A Trip to the Zoo and other fun Games!

September 25, 2009
Today was a fun filled day of laughter, fighting, and shouting. Well, the laughter and shouting are daily occurrences (even with only 6 kids here, there’s plenty to shout over; and shouting’s not always bad, often it’s just the way to be heard as a little person!). And, well, when you introduce games and the zoo, well, fighting happens :).

To start off, I’ve been teaching the kids one by one the game of speed with cards. If you’ve never played, it’s kinda like Solitaire if you stretch your imagination and tilt your head a little to the side! But, with four kids wanting to play with me, adaptation and mutations happened quickly. So, we changed it into a multiplayer game, and just used more decks of cards. And the kids loved it! So we played over and over, and Chloe jumped in, adding to the excitement. Because she and I have grown up on this game, we typically came in 1st and 2nd, so when one of the kids won, you could probably hear the screaming in Tibet!

Then, we had the brilliant idea of teaching the kids Spoons. Now, if you’ve ever played this game, it can be brutal. Basically, you pass cards around trying to get four of a kind. Then, there are enough spoons (well, we used pen caps) for everyone except one person. The first person to get 4 grabs a spoon, and everyone else rushes in for the rest. The person left without a spoon is out. Now, this game gets really fun when you play on the rooftop (as we were) and then put the spoons (caps) on the other end of the roof. Thankfully, there’s a railing! You’ve never seen kids fight and wrestle so much over a pen cap, I can assure you! But there was much laughter and fun for all!

And then it was time to head off to the zoo! And by time, I mean Chloe and I were ready, and the girls spent 45 more minutes getting perfectly beautiful (I don’t know, I guess if I had known there might be boys I know there I might have cared... probably not though!). So, we set off, walking to the zoo in Kathmandu! Exciting right?! Well, we get there, and because Chloe and I are foreigners, we cost 150 rupees each, while the kids cost 15 or 35 depending on their age. Our total came to 415 Rupees, a mere 5 dollars with a little change on the side! Cheap, huh? Well, they did charge 2 Rupees to use the restroom, so add that on to the cost of the kids. Still rather affordable.

In the zoo. I’m not sure there are words to describe it. The cages for the animals were sad, but kinda funny (I really don’t mean to be mean, but when you see spotted deer living in a fenced area with brick walls on the sides and bricks covering the ground, eating out of a trough, you can’t help but think, “Yes, I am definitely overseas!”). So, there were deer, a few cat animals, a couple of hippos, lots of rodents, and more birds than you can imagine. We walked all the way around, and to conclude the outing, it started raining. No, that’s not right. The loudest thunder I’ve ever heard in my life rumbled through the earth beneath our feet, and sheets of rain plummeted upon our ringing heads. And the kids were shivering (scratch that, I was shivering!), and we waited for Uncle (Pastor Krishna) and Auntie to arrive. So we waited, and waited, and it rained and rained. You see, in Nepal, “We’ll be there around 3” translates to “We’ll be there within 2 hours of 3.” So, around 5 they showed up, and a herd of drowned rats clambered over to the restaurant to eat dinner. It was quite the outing!!!