The last few days have been fun. Friday was Aimoni’s birthday. 

Thursday. Tat, Rayboti, Dulumoni, baby Bibha and I walked to Garchuk to see make purchases from the tailor, the vegetable market, the momo shop, then the sweets shop to order a one kilo chocolate cake for Lipi and a two kilo milk cake for Aimoni. I carried Bibha to town on my shoulders and she slept on my shoulder later on but when Tat and I got impatient with the other two women shopping for nose rings we returned the baby and walked home.

Friday. I taught two computer classes before the current went out and another after lunch, after the current came back on. The students are always excited to go to computer class, sometimes too much so. A boy in class 8 gets on my nerves when he asks several times each day if his class can go to computer room. Yesterday he walked out when I had the kids type presumably because typing is boring. I asked why he wouldn’t participate but he didn’t give me a reason so when we started doing more exciting stuff he came back in and wanted to participate but I kicked him out…my first act of punishment, I guess. Admittedly, I took a little pleasure from it because he’s so irritating.

After school I had dance practice with the older students - I will be performing with them next Saturday for the school’s annual function. The instructions are in Assamese but I have a little rhythm and I do alright. After several games of bump I came to eat rice around 3:30 and found Lipi making momos! I made a few…they were better than the Momo Restaurant in Garchuk. Then it was cake time and after surprising Lipi and Aimoni, cutting and eating the cake, the frosting war began. Some twenty students, volunteers and birthday women smeared frosting on each other. It started off small, with war paint under the eyes but quickly escalated to cover-Shaffer’s-face and get-back-at-Rayboti-with-a-frosted-wet-Willy. Once we washed the vegetable oil-based frosting from our faces, necks, hair, and clothes, the dance party started with Gangnam Style on repeat followed up Sandstorm and a déjà vu to high school. The good dancing started when we broke out the Assamese and swing music – Chantal and I followed along as best we could to the Indian music and I tried to remember the swing dancing moves I learned in the spring when Harry James came on. After an hour and a half we were all bushed and I finished a wonderful day by chatting with and getting some sound advice from an old friend. G-chat is the closest I get to live interaction with people back at home (except when I’m in the middle-of-nowhere Nepal) but it I can hear your voice in my head and it’s almost as good as a real conversation at this point.

Saturday. Today teaching classes six and seven was great until the power went out for 2 hours at 10:30. It makes any schedule difficult to follow…When I came down from the room at 11:30 about 8 teachers were standing around making a memory test - placing random objects on a table - perhaps enough work for two people. Meanwhile Tat was teaching KG and at least two class 10 students were teaching other classes by themselves. Some classes were working on assignments but most didn’t have a teacher present. While I recognize that the teachers are not paid regularly, that the fundamental contract of payment for services has broken down, I don’t understand how they can come to school and simply abandon the kids. Classes are only 9-1 on Saturday but I think most teachers only taught for an hour. Though I’m lucky that it doesn’t affect my teaching schedule, it’s extremely frustrating to watch the kids sit bored because the teachers won’t to put forth the minimal effort.

Lilly, Chantal, Tat and I being honored with traditional
Assamese gamusa and Japi before school Saturday

At dance practice in the afternoon the regional distributor of B Natural mango juice dropped by with a dozen cases of juice boxes so Uttam called “Line Line Line Line!” and I handed out juice to happy kids. After a quick ride to Garchuk on the back of the bike, I holed up in the computer room with Sankar and burned DVDs as per Uttam’s request, watched Macklemore’s My Oh My again and talked to Dave about him upcoming wedding. I’m a groomsman! After dinner I played Bananagrams and split a Kingfisher Strong. That’s where the party’s at in Pamohi. Now that India is not so mind blowing anymore, I fall back into the same routines I do at home - spending too much time on the computer checking baseball stats, thinking about the future too often, not getting enough sleep, blah blah blah. But it also means I’ve adjusted enough that I feel as comfortable as I do at home and that’s a nice feeling.