The Gardener and The Tailor

We have the world’s best gardener and personal tailor. I just have to share them with you!

Yoga has been our gardener for about 6 months. He always has a smile on his face and our garden looks amazing. I wish I could bring him with me when I leave.

Dilli, the tailor, deserves an award for being the best tailor in the whole world. We hired him on full time to make the kids PJ’s and have continued to keep him busy once they were finished. He is from a little village up in Kali Kot and is here during the winter season. Emily actually performed surgery on him because he had such a bad ingrown toenail.

COMMUNITY SERVICE MONTH and THE EDUCATION GOD

Friday we kicked off Community Service month by doing a community wide garbage pick up. We had a contest between all of the houses to see who could pick up the most garbage. When the kids brought their garbage back, Jeff weighed it. At the end we tallied it up to see who was the winner.
The winning house, Moon house, picked up over 160kg of garbage. Overall, we collected over 600kg of garbage!
Many of the neighbors were curious as to what we were doing. Ravi Sir, one of our teachers, said he thought they felt guilty for throwing out all of the garbage. As a school we are brainstorming how we can get the community involved in the next garbage pick up!

Today the kids all gathered at the school to worship their education God. I just took pictures!!

Class 8 day 7

The new classroom construction is well underway. If I knew all the technical terms I would describe the process, but since I don’t I will show you through pictures and videos!

All the rocks you see will be buried in the floor slabs to save on concrete.

After checking out the construction progress I found Lexi stretching with one of the homeroom classes! They love doing yoga and stretching in the morning!

Day off school!

Today was a Nepali Holiday so for us that means no school! We had a fun day playing around and relaxing!

Class 8 Here We Come

Construction has started on the new classrooms at the school.  This short video from Julia shows the old garden and animal coop graded over and the area being made ready for foundations.  Don’t worry about that water line she is talking about.  That looks to me like a drain from the sinks that just needs to be put in deeper.

Love to all, There and Here,

Uncle Ed

2 CLASS

I spent the day today substituting in 2 class. I do really love teaching and I love MOST of the kids in 2 class, but it is still very hard to be a substitute.

Today we learned about even and odd numbers in Math. I was excited because it was a every easy topic to teach. I’m not the best at math, but I do know my numbers. We also spent sometime reading Dr. Seuss “One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish”. I was so surprised they had never read that story before. They thought that it was so funny! It really is a book for all ages. If you haven’t read it lately you should pick up a copy and read it. Nothing like a little Dr. Seuss.

As my days pass by in Surkhet, I begin to realize how much I am going to miss these kids. I am just now learning some of the school kids names and getting the hang of things. I hope that I will find my way back here some day in the future.

January Birthday Party

Happy Birthday Rupa, Sagar, Yagui, and Hansaraj!!

Tonight we had a blast celebrating four amazing birthdays. We had the usually dance party, that led into the birthday song and cake! Thanks to James, Maggie and I were able to make a delicious chocolate birthday cake.

Maggie, Lexi and I also cooked up some prawn chips. It’s a Nepali thing…. Check them out.

Ask and you shall Receive!

Uncle Ed…still here…in Seattle that is, but still in Surkhet in spirit.

We had a request to see the “free-for-all” dance which took place at the end of the Christmas program.  It was when the Children left the stage and went into the audience and led, cajoled, and dragged, adults up onto the stage to join them in dancing.  Here is a bit over 4 minutes of that song, again shot from not so great an angle, but you do get to see the glimpse of Maggie and Julia and several other stars that you are longing for.

On another note, we know it is very cold and rainy in Kopila Valley right now and I wish I could be there to help warm things up.  It might be some very slight consolation to know that it is below freezing with 4″ to 14″ of snow on the ground here in Seattle and Kirkland and we are the very lucky ones to still have heat and power at our house.  There are over 300,000 homes in the area without power tonight and some of those folks now understand what I was saying about it being hard to get comfortable when it is the same temperature inside the KVCH as it is outside.

Remember, Spring is coming and the sun will come out soon, on both sides of the planet!

Love,

Uncle Ed

GARDENING

The well is now in full action. We have more water than we could ever imagine! It’s so exciting to know that we will always have water. No more worrying if the hot water tank is full or not. However, a new problem has been created…… the garden is a mess!! What use to be a nice grass yard with beautiful flowers bordering the outside edges, is now a mud bathing center. Hopefully, this will not be the case for long. Today, we brought in a ton of soil from the school and the older boys helped to spread it out. Now with some good soil we should be able to start planting again. Planting takes time and it will be a long process, but I know someday Maggie will have her garden back!

Numraj is going through a new stage called “No”. He is starting to be his own person! It will be a long process and we are hoping it is over soon!

The garden before the well drilling. Not the best picture, but you get the idea.

SAYING GOODBYE TO TEACHING ENGLISH

Libby and Jeff both arrived back here safely early yesterday morning. We were all happy to see them back. The kids were awake at 6:30 chanting “Libby, Libby, Jeff, Jeff”. Jeff came home with all sorts of cookies, Both Maggie and I are so excited about!!

Yesterday was my last day teaching full time English Classes. Although, I loved teaching Libby’s English classes it was a lot of work and I’m not sure I’m as gifted as she is. I am so glad that I got the chance and would do it again if I had the opportunity.

I am excited to begin the last chapter of this trip in Nepal. I will be spending most of my time now writing the Kindergarten and Nursery curriculum. KG is really where my heart is. I absolutely love those kids. I’m so excited for the future of Kopila Valley’s KG class.