Just one of those amazing days...

October 24, 2009
Today was one of those days that leaves you feeling all warm and fuzzy inside when you crawl into bed! It was just that good :). To start, some of us went on a walk this morning, and we walked about 20 minutes out to the river! It’s a beautiful view, and maybe next spring we’ll go swim in it! We’d have to hike down about 8000 steps to get to the river, though, so we just looked from the cliff :). Then we walked back, and I read while the kids did their duties.

After breakfast but before church, I pulled out the frisbee, and some of the boys and I played frisbee. It started as a nice slow game of catch, but then Laxuman and Shiva decided to make it a two person game, leaving the rest of us out. So, Anand and I decided to fix the problem by becoming the “monkeys in the middle” and it erupted into a game of keep away, with lots of shouting, a few full out tackles, and shaking laughter! The yard’s not that big at all, so it got pretty interesting... so worth the sweat and dirt after showering!

Then, we went to church. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love going to church here, and the people are really friendly, but I do miss worshiping in English. It’s not that I don’t like the Nepali music, because I really do, but I’m a music person, and not being able to sing with them because I don’t know the words is hard for me! But, to my joy, today, three of the ten songs were songs that we sing in church in America, just translated into Nepali! So, I was able to jump in and sing with them in English, which made the girls really happy :). I’m trying to learn Nepali, and I can fake Nepali sing pretty darn well, but it’s hard when you’re worshiping and you want the words to come from your heart and you have no idea what you’re saying! So, that was a very welcome surprise!

Last night Arun gave me my first taste of FRESH coconut. And to my slight surprise, I LOVED it! So, on our way home from church today, I bought one (for like 50 cents... the kids thought the guy over charged me because I’m white, but I told them I didn’t care!), and we all shared it. It was AMAZING. If you’ve never had fresh coconut, well, you’re really really missing out. It’s this milky sweet crisp crunchy delight that you suck on and then chew up. When I come back to the US, I might move to Hawaii. Surely they need math teachers?!

Then came math time, for about 2 hours, which is a very light day for me! Afterward, I had some time to clean my room (it’s amazing how messy it gets after a week of kids tredging in and out!) and just relax! After moving some of the furniture around (you’d appreciate the set up, Katie!), I grabbed the guitar and headed up to the third floor roof, which is my FAVORITE place to play. You can look over the city while you play and sing at the top of your lungs and the sound is just so crisp and nice! And you can watch the airplanes come and go, which I love to do, along with watching all the people in the street below. When I grow up, I want to have an orphanage with an amazing porch on the roof! Really, it’s that great!

But then, I figured it was time to drag the kids out of the TV room for some fresh air, which can be quite the task. So I bounded downstairs with frisbee in tow, anticipating a battle. To my surprise, Auntie had just told them all to get out of the TV room and had locked it, so I ran into a mob of moping children, pouting over the fact that they couldn’t watch their soaps. A few faces began to light up when they saw the frisbee, so I told them we could go to the field and play if they wanted. Most of us took off, only to find a soccer game already using the field. No problem, we just played in some vacant lot nearby! So, it started as another game of keep away, but then I decided it was time for them to learn Ultimate frisbee. Several of the girls wanted to play as well, which was a blast, as usually they don’t! After explaining and re-explaining and demonstrating the rules, we started the game, and they LOVED it! They caught on relatively quickly, and back and forth we went, bounding around broken bricks, holes, and trash. They were so excited when we finished, that they immediately said that next week we’ll play again (we don’t play on school nights).

Well, at this point we walked home in the setting sun, and as soon as we got home, the kids started begging me to play the “multiplication game.” You’d think it was the most amazing game in the world, the way they want to play it every day! Most of the kids are weak with basic math skills, so I’ve made a few sets of multiplication flash cards, and we’re practicing in pairs each day. A couple nights a week, I’ll mix the kids up and we’ll do it as a group competition, and they love playing! It gets rather intense at times, and we’ve had to agree that I’m the ultimate judge, and they are my minions, so they have no say in determining which team said the answer first!

After that came dinner with this amazing homemade flatbread which was kind of like puffy tortillas. It was so good. Sooo good. And then up to my room for a few hours until bed. Well, soon my room was brimming with children. We maxed out at 13 in here tonight, with a game of pick-up sticks going on in one corner, a game of spades in the middle, some kids looking at pictures on Chloe’s comp that she left for Krishna, and some kids playing with iTunes on my computer. Spades?! You read right. I’ve taught 3 of the boys to play, and it was really entertaining to play with them! There was much unintentional cheating, playing spades whenever, not realizing they weren’t following suit! However, after we worked those kinks out, they really were pretty good, and they enjoyed it! Which makes me SOOOO happy! It’s definitely one of those games that I could play all night long! And the icing on the top: listening to Christmas music the whole time!!! Don’t judge me; I figure here in Nepal we won’t hear any Christmas music in the shops or on the streets for Christmas, so I need to get my fix while here at home, so October’s a perfectly reasonable time to start! That and it makes me happy :). And, it’s a great end to an amazing day that leaves you feeling incredibly thankful to be alive!!!