This week, the teaching went well again. It's almost surprising how easy it feels for me but obviously that's good. Each of us continued to have on average three lessons a day, which will go up to four when Jan leaves on Wednesday.
Monday was the Tibetan new year and we had a special lunch which was also attended by a monk and a couple of other Tibetans. We didn't do anything else so it was more like a day off. In the afternoon, we went into the Tibetan quarter to play basketball with the students. They are very good so even though Ken and I played, we didn't get much action! It was nice to go out to this area and where we played, it was effectively that the square between the houses was the basketball court!
I should explain more about the students situation here, regarding their studies. Every two years a new group arrives in September and they remain together for the two years. They have five lessons a day Monday to Friday, each one being 50 minutes or 1 hour in the afternoon. So it is very intense studying for them and they are supposed to speak English at mealtimes as well. After classes, they get some time off as well as to do their homework or own studies. They watch the BBC world news for half an hour and a film once a week. On top of this, they do all the cleaning around the house and take turns helping to prepare the meals. At the weekends they are free to speak Tibetan and go where they want. Most of them go into McLeod as they might have friends there or just want to get away for a while. They have to do their own clothes washing and apart from the food, which is bought, have to look after themselves completely.
However, they seem very calm and happy with all of this; in fact, some of them feel the happiest they've been in their lives, which is not surprising given the treatment they suffer from the Chinese and the lack of education they could get when they were young.
As I mentioned before about wanting to hear the students' stories more, I plan to write a book based on their stories to give an account of the process from living under oppression in Tibet, paying a guide to take them through the mountains, crossing into Nepal and eventually making it into India. I think it could give a good insight into the struggles they have gone through and if the Chinese disapprove of it, that's their problem.
On Friday afternoon, I had a conversation class with the top group and asked them what they would like to talk about; they were interested to know more about Hitler and World War 2 so I told them what I knew and they felt they had learned some things so that was pleasing to do. I would like to do more things like this with them. I will actually have two conversation classes with them next week and in the first, will ask them to tell me their stories of life in Tibet before they decided to leave and in the second, I will tell them about Leonardo da Vinci.
I was going to visit Dharamsala on Saturday just to get to know the place but the other teachers were going to have lunch at Norbulingka and visit a temple where a Lama (like a priest) gives talks. We had good weather which, considering I have had a cold all week was nice to experience. Maggie and Kendall stayed in the hotel there, which was very attractive but quite expensive. We walked on to the temple through the village streets and when we got there, there were monks sitting inside chanting verses and rocking as part of the trance-like ritual.
It was interesting to see but unfortunately the Lama wasn't speaking that day. However, it was still a nice day out. After that, we watched Liverpool beat Man Utd in the FA Cup.
On Sunday, I stayed a the school as I needed to wash my clothes and sheets, plan my lessons (which I did for the whole week) and update the blog. I got all this done outside and by midday so I can have the rest of the day to read and take it easy. Maybe I'll go for a walk as well. We have blue skies again and it is warm enough but I don't expect it to properly get warmer for at least a couple of weeks as it is very changeable and unpredictable here.
These are two of the children who live just up the road from us. The girl always asks me to play catch with her. Behind them is their house...
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