I have to make this quick.

This week has been incredible! My teaching schedule looks like this:
11 am: A beautiful time for a first class...I teach about 20 students at the smaller of the two school for a Ugandan 40 minutes (closer to an hour) at "Kisugu St. Stephen's Primary".
After lunch: I have two official classes at the government school (Kisugu Church of Uganda). The smaller one has 100 students...the bigger one has 110. It is equally as fun!
After school I take one of the government school classes out for sports and games! (FRISBEE!). SO MUCH FUN.

So school has been a blast! I've been teaching english, as well as general knowledge about the world, because most students don't know anything about the world outside of Uganda/East Africa. (Someone told me that Ethiopia was the continent North of Africa).

Also, Yesterday I went kayaking on the Nile River in Jinja! (where the Nile starts!) It was awesome. Remy went Bungee jumping, and I decided that wasn't for me. He had fun though.

Things are good.
Peace.

Back to Primary school

Through the KiBO foundation I have met many interesting people. Last Thursday Abraham introduced me to the head teacher of Kisugu Church of Uganda Primary School, a very impoverished school that KiBO students have recently helped support. They invited me to come and teach, so on Friday I went to meet with them to discuss where/how I could be used. This is where things get interesting...I feel like I say that a lot. For the record, this year has been interesting.

Anyhow, so we drove past a few school buildings and up to a set of gates that said "Kisugu Primary School"...or something like that. I went in with Remy and we asked for the head teacher. They said he was away, but they gave us his mobile number. I had forgotten his name, but I called anyways and told him who I was, and that I wanted to talk to him about volunteering at his school. He seemed surprised and just said: "I'll be there in 2 minutes!" In non-Ugandan style, he came flying up the hill on a motorbike (or "bodaboda") within about 2 minutes!

He greeted me with a big smile, and I couldn't understand why I didn't really recognize him...He brought me to the office and asked me how I heard of his school, and how I got his number. Hmm...well...does KiBO foundation ring a bell? ....Nope. He proceeded to tell me that his school was called "Kisugu St. Stephen's primary school", and that the school I was looking for was probably "Kisugu Church of Uganda primary school". This was true. But he went on to say that he was so excited when he got my call because their school has a great need for teachers, and they have been looking ever since they started for any sort of partnerships with teachers from overseas! He told me he understood if I wanted to teach at the other school, but that he welcomed any commitment I could give to their school, as he considered my (completely random) showing up a total blessing. Long story short, I'm pretty sure I was supposed to drive just past the other Kisugu school in order to meet this awesome man. As of tomorrow, I'm meeting an english teacher from their school and I'm gonna help out with grade 5!

I also went on to meet the head teacher from the other Kisugu School (whom I had met), and they also assigned me to two grade 5 classes (English), as well as a joint grade 5 class doing sports and games (ie - Ultimate frisbee) after school. I'm pretty pumped for tomorrow. The only problem is that it really won't be much of a commitment because they go into exams in 2 weeks...but I'll have a couple of weeks to make a connection with 2 very needy schools, possibly improve some english and teach them about the world, and play some sweet ultimate games. Hopefully I can help out in such a short time.

Remy is in the process of getting involved in some very interesting and creative ways, and will possibly be going outside the city to help with arts n' crafts sorta stuff in a village nearby, so he won't be joining me at school.

So it seems that anywhere I go this year, I always get pulled back into teaching at good ol' Primary school. Hooray for maturity! The crowd I've been hanging around this year might be slightly different to the first year university crowd this september. We'll see if I fit in...

Uganda. (Chapter 3 begins)

Peter Crysdale was right. The sky in Sub-Saharan Africa during the rainy season is breathtaking.

I have learned a lot in my first week in Africa. The people are warm, like the weather, and Ugandans have a lot to teach me. Having said that, so did Honduran's...and Nepali's. The geography, vegetation and poverty here remind me more of Honduras. Nepal has one of the lowest GDP's in the world, and yet many more people are living above the poverty line, whereas country's like Honduras and Uganda may generate more wealth, and yet have more people living below the poverty line. Kampala (the capital of Uganda - where we are living), is a nice city. It has a distinct CBD, some nice malls, and quite a few suave businessmen. Nepal had little or none of the above. The lush vegetation, rolling green hills, humidity, and hot sun remind me of Honduras. Ok...comparison over.

KiBO:

See "Kibo Peak" - one of the peaks of Mt. Kilimanjaro.

See “KiBO foundation” – an organization based in Kampala, Uganda. Created and directed by Abraham and Judith Temu, with the aim of educating and empowering Ugandan/African youth, and teaching them that they can make a difference in their communities. Awesome. Not to be confused with the “Kybo”. (I’m not being insulting, Abraham said it!)

We are staying in Kampala with our Ugandan family: Abraham and Judith (our parents), and Maria and Edna (our 5 year old twin sisters).

At this moment the KiBO program is finishing its third class, and starting it’s fourth. When we arrived the third class of students was running its final project, which was a series of fundraisers to raise money for a nearby orphanage/primary school, to improve their learning environment. “Ugandan youth helping other young Ugandans, that’s what it’s all about. Not taking handouts from North Americans, but realizing they can make a difference themselves to solve the ‘Africa problem’.” (The above is a paraphrased version of something Abraham said.) One thing I noticed right away about the KiBO youth, and the teachers, is their passion. It pumps you up when you listen to them. There are 4 associates/teachers working with KiBO: Gerald, Jonathan, Michael, and Anis. They all have very distinct personalities, and they are all hilarious. Remy and I have had the chance to hang out with them a bit and learn some Ugandan slang and eat some Ugandan food (Metoke – a banana/water mix mashed up and wrapped in banana leaves…tasty!).

Anyhow, so it’s a bit of a transition period here at KiBO (between class 3 ending and class 4 starting). Remy and I were able to help out at the final fundraiser for class 3, which was a huge car wash event last Saturday. It was intense! I’ve never seen cars washed with so much vigour. It is now “KiBO week”, so there are various intro events for class 4, and people can come into the centre and get a peak at what KiBO is all about.

In the past few days (due to the hectic organization stuff going on at KiBO centre, Remy and I were given a chance to explore the city (and get out of everyone’s hair). It has been really fun to just discover all that Kampala has, figure out how to get around and where to go, and how not to get lost. We are now pretty solid at finding our way around the city and we’ve seen a lot!

So we’re in Africa, and I’m still processing everything. I can’t believe I’m here and I’m really excited about what’s to come. Also, my great Uncle Arthur arrived here last night to take part in KiBO week and see how the KiBO foundation is doing. (He is on the board for the foundation, and he is the reason I met Abraham in Toronto last fall). It’s nice to have some family here in Uganda!

I really will try to get pictures up soon. Really, I will.

Peace.

Dubai/Oman: Pit Stop

From the mountains and the cold, into the heat, desert, and coastline extravagance of Dubai. From the refrigerated frying pan, into the fire. A very hot, wealthy, sandy fire. The Nepal to UAE (United Arab Emirates) transition is about as big of a contrast as you can imagine. Think Gordon Lightfoot doing a cover of a Rage Against the Machine Song. Yeah, I know. People in Nepal try to farm snow covered villages over 4000 metres above sea level. People in Dubai go skiing on an indoor ski hill in a mall in the middle of the desert.

My time here has been well appreciated, and I've enjoyed seeing the fantasy world of Dubai, and recognizing it as such. It's a nice place to visit if you have a friend's father's apartment floor to sleep on (rather than trying to pay for a hotel here), and it's an interesting place to see (quickly), and then leave before things get a little bit too overwhelming. I'd say I'm ready for our flight to Entebbe (Uganda) tomorrow morning.

The environment of this area of the world is completely different to anything I've experienced, and that is perhaps what I've enjoyed the most. We drove out into the desert and spent a night camping under the stars for an "Arabian night"...Alladin style. It was really beautiful to be surrounded by the bare rock and sand of the desert and we had a lot of fun climbing the rocky mountains around our makeshift "campsite". We also got to ride ATV's on the sand dunes and take huge air off of the dunes...totally hardcore, sort of. Remy is actually quite a proficient ATV-er...and I am not. Claire managed to fall off her ATV, then have it land on her. Don't worry, she's fine. (Claire is Remy's sister, who was also touring the area with Remy's Dad - Mac - Remy, and Myself).

We spent one night in the Sultanate of Oman, which was like an undeveloped version of the UAE. The geography of the coast of Oman was incredibly beautiful: fjords, Jellyfish/dolphin populated water (the gulf of Oman), beaches, and fishing villages were highlights.

The past few days have included the following other activities: Skiing (yep, I went with Claire to "Ski Dubai" - totally surreal!), an Ice Cafe (we ate lunch in a refrigerated room made of ice!), ATV riding, eating tasty Arabic food, sweating, Camels, seeing the worlds only "7 star hotel" and the worlds tallest building, and being subjected to unnecessary amounts of wealth. Yes, people actually pay over 15, 000 dollars for a hotel room for a night. Apparently that's a good idea. (Sorry if one of my readers has stayed at the Burj-Al-Arab hotel before!)

So the Dubai/Oman mini-chapter of the trip has been very interesting, filled with beautiful nature and one heck of a city, which I am still trying to process. Next chapter: Uganda!

Peace.
PS - those of you that are shaking their fists at me due to a lack of photos...if you have facebook, photos are a lot easier to add there, thus mine are posted there...if you don't have facebook (Mom and Dad), I'm sorry and I will try to get some photos put on here soon!

Before....After!

So I had had enough after 5 months of growing hair...October 13th to March 13th, here is the result:

Everest, you win this time. (see below for second new entry)

The window between leaving Bandipur and leaving Nepal allowed time for one thing: A trek in the Everest region. We were more than a little disorganized with how we planned the trek, but everything seemed to fall into place for us. We went to the airport on March 1st, looked around for a volunteer who was friends with volunteers we had met through Peter. We hadn't met him, but we had heard he had a pretty sweet trek planned. So we arrived at the airport, and I went up to the first guy with a beard I saw and said: "Cody?" And I was right! We had talked on the phone the night before and basically the plan was that we would tag along with him if we could get last minute seats on a flight to Lukla (Everest region airport). After meeting Cody, we went to the "Yeti airlines" desk and said: "Do you happen to have two extra seats on this mornings flights to Lukla?" The reply: "Yes." Everything was seriously going our way.

So we started our trek with Cody that afternoon in the misty mountains. The plan was to trek from Lukla (2800 metres above sea level) to Gokyo Peak (A beautiful mountain that overlooks Everest from 5300 metres). This is how the trek went for me:
First day: Lukla down to Phakding - no problem. (2800 - 2600 m)
Second day: Phakding up to Namche Bazar. This would be a killer, and our greatest rise in elevation on the entire trek. (2600 - 3450 metres).
Second day (halfway through): oh boy...I think I have altitude sickness.
Second day (at Namche Bazar): Boy it's hard to breathe...and the world is spinning...and I have no appetite.
Third day: Sick. Let's stay here to acclimatize and allow Tim to stay alive and take some medicine.
Fourth day: Worse. Ok Tim, you go down, we'll go up. (3450 - 2800...down to a town called Jorsalle)
Fifth day: ...the same? I'm gonna go down some more. (2800 - 2600...back to Phakding)
Sixth day: ...possibly worse still: let's get to Lukla and get out of here!! (2600 - 2800)

So I caught the first flight back to Kathmandu after 2 antibiotics and 1 altitude medication drug failed to do anything about my condition...and saw a doctor the next day. Apparently I had gotten a pretty stubborn bacterial virus and I would need a few days to recover while on some new antibiotics.

Lowlight: being sick.
Highlights:
#1: I did get a few clear days while trekking and the Everest region is really breathtaking.
#2: I'm feeling better now!
#3: I was allowed to stay at Peter's house while I recovered - I got some good reading/writing done.
#4: Remy got back today and said they made it to Gokyo Peak and it was unreal. So it was a successful expedition, despite my failure to perform.

We leave Nepal this Sunday and I can't believe how fast it's flown by! Other cool things I haven't mentioned on the blog:
We went Paragliding in Pokhara! (Very cool)
I shaved today! (I look like a baby!)
Remy got his eyebrow pierced! (JUST KIDDING! HA!)

Peace.

Goodbye Bandipur

Ok, I haven't done this in a while and I'm sorry. I fell off the ball. Now I'm on it, don't worry.

Our last week in Bandipur flew by like nobody's business. All of a sudden 2 months was up; no more Dal Bhat, no more school, and a lot of goodbye celebrations to be had. On our last night in Bandipur we were invited for 4 dinners, we got a total of about 10 garlands of flowers draped all over us (from schools/learning centres), I was given 3 Tika's (red bits of rice/paint on my forehead), and we spent much of the day dancing and singing Nepali songs with the children. There was a lot of laughing, eating, dancing, and gift recieving...by the end of it all we were exhausted but we felt very loved.
Highlights:
We were invited to one of the teacher's houses to learn how to make Mo mo's (a delicious dumpling-type food popular in Nepal), we were given traditional Nepali men's hats from our family, and we were given loads of beautiful flowers as gifts from various children.

Despite all the joy in the celebrations, it was hard to say goodbye to all of the amazing people we had been blessed to live alongside as we stayed in Bandipur. I will miss the children that would randomly attack us as we walked through the streets, the times when Rajani (our Nepali mother; "Aama") would play tricks on us, the students at the learning centres we got to hang out with, and the beauty of the village itself. If someone were to go to Bandipur as a tourist (as many people do - staying for 1 or 2 nights), they would witness a beautiful old village, however if you ever get the chance to go (to any Nepalese village), I recommend staying a bit longer and becoming familiar with the most beautiful part of the village; it's people.

Namaste Bandipur, I'll come back as soon as I can.
Peace.