Swimming Through the Next Term

Hello everyone!

Tomorrow it will be exactly two months untill I leave Nepal! Sometimes when I think about that it seems like time has really flown by, but other times it seems like I’ve been here for a lot longer than nine months. Even though my time is ticking, I still have quite a bit that I have to think about a quite a bit to accomplish before June 29^th rolls around.

Nepali School Observation

Last weekend, I went back to the Nepali school where I had the opportunity to observe some classes. It was amazing to see the school while classes were in session and would take me too long to describe all the ways that this school is different from schools that I am used to in America. Some of the more obvious differences, however, are the class sizes and the apparent lack of an organized schedule. Teachers seemed to pop into classes and start teaching at random. I’m sure, however, that there was some method to the madness – only it was simply one that I couldn’t decipher as an outsider. In addition, the classes were huge! As many students as possible were packed into small classrooms. When we entered a class for observation and the teacher invited us to sit down, my initial reaction was panic as I scanned the class for any empty space or even considered sitting on the floor. The students adapted, however, and somehow made some room for me on the bench. 

One of the secondary English classes... there were over 80 students in this one classroom!

 I think this observation was really valuable, however, and will give us a lot of direction as we plan a training workshop to be held next month.  

The front side of the school.

Swimming, Swimming, and more Swimming!

The past week has been filled with planning workouts and making trips to the pool… Swim season has started again! Hooray!!! We now have four practices a week, two before school and two after school. My own responsibilities with the team have changed a lot for this term. Now, instead of having merely a support-role, I am planning and running all of the team practices. This is more responsibility and is keeping me busy, but I’m really enjoying it and plan on really whipping these kids into shape :). 

Some members of the KISC swim team.

In addition to the high-school swim team, this coming week I’ll be starting teaching swim lessons for primary students during their PE time. I’m so happy to be able to help out, but I’m a little worried about controlling a class full of hyper children at the pool.

Busy Week/Busy Term

Between my teacher-training project, high school and primary swim lessons, and after-school tutoring, this is looking to be my busiest term yet. There are also several other little bits that I’ll be covering for, lots of meetings, and the expected end-of-year busyness. This past week, especially, was incredibly busy and may have been one of my busiest here in Nepal.

Last week one of my extra bits involved going to a wedding! One of the TA’s at KISC got married last week and everyone from KISC was invited to the reception. Here’s a picture of the bride and groom: 

The bride, my coworker Nandana, and her new husband. This was an arranged marriage... an interesting concept to think about coming from a Western culture.

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Happy Easter!!!

Happy Easter!!!

I hope you all had a great holiday!

It’s easy to overlook Easter in Nepal. Most Nepalis don’t celebrate this holiday, so we don’t  get the bombardment of Easter eggs, Easter grass, pastel-colored everything, and all the typical Easter sights. That, however, does not take away from the importance of the day. We had a nice Good Friday service at the international church, an Easter Sunday service, and an amazing family dinner afterwards… and even an Easter egg hunt! Yes, the Fairchild family tradition lives on in Kathmandu!!

Nepali Teacher Training Project

Last time I posted I was about to head out to interview the teachers at the Nepali school that I’ll be doing some teacher-training with. This visit/interview went really well and now we’re working on figuring out what the next steps will be and how to best proceed. 

The school is in an area called Dhading which is about an hour and a half outside the Kathmandu valley. It’s in a much smaller village, but still very close to the main highway that runs across the country. 

Here I am in front of the school in Dhading.

The school is both an elementary school and a high school, and the teachers there face some difficult challenges. The secondary teachers have about 60 students in each class and the primary teachers have about 90! That’s 90 students for one teacher! I don’t know how they do it! Plus, their classrooms are quite different from what you might see in the US. In order to fit so many students, the classrooms are simply rows of benches and tables crammed into a small room with a blackboard in front. Although this situation is very different from any teaching experience I’ve ever had, I hope that we can give them some quality training to really help them out and encourage them. 

Soon I’ll be making another visit to the school to do another observation so we can plan our first training workshop next month.

School Break

There’s not much to report as far as KISC goes. We’re on our term-break right now and have another week before the last term begins. Most of the other teachers have gone trekking, but I decided to stay in Kathmandu to relax and begin the job-search process for when I come back to the US. 

My first few days I spent house-sitting for a family that I know. They have a beautiful home with a huge garden, a trampoline, and two dogs and a cat to keep me company. Although my living space is pretty nice, I really felt like I was living the high-life :). 

Two of my constant companions last week when I was house-sitting :).

Now I’m back in my own room for a few days. I've been doing a little shopping and relaxing with friends and I also hope to get quite a bit of work done before Thursday when I’ll be leaving for Pokhara for the final few days of my break. If you remember from my previous posts, I’ve been to Pokhara two times before and it’s the closest thing to paradise here in Nepal, so I’m really looking forward to going there again. 

While out shopping I found a Wal-Mart!!! Unless Wal-Mart chaged to a pashmina specialty store, however, I doubt it's really the same.

While out shopping with friends, we stopped to pose with this cow sleeping in the middle of the street. I don't understand why it would choose the busiest street in the area for a nap, but whatever floats your boat, I guess...

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Check out my updated prayer requests and praises in the box to the right! --->

Thanks again for your support!

 

Some Endings and Some Beginnings

One week left in the third term at KISC! This term has seemed very long in many ways, but now that it’s almost over I can’t believe how quickly it’s flown by! Sometimes time is funny like that… :). I’m looking forward to having a nice break and then heading into Term 4, which promises to be action-packed!

Tearful Goodbyes

Okay, so technically no one has cried, but I AM very sad about saying goodbye to two of my first grade students. Last week we had a farewell party in ESL to say goodbye to 5 ESL students, two of which are students that I teach. They will be going back to Korea for furlough and will come back to Kathmandu, but I won’t see them again. 

One student, Aehee, left for Korea yesterday. She added a lot of humor to ESL and was always a very hard worker. She has quite an attitude, too, especially for a first grader! Also, Seong-Hyeon will be leaving after next week. I know I shouldn’t play favorites, but IF I did, Seong-Hyeon would be it. I’ll be so sad to see him go! I still have two really wonderful first graders who are staying, though, which is definitely a silver lining.

My first graders and I after our farewell party. Seong-Hyeon (on the far left) and Aehee (on the far right) will be leaving, but I'll continue to teach Pratyush (the little boy in the middle) and Sebin next term. Here, Pratyush is making his dinosaur face :).

Tutoring and Training

Last week I started doing after-school tutoring for a Year 10 student. This student has English as a second language, but is planning on taking the native-speaker IGCSE English exams next year. To give her a little extra boost with her language skills, I’ll be tutoring her twice a week. I’ve had two sessions with her so far. We’re going through some practice exams, focusing on vocabulary, grammar, and writing style. The teaching is a lot more academic than what I’m used to, so it’s right up my alley :). 

In addition, tomorrow (Sunday, 3/25) I’ll be traveling out of the Kathmandu valley to observe English classes in a Nepali school. As I mentioned in my last post, my friend Megan and I will be observing English classes and interviewing both teachers and students, and using these observations to plan a few English teaching workshops for Nepali teachers. We’re both really looking forward to this opportunity :). 
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Thanks again for all your continued support! Please check out some updated prayer requests and praises to the right --->
 

Holi Excitement

Hello again, friends! The past couple weeks have been business as usually. Well, other than having to dodge water balloons being hurled at me from rooftops every time I left the house…

Holi

Last Wednesday was a Hindu festival called Holi. I’m not really sure what the deeper significance of the holiday is, and it seemed like most people I asked weren’t even sure, but the celebrations include throwing water balloons from rooftops and covering each other with colored powder. People all over the city were walking around, soaking wet and covered with bright colors. I had heard some stories of water balloons being filled with not-so-nice things, so I decided to take refuge in my house and have a relaxing day reading my book on the roof, but even there I wasn’t safe! Some of the neighbors saw us on the roof and managed to target us with slingshots! Overall, I escaped unscathed, but some of my friends who ventured out came back looking like this:

My friends who dared to go outside during Holi.

 New Opportunities

Although my time here is quickly coming to a close, I’ve been blessed with a few exciting new opportunities! First, next week I will start doing some private English tutoring after school for a secondary student getting ready for upcoming exams. Between that and swim practices starting up next term I’ll soon be very busy after school. 

In addition, a friend and I were given the opportunity to do some teacher training! We will be holding a couple of English teaching workshops for Nepali teachers outside of the Kathmandu valley. We’ll be visiting the school and doing some observations at the end of this month and start planning a couple workshops in the months to come. 

This photo is from my recent trip to Pokhara. We crossed the lake by boat and hiked to the top of a hill to see the World Peace Pagoda, build by Japanese Buddhist monks. 

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I just added some new photos to my Facebook account! You can check them out here: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.572126078282.2064217.69102077&type=1&l=48b560a067

Business as Usual in Kathmandu

Hello again! The past few weeks have been business as usual here in Kathmandu, but I wanted to give you an update regarding my teaching, my new friendships, and life in general… but before I do, I just want to give a shout out to Eric: 

GREAT JOB AT PACS, ERIC! I loved watching you swim! I’m so proud of you!

Okay, now back to the update…

Getting Used to a New Routine

As I mentioned previously, I started teaching ESL to a student in Year 7. This is going really well so far and I’m really enjoying having a student who is a little older. It’s like a breath of fresh air for me. Things are continuing to go well with my primary students, though! We recently released one of my Year 2 students from ESL. I was a little worried at first because this caused me to rearrange my schedule and I now have three rowdy boys together in the same class. But, God is good and this new arrangement is working out better than I could have hoped. 

I probably shouldn't play favorites with my students, but if I had to choose a favorite, Seong-Hyeon might be it. He's the cutest and funniest little boy you will ever meet. Here he's telling me all about how he fell on the playground.

Thinking hard to tell me the story of the boy in the picture... Seong-Hyeon got to choose the boy's name. He chose to name him Hamster.

Social Life… AAAAHHHH!

In all the places I’ve ever lived and all the different friend-groups I’ve had, my social life has never been more than I could handle… until now :). There are always new friends to meet, different people to spend time with, and someone doing something that everyone’s invited to. This is GREAT… for awhile at least. I’m starting to embrace my alone time as a mental health necessity.  

I am, however, enjoying getting to know all the new teachers and other newcomers to Kathmandu. It’s so nice not to be “the new girl” anymore. I’ve also had a few special visits in the past couple of days. My good friend Stephanie’s dad is in town for a visit and it’s been very nice to meet him. This afternoon I also got to have lunch with my friend Grace’s parents. I met Grace in the TESOL program and became good friends. Grace’s parents live in Kathmandu and Grace actually went to KISC when she was younger. We had such a great visit!

Going out for pizza, Stephanie's dad's first meal in Nepal.

Looking Towards July

Even though I still have several months left in my time here, it’s already time for me to start planning my return home this July. I’m starting to look for teaching jobs back home and getting ready to book flights. It blows my mind how quickly time flies! It is, however, difficult to focus on my task here when I’m making arrangements to come back to the U.S. Sometimes I feel like I’m trying to be in two places at once. 

B L E S S E D

Hello again, everyone! My Christmas break is now a thing of the past, but it’s been an incredible month and I’m so excited to tell you about it!

Christmas

Because most of the people that live at my house were away traveling over the break, I stayed with my friend Stephanie for a couple weeks. We had a great time together baking Christmas cookies, watching movies, and commiserating about the freezing cold weather. She also helped me navigate the crazy streets of Kathmandu on my little bicycle and was with me for my first tempo ride (which was quite an adventure in and of itself… check out my Facebook page for a video she posted). 

Stephanie and I having a cup of coffee on Christmas day.

This was my first Christmas away from home, and also my first Christmas without snow, so it definitely felt a little strange. It was also an interesting experience to be in a country where Christmas isn’t celebrated. When you’re not bombarded with Christmas everywhere you turn it’s a lot easier to focus in on the true reason for celebrating. 

Also, I learned a really interesting Christmas fun fact! Did you know that the Christmas carol, Joy to the World, was originally written about the SECOND COMING of Christ based on Psalm 98?? – Just something interesting for you to reflect on :). 

The Best Part…

By far, the best part about my Christmas break was a visit from my boyfriend, John. For those of you who don’t know, John and I met in California and have been dating for almost a year. When we parted ways in June we expected not to see each other for a year, but God is so good and things worked out perfectly for him to come visit me for about 2 ½ weeks. We had a great time and it was so nice for me to be able to share this chapter of my life with him. 

We spent most of our time together in Kathmandu, where I showed him all the historic, religious, and touristy locations in the valley. He visited KISC, attended my International church, and got to meet all my friends and coworkers.

John and I in Kathmandu.

We did, however, get out of the valley for a few days when we visited a city called Pokhara. Pokhara is a must-see location in Nepal; it’s much more peaceful and relaxing than Kathmandu, there are beautiful lakes, and you can see incredible views of the Himalayas. I’ll simply let the photos tell the story…

This is the main lake at Pokhara called Phewa Tal.

We had an amazing morning view of the Annapurna mountain range towering over the city.

John and I rented a scooter for the day and drove out to a smaller, less touristy lake called Begnas Tal. I drove a little on the quieter roads, but John was a pro weaving in and out of traffic in true Nepali driving style :).

Term 3 at KISC… GO!

Now I’m back into the swing of teaching at KISC. There are quite a few changes, though. KISC switched around the classrooms and office spaces, so now I share an office with other faculty members in the Student Support department… it’s much warmer and it’s so nice to have more company throughout the day. 

I also picked up another class. I’m now teaching ESL to Year 7 in addition to Years 1, 2, and 3. I only have one student in my Year 7 class, but it’s refreshing to be working with a student who is a little older.

Finally, there are quite a few new staff members! I’m excited to get to know them and build more friendships this term. I’m so excited about all the changes and think it’s going to be a great term! The only change I’m not too excited about is the load-shedding schedule… we’re up to 14 hours/day WITHOUT electricity!

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I just want to say again, THANK YOU for all your prayers, support, and encouragement!! You all mean so much to me. Check out my updated prayer requests and praises in the box to the right... and check out my updated photo album at the following URL:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.572126078282.2064217.69102077&type=3&l=48b560a067

Merry Christmas!!!

"For my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the sight of all nations: a light for revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”~ Luke 2:30-32

I hope you all have a VERY blessed Christmas!!! :)