I'm a teacher, I am

And so, to pick up where I left off. In an internet café in Paprola. After I typed up all that stuff in the posts below, me and Mike picked up a couple of bowls from a shop, then taxied back to Tashi Jong (Rs40 which is an OK price...).

Later on that day, we had a visit from Ngwang (pron. Nawang), who is a 28 year old lama from the philosophy institute. We're going to give him some private tuition in English, to help him improve. He stayed a while for a chat, which was a little bit difficult, but I think he understood what we were saying in the end; that said, our conversation was (like so many in Tashi Jong) comprised of lots of nodding and smiling. Hopefully in a few months time, he'll be much better. Hopefully.

I finished off 'A Clockwork Orange' and moved onto 'Don Quixote' (much longer - will keep me going for more than two days). Dinner that night was rice and dhal, which is really nice. The monks thought the bowls we had bought earlier were very small though. Amusingly so.

We had another visitor (before dinner), called Jimmey Lodoe (real name Jingme, I think, but he said he gets people to call him Jimmey - spelt like that). He is another institute lama, who's English is fairly good. He is also going to come along and talk with us when he's free to do so (usually Sundays only for them). He also reassured us that if we correct his English, he won't take it personally. Apparently Mike met two more monks from the institute whilst out and about, also after a bit of teaching. So, we are quickly getting busy it seems.

That evening I planned out my lesson a bit more, by the light of my headtorch (we had a power cut).

And so to Monday. I slept in a little (my lesson was in the afternoon 2pm-3pm), then had a shower. A cold shower. A very cold shower. I look forward to those in Winter... I went for a walk up the mountain a bit again, and came across a nice waterfall when I wandered off down a side track.

Mike had his first lesson, which he said didn't go perfectly at all (which made me feel less than perfectly confident about mine to come). His class (the baby lamas) were apparently a very mixed bunch of abilities, and - as I imagined earlier - they weren't all well-behaved little Buddhas (though I don't think they were too awful). Lunch was rice and beans (not baked) - again, very nice. I prepared my lesson a little more, whilst ike went off to Paprola. The power, meanwhile, was very sporadic.

The first lesson then. Exciting times. It could, in all honesty, have gone better. I turned up for 2pm, to find no one there, so at about 2.10 I went over the main office to ask Lekshey what was going on. He wasn't there so I had to make do with the guy who first showed us round (whose English is, I'm afraid to say, patchy). I tried to explain my quandary; his response was to reassert the timetable to me. Eventually I got him to come over to the teaching house, where he went in and spoke to the main lama teacher. He then explained to us the real schedule:

10.30-11.30 -> Baby Lamas
1.00-2.00 -> Middle Lamas
2.00-3.00 -> Big Lamas

So, Mike's class (as he found out by total luck earlier that day) started half an hour earlier than we thought, and we also had an extra class to teach. Well, after all that, I did get to teach the advanced group for the last half hour or so of their slot (though I'd planned for a middle lama class, it didn't really matter as half the lesson was aimed at gauging their abilities). I told them about me and Newcastle and so on. The lesson plan itself totally fell apart, but I learnt from this that I had to stick to it to do a good lesson.

We decided (by flipping a coin) to split the classes so I have the big lamas, and Mike the other two classes (more on balancing the hours later). I prepared another lesson for the advanced guys, involving lots of drawing for me. I have discovered (as if I didn't already know) that drawing pictures of modes of transport is not my forté. At all. Especially bikes and motorbikes.

Dinner that night was noodles (as ever with chilli sauce). This was supplemented with a nutritious Milkybar (Rs10).

Something I don't think I've mentioned so far is Tashi Jong's animals. There are lots. The first morning at TJ, I woke up to find a cow outside our window (very literally outside the window), chewing away at the grass quite contentedly. The next it was a horse. The place is also full of dogs, puppies and at least one or two cats/kittens. Some of the animals are pretty ill-looking, patchy and mangy. At lunch, we sit inside and the dogs (which belong to the monastery) come inside and sit in the middle of the canteen-type room (the tables and seating is around the outside, looking in) and they wait, in the hope people will (and they do) toss them some food.

On Tuesday we had breakfast in the restaurant by the monastery (chappatti, very sweet jam, and sweet tea). We thought about going to Paprola, but the only cabbie around wanted Rs50. Which is a rip-off. Mike's lesson in the morning went much better this time. For lunch we had bready dumplings (more like what we call dumplings than dim-sun) with a meat and veg stew-like thing (I'm good with words, aren't I?). It wasn't quite as good as everything else has been so far on the food front.

I tried (not very hard, mind) to learn some Hindi numbers. I've got a handful of the first ten sorted. Then it was lesson time. I tried the yes/no game (when you ask someone questions and they can't answer yes or no). Let's just say I won't be trying that again for a little while. It took a while for them to understand it, and even then the questions they asked weren't quick enough to catch anyone out. I also tried out a code with them (I'm using word games as a respite from the travel verbs I'm teaching them - we don't have the space to do other games, unfortunately) which totally stumped them. All it was was when you change each letter for the next one in the alphabet (i.e. a becomes b, b c, c d, etc.). Dinner that night was rice plus something nice, supplemented this time by Magic Masala crisps (which, I should tell you, aren't as nice as Spanish Tomato Tango ones).

On Wednesday (nearly done!) we got up lateish (i.e. after 7.20 or so). I walked into Paprola, to find that the internet wasn't working. I bought a new T-shirt (Rs150 = less than two quid) which is red with some random slogan on it. The shop keeper introduced himself and shook my hand, so I told him my name and said I was teaching at the monastery in Tashi Jong. His next question was "what qualifications do you have?". Ouch. I couldn't think of how to say "virtually none" and still seem like a potentially decent teacher. I should also mention the "fitting room", which was a dusty back room full of boxes and next to the door out into the back street. No light or mirror, so I couldn't see how my shirt looked... I was intending to go to a restaurant (branded "tourist restaurant" but recommended by Mike) for lunch, but it was shut so I went back (on foot) to TJ for lunch - rice and some sort of onion-like veg. I noticed some of the mini-monks (when I say mini, I really mean it, some of them are about two foot high) chucking away the veg bits - reminds me of how Thomas used to pick out his onions when we had mice and onions, etc. As they say, boys will be boys!

I then had my lesson, which went better. No one worked out that code I mentioned (I'm not sure if they looked at it at all after the lesson, to be honest), so I explained it to them. That took more effort than I was expecting - I had to write out the alphabet for them and demonstrate it. We also found out that starting today (i.e. Thursday) the lamas have a 7-day puja (special prayers) which is (I'm told) often followed by a party. So we are on holiday until next Wednesday or Thursday, at which point we may have a party to look forward to! We are going to go away for the week, to one of McLeod Ganj, Simla (pron. Shimla) or Manali. We'll plan all that out today.

That night we walked to the tourist restaurant which was alright. I had a korma (boring, I know) which was OK (nothing hugely special, in my opinion). The price was right, as they say, though because the two of us had a curry, rice and a (non-alcoholic) drink for Rs255 altogether (=£3.20). There were no taxis, so we walked back in the pitch black. The cows on the road looked very odd in the dark!

During the day I had two visits from monks (one was Ngawang who I mentioned earlier - he was in the hospital bit, where our room is, for a nosebleed). The other monk was nice, but his English was very patchy. A friend of the very friendly nurse came and took our washing off to clean (thank God), which was helpful and kind of them (I don't know how much it'll cost, though).

Not much to say today so far. Except that the owner of the internet café here in TJ is watching some US game-show full of absolute idiots. I'll give you an example:

Questioner: What is the capital of Iraq?
Contestant: How do you spell that?
Q: I-R-A-Q
C: I'm gonna say... Afghanistan.

Ah well. At least I knew the answer...

Anyway, I'm now going to sign off. I may have much to say next time, so keep your eyes peeled, and tell people who might be interested to have a look too!