What did you do over the holiday?

Oh my goodness... my students are great.

I have them write a reflection after every test, and every time we have any days off from class I have them write about what happens during the holiday. Last week we had the entire week off; HH the Dalai Lama was teaching Monday-Thursday, and so Tibet Charity decided to just close for the whole week since it didn't make much sense to have class only on Friday.

This evening I was procrastinating, whining internally about having to grade so many tests (not that many, really.. it was definitely whining) – I studied Hindi, I graded a little at a time and rewarded myself with other activities like rewinding the yarn I bought or doing push-ups, or making a list of reasons to stay until December and another list of reasons to leave a few weeks early. Eventually I decided to just buckle down and finish grading. After I got through the tests – which wasn't that bad – I remembered I still had to correct the papers on what they'd done last week.

Once I actually started doing it it went so quickly... lol... Their writing is a bit dry and predictable (usually) when they have to write about “your daily routine” or when they are asked to answer specific questions. When I let them write about what they want, though, some of them get really creative. I have a few students who must be getting pretty comfortable with me and/or with the English language, because they express these colorful, lively stories.

As it turns out, a few of my students went out to the Rewalsar/Manali area last week as well. One told me about how he and his friend got sick on the bus and threw up on the way to Rewalsar. He said that when he got there he “saw lake and statue so strong faith, but in the lake lot of fish so a little compassion.” Only Buddhists! He also worked in some of the vocabulary words we'd been using in conversation class. He did not vomit on the way back.

Another student, one of the monks, told me about how he and a friend went down to Lower Dharamsala to shop, and how they stopped for sweets and sweet tea. They met another friend on the way back who suggested they all go get some more sweets – and how they had a fun little discussion about how they couldn't keep eating like that because they'd get sick, and it's a good thing he bought new shoes to exercise!

Part of the test was to answer questions like “What do you always do?” and “What do you sometimes do?” Many of them answered that they always study English, but one said she always dances at home. I gave all of those answers smiley faces. Maybe they'll get stickers, too.

A few of my students begin nearly every writing assignment with “Hi dear teacher, how are you?” or “Dear teacher Magda...” I think it's cute. It's stuff like this that makes me want to stay. Regardless of when I leave, I'm going to miss them. I have a few of their email addresses; I'll have to get more of them. Maybe I can connect with some of them on Google+ (where you can filter who sees what much more easily than you can on Facebook). I have a few who ask if I'm teaching conversation class or if another teacher is; I suspect that they play favorites, and I know at least one of them comes to my class and not the others. I admit it makes me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside.

As far as the coming-home plans, it looks like financially it'll be pretty much a wash between staying until December or coming home a few weeks early. I'll see how I feel after the trip to Rajasthan, I guess. There are plenty of teachers here and I spoke to the boss, who said it would be fine to go whenever I wanted, so that's nice to know.

On an unrelated note, it looks like my room threw up on my bed. I'm an artist, I tell ya... that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Organized chaos: it's how I work best. I like having things neat and clean, but somehow I can never keep them that way for long. It just seems to futile to constantly be putting things away when you know they're just going to get taken out again... right? Plus when it's as humid as it is here, you almost have to leave your clothes out in an attempt to let them dry, unless you aren't concerned about that pesky mildew smell.

And now, since I did manage to finish grading all of these tests, I think I am going to reward myself with a bit of knitting before I get back to studying Hindi, or designing some kind of grammar drills for class. I think they need a little more structure in their writing assignments, and it's my job to provide that. Giving them sentences on the board to correct as a class has also gone over well in the past; I should come up with some more of those to give them. Hmmm......

Suggestions?

More Manali

One more way India differs from the US: if you want a cup of coffee in the morning – at least one that isn't the instant powdered kind – you're going to have to wait. You know how most cafes, Starbuckses, etc are open by 5 or 6 in the morning? Yeah, here they chill until 9. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the locals all drink tea.... I suppose it's a really nice thing if you work in one of these cafes, but if you are a visitor looking for that morning caffeine fix, you might want to seek alternatives.

So, dear readers, while I am waiting for 9am to roll around I will be a good little blogger and tell you about the last couple of days, since as you may have noticed I was slacking a little bit on that front.

We've arrived in Manali on Tuesday evening. The first couple of days were spent exploring, sightseeing, and generally wandering around.

Yep, real life snake charmer.

We did fun things like visit one of the old local Hindu temples.

There is some really intricate wood carving on some of the old buildings in Manali, unlike I've seen in other places. Oh, and skulls.

Gill and I sat on a yak. It was very soft, but not quite as big as I expected. Maybe smaller yaks are easier to maintain here at relatively low altitudes (around 2000 meters).

We took some photos..

This is a Tata Nano. I see more cars like this here than any other... doesn't it kinda look like my Yaris at home?

The marigolds (and roses, and everything else) get really tall here, presumably from all the monsoon rain.

It's apple season in Himachal Pradesh.

If you look closely you can see both English and Tibetan writing on this wall under the painting. I found it to be a nice change from English overtaking everything it contacts; here the English has been covered up by Buddhist art.

Oh yeah, the hotels have cool names. Ours is called "The Dragon."

Yesterday for breakfast we decided to check out a little place we'd passed earlier called “Dylan's.” It, like the few other cafes that carry the stuff, advertises that you can get real brewed coffee there.

It was pretty darn good.

Verity finally found a good soy cappuccino!

What's that, you say? Fresh pineapple mint juice? Don't mind if I do...

There was a cast & crew running around Manali all day shooting some film, so we watched that for a while. They did not ask us to be extras (inconsiderate jerks).

After our nice relaxing morning we wandered down toward New Manali to purchase some gifts (and maybe a couple of things for ourselves, too).

Not the greenest city park I've ever seen...

No, I did not try one.

Later, Marie, Verity, and I took a detour through the woods near the river:

and found this cool tree:

and then on the way back into town we wandered down a side street filled with dhabas. They were impressed that I could decipher this sign:

In case you're wondering, it's: Chai - Coffee - Omelet in the red, and the blue reads: Veg momo, Chicken momo, Fried momo... (I'm actually not sure what the first word on the second line of blue says), then Soup, Chowmein, Dal, Chavel (which means rice). Cool, eh?

The three of us decided to try some dessert at the little place across the main road from our hotel, The Bee's Knees. I'm not sure if I mentioned it before, but in Dharamsala most of the businesses that provide wi-fi to their customers have passwords that reflect the spiritual, heavily Tibetan makeup of the town: “compassion,” “thankyousomuch,” “ilovemandala,” or sometimes more food-oriented ones like “bananacake” or “mochaccino.” It's cute. You get used to expecting a sweet, New-Age-y answer when you ask for the password after ordering your ginger lemon honey tea. That being said, you may be able to imagine our reaction when we asked for the password at The Bee's Knees and was told...

are you ready for this?...

“1nightstand69.”

Bahahahahaha.... well played, Bee's Knees cafe.

As I was telling my sister last night, I'd be alright with coming home any time now. I like it here, and I have actually been feeling a surprisingly low level of homesickness (maybe it's because I know I'll be back soon), but what I have been feeling lately is a sense that I have things to do – and I have to be home to do them. I miss my job and the paycheck it brings. Money certainly isn't everything, not by a long shot, but when you've spent two straight months spending your savings and not making much back, if any, then it gets a little tiring. Life in India is cheap, but it isn't free.

In closing, I leave you with photos of some of the local doggies:

Travel Plans

Tibet Charity has been abuzz with activity lately. We have had a few new teachers arrive in the last few weeks, and supposedly there are more scheduled to get here soon. This Saturday some of the teachers are going on a day trip with the Director of Tibet Charity to a (semi-) local Tibetan settlement called Bir, as well as a school and at least one temple and/or monastery. Next week His Holiness is holding another teaching at the temple in town, so we don't have classes.

We foreign English teachers decided that sounded like a good time for a road trip. When I first decided to come to India to teach, I planned on that being all I did here. I figured I haven't really traveled before, and GOING TO INDIA was a pretty big trip in itself, so I could just chill and focus on teaching. Once I got settled in, though (and talked to some people), I started thinking it might be nice to travel a bit myself. India's a pretty big place, and the mountains here in Himachal (the state where Dharamsala is located) are not representative of the entire country.

So anyway, there are “holidays” planned. I'm nearly halfway through my stay here already! Can you believe it? It's looking more and more like the second half is going to be busy, too. September has just flown by, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if October and November do the same.

Earlier Gustie (Augustine), a teacher who arrived a couple of weeks ago from Austria, came in to lunch telling us that the police had made all the Tibetans on Temple Road dismantle their street stalls, because apparently they lacked the required permits to be there. It seemed strange; the street vendors are a huge part of the scenery around here. Besides, I don't imagine most of these people make a ton of money anyway; they are just trying to take advantage of the fact that they live in a popular tourist destination and support their families.

After class, I figured I'd go into town to check it out. I wanted to use the internet anyway.

It's so weird. Normally the street is lined with stall after stall after stall of people selling jewelry, or miniature prayer wheels, or little statues of the Buddha, or clothing, or artwork..... and now....... they're all gone. It's almost like a ghost town. I noticed things that had been hidden behind them this whole time, like a gazebo I didn't know even existed. Peering down the side of the mountain I could see the frames of stalls, tables, tarps... it's like in their haste to dismantle their property before it was seized by the cops they just tossed everything down the mountain. I'm curious to see how long it takes everyone to rebuild.

TRIUND

If you recall, last weekend we went on a hike. One of our party wanted to go to Triund, but the rest of us weren't feeling up for it as a spur of the moment thing so we kept it local that day. Well, earlier this week we planned. We planned on pulling out the big guns.

Today, we would go to Triund.

Triund is the trekking destination here. It's up on a mountain and getting there is quite an adventure. It's a name that carries a lot of weight around here – “'Where are you going?' 'Triund'” is usually followed by an awed “ooooooh,” whether it's audible or not. From what I understand, it's a hike that many people can – and do – make, not just the seasoned professionals and hardcore hikers. I guess it's kind of like collecting your family or friends and going to the beach for a day... except there's a lot of work involved in getting there.

The hike generally takes about 5 hours to complete if you are a group of mildly experienced hikers moving at a reasonable pace. Most of the teachers at Tibet Charity tend to fall into this group. We thought it would be fun to invite the students to come with, because a few weeks back Brij and I and some students went for a hike to Naddi and had a picnic, and it was all kinds of fun.

So that's what we did. We invited our students to trek to Triund this weekend. We haven't had much rain all week, so we figured it was pretty safe to say the monsoon wouldn't be giving us much trouble. The temperature has been fantastic – comfortably in the 70s – and we've had a lot of sun. We made plans to meet in McLeod's main square at 7:30am (yeah... it's the whole 5-hours-to-get-there thing), have a picnic at Triund, chill for a bit, and be home in time for the Liverpool game at 7.

Last night as Brij and I sat out on our balcony finishing off a bag of sunflower seeds, the fog rolled in. Then we saw lightning. We heard some thunder. The clouds passed after a bit with no real rain, but we were a little concerned for the morning. Regardless, we got up and got ready to meet everyone bright and early (just in case).

A rather poorly taken photo of us failing to look like badasses, on our way to the main square to meet the students.

We got to the main square a few short minutes after 7:30. It's nice and quiet in the main square at 7:30 in the morning.

This guy kept sweeping garbage at me. I was not amused.

At 8am we finally decided that nobody else was showing up, so we had some decisions to make. The Reader's Digest condensed version is that in the end we decided we'd trek up to, or at least toward, Triund after all, just the 4 of us teachers.

Off we went. No more than ten minutes in this dog decided to join us, and she stayed with us for the first hour or so of the hike. According to the guys, every time Tibet Charity teachers have gone to Triund, at least one dog has decided to tag along.

Spontaneous dog acquisition complete, we were on our way.

See that? That's where we're heading.

The rather run-down little altar just before the first tea shop.

These young trekkers went missing during their travels around Trind. It's been around a month now, so everyone assumes the worst, unfortunately.

First tea shop = first break: 1 hour in. I'm really glad I have these shoes. They are badass.

Marie getting ready to head up after the first tea shop and the temple.

Where we came from.

Brij pointing out landmarks. Us saying "omg."

A few hours earlier we were waaaaaaaay over there.

Donkey delivery service! Second tea shop, about halfway to the top.

We met some new friends. These guys are university students from Punjab.

Marie taking a much needed break at the third tea shop.

The fog rolled in from time to time...

One last break before the final stretch!

Oh, what's this? Could it be... the end??

Five hours and three tea shops later, and we finally made it.

TRIUND.

(Don't forget, all photos can be clicked for a better view.)

The photos really don't even begin to do it justice. It was breathtaking.

It reminded me of the Calm Lands.

Or of any starting newbie zone in an MMO.

Of course, shortly after lunch it started raining.

Waaa, rain is cold in the mountains.

We decided to try to wait it out because you can never tell how long it'll rain here, and so when it let up a half hour or so later, we set off.

Five minutes in, it started hailing.

Not to be deterred by a little bit of ice falling from the sky, we kept moving. It's quicker going down because you've got gravity helping, but it can also be hard on your knees and you've got to be careful not to twist an ankle or something.

About halfway down our canine companion rejoined us, and brought a friend.

Look at this view. LOOK AT HOW FAR YOU CAN SEE.

I'm serious.. LOOK AT IT. It's insane.

Oh, and on the way through town Marie and I stopped to buy some fruits. I asked for parsley and when the language barrier proved to be a bit too much, the guy wound up showing me into their storeroom. I didn't see any parsley, but I did see garlic, so I asked how much it was. The key here is I asked for it in Hindi: I may not know much, but I do know a few words and phrases, and I made sure “lahsun” was one of them. I never did find out how much it costs, but he gave me a bulb for free so I'm going to consider the transaction successful.

And now, my friends, it's bedtime.