The wonderfully mundane

COUNTRY: Nepal
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Teaching
WRITTEN BY: Brendan Dennis

Perhaps it’s time now to talk about the spectacularly mundane. In Nepal, we’ve done a lot of amazing things and shared moments that we’ll remember for a long time to come. But we are not like other tourists; we also have days during which we do nothing spectacular.

When you’re living and teaching in rural Nepal rhinos are not always licking you, or visiting 160m high suspension bridges which you are planning to bungee off in less than a month – we stood on it, it shook with each step, it was awesome. We are experiencing the mundane and spectacular daily life of Nepal.

I live in a house with Ben, Aidan, host brothers, my father, mother and myself. The day starts with breakfast. When you’re breaking fast in a house of boys against one mother, it transcends the conventions associated with just eating a meal. It becomes the most beautiful war dance ever conceived.

While sitting on rice pillows above a clay floor, we sit facing one another, spoons in hand and slightly elevated so to give our stomachs maximum volume potential. The steaming plate of rice and curry approaches and it’s chaos. Our brother Rabi is finished by the time we’re on our third bite whereas Puru has a seemingly infinite plate of rice which seems not to be phasing him in the least as he consumes more than any man should ever have to endure.

We are left appearing weak. As we eat and focus our minds to make sure we don’t let our family down by not eating enough, Puru is throwing all sorts of smack about being weak or masculine. Rabi sits, constantly reminding us that we consume at a slower pace. Meanwhile, our mother is constantly tempting us with her delicious curry, trying to force feed us, holding it above our plate and speaking what we can only assume translates into this: ‘Come on, surely whisky won’t do much to worsen the obvious stomach pains you’re experiencing as a result of eating too much.’ Nepali word to learn of the day – ‘Pugyor’ - to be said as a means of telling your host family you’ve had ‘enough’, while you hold your hands stubbornly above your plate as your host family still tries to force feed you.

School is much the same as I have described. We now trudge confidently into and around the class, instead of tiptoeing timidly between our over excitable students. We have found our place among the school. I feel as though I have a teaching style that goes beyond simply reading what is in the mistake-ridden text books we have been supplied. I feel confident to allow the students time to laugh and play as they learn.

Though, admittedly, there are days when it feels better to focus on the laughing and playing side of learning rather than actually doing any work. The kids love it and their smiling faces can be hard to resist. Mostly the kids learn just by talking and playing with us; it somehow becomes a drive for them if learning English might mean they will be able to articulate the plethora of compliments they seem desperate to shower us with.

On the way home from school, there is no way to avoid invites into peoples home. Kids tug at your hand desperately, acquaintances or friends of our host families may shout our names from afar, old men - with their limited vocab - just kind of mutter some Nepali words and make gestures that when translated means 'please, accompany us for tea.' The houses are all pretty similar - a small clay floor kitchen at the door with a fire pit in the middle, perhaps a sitting room, a second story of bedrooms and a third story attic working as a store room for some vegetables.

And when I say 'store room for some vegetables' I mean that you walk up the stairs and become overwhelmed by the thigh high mountains of corn and potato that seem as though any moment they could avalanche upon you. And when I say 'walk up the stairs' I mean trudge up the pieces of wood slotted precariously into a banister-less structure resting at an angle of 85 degrees.

More than once, these visits have been interrupted by the sudden appearance of a greedy goat bursting in and trying to take the curry or corn from the plate lying in front of me. The key is to always carry a pack of cards. It is the universal tool for leaving a language barrier in ruins. Nepali kids go nuts for snap.

We have Nepali lessons from 5:30 to 6:30 each day. Though I find it more productive to use that time learning the language by playing with some of my young neighbours or hanging out with my host brothers... which is kind of like another way of saying I'm too lazy to go. Ben, Aidan, Grace, Cordie and Zeta are studious enough students to show up and it shows. But Nepali lessons or not, we all surprise ourselves at times when without even realising we are having half English half Nepali conversations and even at times managing to pull out entire broken conversations in Nepali.

It feels as though you can know that you're having a good time if even the routine, on reflection, is a delightfully full of stories worth telling. Stories involving dancing, Ali Ali whiskies, piggybacks, and drinking buffalo milk and delicious tea. The routine also includes stories less worth of telling, involving various types of bodily fluid exiting from various types of orifices. Yes, we are a sickly, yet joyous bunch!

Brendan, Nepal July 2012