Teacher Strike and Some Good Humour

Well, it takes some good humour to deal with the frustrations that come with volunteering in Nepal. Between disorganized public schools with under worked and overpaid teachers, everything working on "Nepali time", and the amount of festival holidays you have when your country is 80% Hindu and 15% Buddhist, it's hard to be a productive volunteer. Remy and I have both agreed that we would have needed 4 months in Nepal if we wanted to get two months of work done. Alas, the news is true, there is some problem with the teacher union in Nepal and the Maoists (or something…the news we get is not completely accurate sometimes), and there is no school from yesterday (Wednesday) until Sunday. This leaves us a lot of free time between our learning centre sessions in the morning and the evenings, and the odd Ultimate Frisbee game. At least I get more time to read. I'm really enjoying "The Irresistible Revolution", and I would like to take this time to thank Jon for lending it to me (sorry I still have it), and tell all of you to read it!

One thing Remy and I have learned though, is that the teachers here are actually really funny and are generally great people, with some layers to get through. They are like onions. Or Ogres. The only thing is that most of them probably shouldn't be teachers…great people, but NOT born educators.

As for humour, my main man Ramsharan helps in that category. He is a grade 8 student that attends the learning centre sessions. He's awesome. It's funny because there are 3 "Ramsharans" that Remy and I know now. He is "small Ramsharan", "middle Ramsharan" is a young cook from the Old Inn (our neighbours), and "Big Ram" is the owner of the Old Inn. All 3 of them are awesome people, and it's cool because Remy found out that Ramsharan means "Surrender to God" (on a side note). So anyhow, I'll give you one of Ramsharan's jokes:

There were two brothers named "discipline" and "I dunno". One day, discipline was in the bathroom, when an elder from the village went to "I dunno" and said: "Young man, what is your name?"…"I dunno", he replied. Shocked, the elder exclaimed: "Where is your discipline!?"…"It has gone to the toilet," said I dunno.
BA DOOM CHING!
He told me another one about an ant wearing an elephant's underwear, but to be honest I didn't get it.

One more quick thing...When Remy and I were in Pokhara a couple weeks back, we bartered for a second hand acoustic guitar that I ended up buying. I officially have a travel guitar! It's been really fun playing it with the family and taking requests for songs that I can't quite play. Good times.

Peace.