Today's my official last day of volunteering with VSN. and my last day in pepsicola. will be moving to thamel to stay in the hotel with my parents tomorrow. having mixed feelings now... the whole experience feels like its just flew past me.
Spent the whole of this morning just resting in bed coz was starting to feel a bit feverish yesterday and the whole of last nite. Restrained from taking panadol coz Marty convinced me that we should let our body do self-healing instead of relyin on chemically-created medicines. So just flooded myself with bottles of water, and am quite satisfied that I'm feeling much better. Usually at the first signs of sickness, I'd reach for medication, but guess now might try to avoid it as much as I can.
Over dinner last nite, he was talkin about how our everyday diet is creating humans with a lot more deformities than previous generations ago...etc etc.. Very interesting things he brought up. But on the other hand, life is so short enough as it is, if we were to really pick on every single thing we put into our mouth, and put so much stress on ourselves worrying about what the next generation will be like due to our binging habits, what's the joy in living then? contradications...
while I was leaving the house to come to the cybercafe, met a new girl who just arrived. she'll be moving up to my room tomorrow when i'm gone. haven't had the chance to speak to her yet, but she seems quite nice, had a sort of uncertain look on her face, but thats really expected. considering how ur just whisked into a house of a stranger in a foreign land...really can be quite daunting.
everytime i write an entry in my blog, i keep feeling surprised as to how fast time has just gone past. next week will be my last week in nepal. and it's back to civilisation..and routine.. kinda looking forward to goin back to work. this trip has been a great break and really did change a lot on my outlooks on life.
thank you Sue for helping me setup this blog, or I wouldn't have been so consistent in jotting down my experience here and would have regretted that much later.
anyways, gotta head off to the orphanage now... kinda sad that i'm leaving them. will be bringing my parents on saturday to visit them one last time before we head to pokhara on sunday-wednesday.
byebye pepsicola....
Thursday, November 09, 2006
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
happy birthday dear friend
yesterday was my last day teaching at the school. taught them 5 values since its my last class:
1) Dare to Dream
2) Never lose hope
3) Don't ever judge a book by its cover
4) Nothing comes without hard work
5) Stay true to yourself
Didn't expect to teach them these..it was quite spontaneous coz when i stepped into the class, felt that teaching from the textbk was quite a boring way to end my last class with them. so figured it might be more useful to teach them something not frm their books. thankfully their teacher was sitting in for this class, so he translated the meaning of the values into nepali for the kids. they sounded really interested in hearing what it was about. well...i guess thats my 5 cents worth of contribution to educating the children here. they were really nice kids, bought some sweets for them and gave some pencils and notebooks to the grade 4 class.
to my surprise, a few of the boys came up to me to give me some flowers. and one of them gave me a plastic flower he brought from home which said 'well wishes'. and this boy is one of the quieter ones who i barely gave much attention to in comparison with the louder kids. he was really sweet. took lotsa pictures with them and eventually had to say my goodbyes.. some of the kids asked me for my phone number in malaysia...hmm..was i really such a nice teacher? i doubt myself sometimes.
anyways, just been spending most of my time at the orphanage. this morning, sugandha brought me on his motorbike to a tailor to make my kurta - nepali dress. i love motorbike rides. especially now the weather's cool and the wind on your face is just a nice feeling. i had a friend who once told me he wanted to buy a bike, i never understood why he would spend all his money just to buy a bike when he's still in debt. and i never understood his love for riding on the bike. but maybe now i do...
something's been bugging me...some of the kids in the orphanage have been slowly becoming more attached to me...sometimes i question if this is such a good thing coz eventually i would need to part. in particular this young boy called suzan. he's a bright kid, very hardworking and very nice to the other children. always wanting to talk to me. yesterday while tsering lama (lady running the orphanage) was just chitchatting to me whilst the kids were doing their homework, she was telling me bout the history of some of the kids.
den she just teased suzan (with no harm intended) coz he had ran away from the orphanage 3 times. on one occasion even bringing 2 other boys with him and once they reached his parents' house, he gave them some money and told them to go back to the orphanage.
his parents live about one hour bus ride away from kathmandu. father's a diver and mother runs a small hotel. they sound quite well-off to me. but when this topic was brought up, suzan suddenly became very quiet and refused to lift his head up from his book. i wanted to ask why then was he in the orphanage but i figured i'd better skip the topic coz i could sense that suzan was feeling very upset bout it. the rest of the evening, he didnt utter a word and at certain times, i could hear a soft sniffling from him. i felt so horrible coz i tried to speak to him but he'd turn his head away. never saw this side of him coz he always looked so cheerful and lively. guess its tougher for kids who are about 8-11 yrs old coz at least the 5 yr old still do not know whats going on and just have a good time playing with each other. i don't understand why some parents know that they can't even feed themselves, but want to have a dozen children and make these children suffer. and for those who can afford, what for have kids if you don't intend to bring them up anyway. sheesh...
anyways, a proud accomplishment is that i'm almost done with reading my book "The tale of Murasaki" and only in 4 days!! usually i take months to finish a book. quite proud of myself!
alriteys, gotta head to the city to reconfirm my air ticket and will be heading to the orphanage after that.
to end this entry, dedicating it to a special friend:
happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you
happy birthday dear friend
happy birthday to you...
if only you were still around...
1) Dare to Dream
2) Never lose hope
3) Don't ever judge a book by its cover
4) Nothing comes without hard work
5) Stay true to yourself
Didn't expect to teach them these..it was quite spontaneous coz when i stepped into the class, felt that teaching from the textbk was quite a boring way to end my last class with them. so figured it might be more useful to teach them something not frm their books. thankfully their teacher was sitting in for this class, so he translated the meaning of the values into nepali for the kids. they sounded really interested in hearing what it was about. well...i guess thats my 5 cents worth of contribution to educating the children here. they were really nice kids, bought some sweets for them and gave some pencils and notebooks to the grade 4 class.
to my surprise, a few of the boys came up to me to give me some flowers. and one of them gave me a plastic flower he brought from home which said 'well wishes'. and this boy is one of the quieter ones who i barely gave much attention to in comparison with the louder kids. he was really sweet. took lotsa pictures with them and eventually had to say my goodbyes.. some of the kids asked me for my phone number in malaysia...hmm..was i really such a nice teacher? i doubt myself sometimes.
anyways, just been spending most of my time at the orphanage. this morning, sugandha brought me on his motorbike to a tailor to make my kurta - nepali dress. i love motorbike rides. especially now the weather's cool and the wind on your face is just a nice feeling. i had a friend who once told me he wanted to buy a bike, i never understood why he would spend all his money just to buy a bike when he's still in debt. and i never understood his love for riding on the bike. but maybe now i do...
something's been bugging me...some of the kids in the orphanage have been slowly becoming more attached to me...sometimes i question if this is such a good thing coz eventually i would need to part. in particular this young boy called suzan. he's a bright kid, very hardworking and very nice to the other children. always wanting to talk to me. yesterday while tsering lama (lady running the orphanage) was just chitchatting to me whilst the kids were doing their homework, she was telling me bout the history of some of the kids.
den she just teased suzan (with no harm intended) coz he had ran away from the orphanage 3 times. on one occasion even bringing 2 other boys with him and once they reached his parents' house, he gave them some money and told them to go back to the orphanage.
his parents live about one hour bus ride away from kathmandu. father's a diver and mother runs a small hotel. they sound quite well-off to me. but when this topic was brought up, suzan suddenly became very quiet and refused to lift his head up from his book. i wanted to ask why then was he in the orphanage but i figured i'd better skip the topic coz i could sense that suzan was feeling very upset bout it. the rest of the evening, he didnt utter a word and at certain times, i could hear a soft sniffling from him. i felt so horrible coz i tried to speak to him but he'd turn his head away. never saw this side of him coz he always looked so cheerful and lively. guess its tougher for kids who are about 8-11 yrs old coz at least the 5 yr old still do not know whats going on and just have a good time playing with each other. i don't understand why some parents know that they can't even feed themselves, but want to have a dozen children and make these children suffer. and for those who can afford, what for have kids if you don't intend to bring them up anyway. sheesh...
anyways, a proud accomplishment is that i'm almost done with reading my book "The tale of Murasaki" and only in 4 days!! usually i take months to finish a book. quite proud of myself!
alriteys, gotta head to the city to reconfirm my air ticket and will be heading to the orphanage after that.
to end this entry, dedicating it to a special friend:
happy birthday to you
happy birthday to you
happy birthday dear friend
happy birthday to you...
if only you were still around...
Sunday, November 05, 2006
alone in nepal
chase has finally left Nepal and is back in malaysia enjoying her hot showers. so now its me here all alone in nepal. sorta used to it though coz while chase was sick, pretty much did things on my own like going to the school and the orphanage. another week has just dashed past and its sunday again. really weird how time flies here in nepal, even though we don't really do much in a day. altogether have been here for 3 weeks already!!
latest updates from the orphanage, me and chase decided to buy some food for them like 2 sacks of rice, eggs, vegetables and meat because the couple-in-charge has been very kind to us and made us stay for dinner twice. also from what we've been observing, the food that the kids eat are just loads or rice with not much side dishes - daal baat etc. They don't really eat very nutritious meals, so we figured it'd be good to buy them some vegetables, meat and eggs.
things seem to be looking good for this orphanage because for the past few days that i've been going there, have been seeing visitors to their orphanage like the school's principal, teachers etc. at least they seem to be getting more help from people. and on friday, they actually got a new washing machine. washing clothes for approx 38 children is no easy feat, and this is usually done by only the 2 older girls. at least now with a washing machine, the clothes would be also much cleaner than done by hand.
don't really have much to update now really coz have been getting into a routine here. teaching at the school in the morning, resting for a bit, then off to the orphanage. this week will be my last week of volunteering coz this would be my 4th week here. have to say i'm getting rather attached to the orphanage coz starting to get to know the kids better, remembering their names, even the quieter kids are warming up. don't really have much to say about the school..not to say i hate the school, but maybe i'd say i don't really like teaching. or maybe just coz i don't really like how the school functions and how their teachers are quite weird. anyways, just 4 more days of teaching and i'm done.
my parents will be coming to kathmandu on friday for approx one week. Am looking forward to their arrival. thats when i'd be leaving pepsicola and stayin in the hotel with them. hot showers here i come!!!! hehehe....
the house will be kinda quiet this week coz brian's gone to his placement house in another part of kathmandu. thankfully marty's still around till this thursday where he's gonna go off to another village for placement. and i'll be leaving on friday. so its all good. haven't been much new volunteers coming in, think there's 2 from england that just arrived but haven't met them yet coz they're staying in a different house.
gotta head off to the orphanage... adios.
latest updates from the orphanage, me and chase decided to buy some food for them like 2 sacks of rice, eggs, vegetables and meat because the couple-in-charge has been very kind to us and made us stay for dinner twice. also from what we've been observing, the food that the kids eat are just loads or rice with not much side dishes - daal baat etc. They don't really eat very nutritious meals, so we figured it'd be good to buy them some vegetables, meat and eggs.
things seem to be looking good for this orphanage because for the past few days that i've been going there, have been seeing visitors to their orphanage like the school's principal, teachers etc. at least they seem to be getting more help from people. and on friday, they actually got a new washing machine. washing clothes for approx 38 children is no easy feat, and this is usually done by only the 2 older girls. at least now with a washing machine, the clothes would be also much cleaner than done by hand.
don't really have much to update now really coz have been getting into a routine here. teaching at the school in the morning, resting for a bit, then off to the orphanage. this week will be my last week of volunteering coz this would be my 4th week here. have to say i'm getting rather attached to the orphanage coz starting to get to know the kids better, remembering their names, even the quieter kids are warming up. don't really have much to say about the school..not to say i hate the school, but maybe i'd say i don't really like teaching. or maybe just coz i don't really like how the school functions and how their teachers are quite weird. anyways, just 4 more days of teaching and i'm done.
my parents will be coming to kathmandu on friday for approx one week. Am looking forward to their arrival. thats when i'd be leaving pepsicola and stayin in the hotel with them. hot showers here i come!!!! hehehe....
the house will be kinda quiet this week coz brian's gone to his placement house in another part of kathmandu. thankfully marty's still around till this thursday where he's gonna go off to another village for placement. and i'll be leaving on friday. so its all good. haven't been much new volunteers coming in, think there's 2 from england that just arrived but haven't met them yet coz they're staying in a different house.
gotta head off to the orphanage... adios.
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