This is me with two kids from the village near our training center. They were using a bamboo stick that they folded in to a triangle to push along a little ring, which you can see the one kid holding. I tried, and was terrible at it.

Okay, this picture took like 8 years to load, but these are the international volunteers for this year. This is just after we finished our whopping two weeks of language training (past volunteers have gotten like 4... not sure why we were shorted). The guy on the far right is Prakash, one of three language trainers, and the girl three from the right is Korona, one of the others. The third guy, Siddhi, was gone that day, which is too bad, because he was hilarious and the skit we had to do that day was completely geared towards him. The rest of the cast of characters are, from left: Elizabeth (from Tennessee), Andrew (London), Fiama (Milan), me, Laura (Philly), Andy (Baltimore), and Jessie (Atlanta).

Not sure where to begin. We spent the first week in a hotel/hostel of sorts at a training center. I shared a room with Andy and Andrew, and our neighbors were 5 of the Nepali guys who got up MUCH earlier than we did, but that was never a very big deal. It took me three days, but I finally decided to jump in to the shower, which was frigid. But by about the third time I was used to it, so I showered every day for the rest of the week there. There were two shower stalls for everybody, and four toilets -- two of which were proper Western-style toilets, while the other two were the 'long drop' ones, which are in the floor and you have to squat for. Didn't use those that week.

The food is always 'daal bhat', which is a mix of lentils (daal), rice (bhat), curry, veggies, and which sometimes features chicken. The curry is usually a mix of a number of things, including potatoes, beans, peas, cauliflower, chicken or whatever else is available. I'd say it's similar to Indian food, but isn't anywhere near as spicy. It's spicy enough for me, though, so it has the right amount of flavor. At the training center we ate daal bhat at 1 and 7, and we had breakfast everyday, as well, which alternated between toast and jam and cereal and milk. The toast and jam was awesome, although the toast wasn't all that toasted, so I'd always grab a few slices of that and a hard-boiled egg (which was available every day). Cereal days were more iffy, because the milk has to be boiled to get the bad stuff out of it, so that was a weird experience. The water is typically boiled, as well, and I've drank it at all temperatures, and to be honest the warm water really hasn't bothered me. The food has been good, overall, too, although when we get back in to the city we hit the Western food pretty hard. Today, for example, Andy spotted 'Mike's Breakfast' on the way in, which is owned by a former Peace Corps volunteer. I had Eggs Benedict, a milkshake, and shared a plate of bacon.

We spent the days at the training center with four two-hour sessions. Three of them would be language, and for the last one we'd join the national volunteers (the Nepalese) for whatever they were doing. Usually it was largely in Nepali, but we got out of it what we could. Every night there would be activities, too, which usually was kicked off with a bonfire (usually when the electricity was out, which happens for a few hours every day). Nepali people know song after song after song, and they don't need to be around a campfire to sing it, but it's there that they specialize. I'm trying to include a couple campfire pictures, but they are currently loading, so we'll see what happens. The most interesting songs are like a battle, where they figure out a tune, and a girl and a guy take turns singing verses that pretty much make fun of each other. Over the last while I'd be sure to cozy up to someone who knew what was going on, because when the Nepalis would roar you'd know you missed something funny. When we'd see that the lights had come back on, we'd go to the training hall and play games.

This has been a very long post, and I managed to get two pictures added, so I'll continue on about my next week with another post.