise to Paulin and he was super excited. So I had to tell the monks the disappointing news and they were outraged… literally, it was actually pretty comical, Sunny was shouting at me “Zizi, you crazy!!!!!”, but I had to tell them over and over again that I really couldn’t go. I felt so bad.

I tried to shake it off and went on with my journey. Off to Boudha. At the same time I was glad to have an hour to myself to read. I arrived at Boudha and went to my favorite restaurant, Paradise Rooftop Restaurant, and the staff all greeted me “Welcome back!!!”, yep I may come here too often… they have really good Pokoda… As I sat down I got a text from Paulin: his bus was stuck in a traffic jam right up in the mountains and he was most likely going to be two hours late… Two hours late? 3 + 2 = 5, 5:00 pm… the picnic ended at 5:00 pm… I COULD HAVE GONE. Oh well, nothing to be done about it now. So I sat and read and then I remembered that Lex, one of the new volunteers, is at a monastery really close to Boudha. I messaged her and she said that she was super sick, all by herself in a hotel room in Thamel. I thought for about 0.46 seconds and then decided to take the bus there.

Cute hotel hang out...

I did a bit of snack shopping for Lex; cookies, bananas, Jolapi (YOU HAVE TO TRY IT, it is so so so sweet but so so so good… on second thought, you probably won’t like it, I only like it because I inherited the Dutch sweet tooth, it’s deadly sweet) and donuts! I arrived at the hotel room and we had a snack/wifi party and a really good conversation. I knew that Paulin would get dropped off the Chitwan bus in Kathmandu; I would find him. At around 5:30 pm Paulin called and informed me that he was almost there. So off I went on my man hunt (please realize Kathmandu is massive and I am crazy). I decided to try to find the place where I got dropped off from Chitwan, found it and hovered around for a bit, hoping we used the same bus company. Paulin called to tell me he had arrived and there was no bus in sight, I told him to stay put and I started wandering. I swear this is just an example of how much the past weeks have changed me, nowadays I am so casual about situations I’d otherwise totally have stressed out about. Now I just have faith that it will all turn out fine, and it usually does. And it did again! I found him within 10 minutes!!! “CHARLOTTE YOU ARE MY HERO” I guided him through Thamel to the hotel Lex was staying at, introduced them and then ditched them to have a shower (the water at the monastery stopped working again and I was dying) so I left 

them awkwardly in the room to bond, it was fine, they totally clicked.

We talked non-stop that evening and realized that if we wanted to go back to the monastery that night we’d have to leave right then (the busses stop at around 7:00 pm). We spent a moment thinking and then decided we were too lazy and too comfortable and we stayed at the hotel with Lex, she was starting to feel better and better (it was clearly my TLC). We had some good food, some good conversations and Paulin and I went out for a quick souvenir shopping spree; I bought yet another pair of trousers. When we got back I checked my email and found out some horrific news (nerd problems); the reason I got a 5/7 in English was solely because of my World Literature essay (one of the 5 components of the English literature course) in which I scored a 2/7!!! The essay is written in class over a period of a couple of months, I had been working my ass off on the essay for weeks, had it looked over by my English teacher thousands of times and in the end she predicted a 6/7! But somehow the IB gave me a 2… this was the start of some stressful organizing; I had to get remarks done. Half an hour later I realized that I had scored a D for my TOK essay (instead of the predicted A), yep, I’d have to get that one remarked too. A few days later my parents came to my rescue and offered to help, they got the remarking all sorted out now, so I’ll know whether my teachers were crazy or whether the examiner was crazy in a month!

Right after the ridiculous napping
fest

Okay, so we spent the night in Lex’s hotel room, Paulin sleeping on the floor (what a champ) and we woke up super super early at 5:00 am; I had to teach. So with our sleepy heads we caught the bus to Sundarijal. It’s so funny to see how cautious they both still are (they are relatively new to Nepal) and how freaking used to it I am. Then I realized they are the exact image of me when I just arrived… hilarious. We arrived at Sundarijal at 7:45 am, and I realized that I probably wouldn’t make it to my class with Tulku Jigme that day (DAMN I hate missing his classes), so I called Ngodup to call it off and went to grab breakfast with Paulin and Lex. We got to the monastery an hour later, ready to start classes at 9:00 am only to discover that it was a big Pooja that day; meaning no classes, no nothing. Yep. We had went to bed super late. We had woken up at 5:00 am so we could make it to the classes. And now we discovered they were called off. What did we proceed to do? We napped in my room until noon. Lex in my bed, me on the yoga mat and Paulin on a pillow… damn Paulin always gets the short end of the stick muahahaha.

Throwing my hair in the
river! (If you have no
clue what I'm on about
go two posts back!)

At noon we had lunch (showed them the skills of the monastery cook, seriously, he makes amazing food, he even makes Dal Bhat taste good day after day after day of it), I introduced them to all the monks, taught Lex how to wash clothes (she’d have to start washing her own clothes soon) and then we all went to a tea house up in the Sundarijal mountains. They loved it. We had some tea and conversations and then a couple of hours later we went to Boudha together (Paulin still hadn’t been there), Boudha is the big Buddhist temple with the famous Buddha eyes on it. We had dinner together there (guess where? Yep. Paradise Rooftop Restaurant) and then said our goodbyes… had a proud mom moment when Paulin left by himself on the bus (I’d taught him how the whole Nepali process works).

Since then the days have been work, work, work and I love it. Yesterday my students in class 1 and 3 finished their posters, they were so proud of their work, it was so great to see! I took individual pictures of each of them with their posters and some of the students went all model on me, posing in all the poses... I'll post the pictures of one of my students, Nemar, working the camera... Too cute! So yes, the class room actually looks like a class room now with all the posters on the walls!

Class 1 showing off their posters!

Class 3 and their posters + me in the middle
of an ocean of monks.

Look how classroom-y it looks, so proud

So, that’s all that’s been going on! Tomorrow afternoon I am off to Thamel to hang out with the other volunteers (haven’t seen any of them, except Lex, in two weeks) then I’ll wake up super early again Saturday and leave back to the Monastery to teach (this time I’ll check whether there is a surprise Pooja beforehand…). The other Charlotte is coming with me to the monastery and we’re having a cute sleep over here because she’s interviewing Tibetan monks (they are all refugees) for her big university essay (I think it’s called a Thesis, oops, don’t tell NYU)

Charlotte x