Nepali Family Life

Living with a Nepali family these past 4 months has been the best thing EVER.  My roommates consisted of my 96 year old Nepali grandpa, his son, and the two girls that do their cooking and cleaning.  Oh and how could I forget Uttum the dog. When I asked the gramps what kind of dog Uttum was, he said "A local kind."  :)

The fam :)

Me and my favorite dog :)

 The majority of my time in the house was spent with the gramps.  He's 96, but is still sharp as hell and can speak fluent English.  He is FULL of life experience and I've been blessed to have had the opportunity to hear all his wisdom he has to share.  He goes to work everyday where he grows many indigenous plants and flowers..especially rare orchids.  One day I came home to him chopping wood for his orchids.  He LITERALLY was sitting on this stoop for over 3 hours chopping away.  :)

Still workin hard

Here are just a few things to give you a picture of how amazing my gramps here is....

He doesn't drink beer and will only have an omelet made from the egg whites.   He is still watching his figure.  But yet it's ok for me to drink beer and have an omelet with egg yolks....

One night he spent about 25 minutes explaining to me how important it is to save the steam when cooking and to not waste it. So if you find yourself in the kitchen anytime soon and boiling vegetables or anything of that sort, use that extra steam wisely!

Another night he asked me if I knew the exact formula for making soap.  He says he's been trying to figure it out because there are so many raw materials here and that he could find jobs for many of the unemployed guys here.  So if ur wondering what the thoughts of a 96 year old Nepali man are...there they are.  How to make soap and employ a bunch of people.  :)

Over and over again he also tells me to "Live your life so you have no regrets."  His only regret to this day is that he never tried the meat of the tiger or bear.  Those are his ONLY regrets!

Since there is rarely power here in Nepal, which means no TV, the gramps and I spend plenty of time talking together every night.  Every night I come down to hang out with him for about 45 minutes before dinner.... and EVERY SINGLE NIGHT, he has a cup of brandy waiting for me..usually along with a little bowl of peanuts or some other Nepali treat.  :)

Chatting it up before dinner in his room...our usual spot :)

In front of my house :)

 Almost everyday before school and before bed he "Wishes me all the best."  Probably the cutest little line I have ever heard in my life.

My life here could not be more simple and beautiful.  :)

Handprints

So again, being the nice teacher that I am....I decided on doing another project...but this time for the whole school.  Lucky for the kids, this time around it didn't take much work on their part, got them out of class for a bit, and also involved a fun little mess with kerosene.  Apparently kerosene is good for getting off paint...so after the kids put their hands on the wall, they then dipped their hands into some petrol.  Needless to say there was paint and petrol EVERYWHERE.  Thank God no one lit a match.  Here are some pics of our fun little project.  :)

Class 5 waiting their turn

First Handprint on the wall goes to Prashish :)

Nysa - Class 6

Class 3 girls

Iksaa and I doing some writing :)

Final Outcome with hand prints from grades 1-10 and of course a few teachers :)

First two handprints

Watching the soccer tourney :)

Our lovely little school :)

 The kids loved the project...I think it's because they got to get paint all over themselves.  And the Friday fun day continued with a continuation of their "World Cup" soccer tournament.  :)

English Speech Competition

I guess when having an English speech competition it would make sense that the only native English speaker there would be the judge…aka me.   At first I was nervous that I was just going to pick my favorites no matter how good or bad their speech was…but don’t worry, that didn’t happen.  The speeches were amazing and their English is so unbelievably good, especially the older kids.  

Judges Table

Prashna -Class 3 on the topic of "My Mother"

  

  The topics of the speeches ranged from "Why is Science important?" to "The importance of the English language" to "My family" and "My mother."  The little kids got quite nervous and some of the them could only spit out a few words,  but it was an awesome competition followed by some Nepali dances and the guys doing some break dancing. They requested me to do a song, but I kindly refused since I'm not on tour right now.  :)

Awshika class 3

Class 3 girls a little nervous for a singing performance :)

I've tried to add a few videos since it helps to get a better picture of some of the kids.  Hope these work....and enjoy!  The Kids are SUPER cute and the videos are only about 40 seconds.  :)

Class 3 girls Dance:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7HSHYEVr0Q&feature=youtu.be

Class 10 guys break-dancing:
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5N8meha6Y8U&feature=youtu.be

Little tikes gettin' low
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Je1Bfh1Yxg&feature=youtu.be

Another event we recently had was a science fair.  Even the little kindergarteners participated...which was probably the cutest thing of my life.  They had a few different types of leaves on some paper and told everyone what types of the leaves they were.  Awesome.  Their favorite were the mango leaves. :)

Don't mess with them...they mean business

The first graders showed us a plant and a plastic bottle of coke explaining that the little plant can eat, drink and breath and the coke bottle cannot.  Hence a living vs. non-living thing. 

 

Class 1 - Living vs. Non-living thing

The older kids did their project on things like the periodic table, atomic elements, amoebas and a few other things that I definitely do NOT remember from high school. Yikes.  But go them...

They had real slugs. So gross.

Wish I remembered this stuff