Today I had my first Nepali language lesson with Anita, a very enthusiastic professor at a local high school. I was lost no less than three times trying to find her and eventually she had to come to me; she found me on the top of a foot bridge overlooking the Polchowk area of Kathmandu. We then walked to her house and spent an hour in what is basically a mini classroom complete with dry erase board, a desk, and shelves of books. My lesson even included homework, for which I was actually grateful since I clearly need a bit of discipline in my life. We went over some verbs, some sentence structure and some helpful sayings, along with a decent amount of vocabulary. She was patient, and you could tell she enjoys teaching. It reminded me how important it is to be involved and excited for your students. Or maybe it’s the combination of the student and teacher both enjoying the experience. She made the entire hour go by very fast, and I’m excited to go back next week for the second lesson. I think it’s imperative to learn the language of any country you plan on being in for more than a few weeks. It opens avenues for you that would not otherwise be seen.
On another cultural note, I’ll now attempt to explain how claiming something shipped from the United States works in Nepal. After showing your paperwork to some police at a gate, you follow a guy into a huge brick warehouse. About 90 percent of the people who work there are dressed in civilian clothing. There are hundreds of people wandering around, some holding papers, some looking lost, some groups of men with badges, some guys at desks, and on that day one foreigner, yours truly. There are also parcels scattered everywhere, awaiting inspection or possibly not allowed to leave the building. There is a huge gated area inside the warehouse where a few thousand packages are awaiting their owners. I was lucky to have my good friend Sacchin with me, otherwise what took two and a half hours would easily have taken closer to six. Keep in mind, there are no signs, nor any obvious windows to approach. It’s a lot of people moving around in what seems like complete madness. It’s difficult to explain the entire process, but suffice to say it included no less than five people assisting us, including a visit to the office of the Chief Inspector himself, to obtain a signature allowing us to retrieve our package - it was after 2pm and apparently that is the cut-off for picking anything up. (though you could never tell as packages seemed to be moving around quite a bit) After obtaining the signature, you’d think we would have a clear path to the item (iPhone, by the way). But, no! I won’t go into much detail, but we gathered more signatures, paid a tax in another building, paid some more money to someone else, and eventually had the package out of the huge gated area. Success! Umm, no. Now we had three older gentlemen, all in topis and glasses opening my package, opening the iphone box, and declaring that yes, it was a mobile phone. They then sealed the package with tape, had me sign something else and twenty minutes after that I was allowed to pay an exit fee to get my walking papers. I will say this- totally worth it, for both the experience and the phone. Oh, did I mention we have 90 boxes full of golf equipment coming from the US?
As far as Junior golf goes...I’m actually working on taking the whole program in a different, more sustainable direction. Howevah! that is for the next post. Now enjoy a chronological view of my morning before the language lesson, some pictures of what I have been eating lately, and my view from the aforementioned foot bridge......
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| This is part of my walk to the golf course each morning |
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| The ninth green, view from the clubhouse |
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| Yours Truly |
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| Birdied number two |
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| A big archway, kind of a gate to the airport |
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| Ramesh and Deepak, this is the walk to back to back par threes. I doubled the previous hole. |
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| Water, Tuna from Thailand, Orange juice, Calcium pills, and yes, TANG! I'm pretty sure the OJ stays okay, since it never climbs above 40 degrees in my room |
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| Walking papers from customs! You can see all the spots that needed to be checked off |
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| View from the bridge where I was waiting for Anita to find me. |
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| Another view, this time with a temple on the right |
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| This little girl was so happy to wave and say hi after washing some clothes |
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The Tang's a nice touch, I didn't know they even still made that stuff. Good luck with the language, you'll have to teach me some Nepalese phrases so I can impress the locals when you return. Stay well, B.
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