koh lanta, thailand

the beach side massage tables and my bamboo bungalow...delightful!

bright lights big city

suckin down a cosmo in bangkok

thailand is beautiful, no doubt about it. it's off-season, tourist wise, but there are just enough people here for my taste. the food's wonderful, and in bangkok, the 'everything else' is plentiful. there is nothing one could want for and i found myself singing "one night in bangkok and the world's your oyster" over and over again. my first night, i took a motorcycle taxi to meet some lincoln people, but never caught up with them so wandered around, had haagen dazs ice cream and then went back to my hotel around 11. i was wide awake so walked down the road to a massage parlor and had a foot massage and then went back. i was so wound up from all the stimulus of the city...bright lights and so much action that i couldn't fall asleep. it took me forever! spent two days in the city and had a great time, but then flew south to krabi, which is on the water. more my style...staying on the beach in a bamboo bungalow. no hot water, an outdoor shower and bed covered in mosquito net. i wake to the sounds of the ocean and birds...dreamy! i've been winging it since i left because my colleague/friend with whom i'm supposed to be traveling was not issued a boarding pass out of ktm because she had less than 6 months on her passport. it was really a shame and she left in tears...only for me to later discover on the plane that another colleague's passport expires in april and he made it all the way through. so, i feel bad for her, but also, i'm sort of on my own. sort of because i met up with another colleague and she and i have been hanging out, but i don't want to cramp her style, so will move on in a few days. thursday we're doing scuba stuff and probably after that i'll go to another island for more scuba diving. i want to rent a scooter and cruise down to a national park and then another day take a thai cooking class. oh, and another day i will go sea kayaking. great plans, coupled with relaxing is working well for me. i just wanted to touch base...i'll let you know where i'll spend my 40th next tuesday...i haven't a clue, yet! hope you're all well, love, j

rabi and kabi's big day

last week i was invited to my student, rabi shrestha's, subha bratabandha...yeah, that was my reaction, too...what's that? well, it's a hindu coming-of-age ceremony for boys here in nepal. they get their heads shaved, go through a religious ceremony and then have a party to celebrate. he invited all of his classmates and a lot of nepali staff at lincoln. i was the only teacher he invited, but i didn't realize it until i got there. needless to say, i was touched! the 9th grader is a sweetheart and a great student, so the decision to go was easy. plus, i had never been and my curiosity kicked in. and, did i mention it was a 5 minute walk from where i live?! ...that always helps! sheela rode the bus home with me and got to see where i live...fancy ace apartments...and then we walked over together. upon our entrance, video cameras recorded our movements over to greet the 'new men' in their ceremonial thrones. rabi's younger brother, kabi (pronounced 'rob-ee' and 'cob-ee') shared the event with his brother, and both were beaming from ear to ear with pride. we went over to greet them and give a gift, and even put a tikka on his forehead. after over a hundred people congratulated the boys...er, men...their tikka grew quite large. rabi forgot to take into consideration his full head of hair while getting his head measured for his special topi (hat) and, as a consequence, it drooped over his newly shaven cranium. a small tuft of hair is left for some reason i never was able to figure out, on the back of their head and rabi was thrilled with his new look! lots of my students, his classmates, were there and they dressed up for the occasion. food was served in a buffet (i was careful only to eat HOT food!) and it was held at an outdoor reception area complete with party lights. it was a great event to hang with lincoln staff i'd not spoken with much because our paths don't cross much at school. i enjoyed the evening tremendously and was touched at my...the only whitey's...inclusion. tomorrow i leave for bangkok (march 21st) for spring break, and i return april 4th to kathmandu. i will be online and in touch. i hope all's well with you! love, janice

calcutta and flower market

the sunderbans

the sunderbans and calcutta

pictures are coming, but last friday, christy and i left for calcutta, india. we had to fly 1 and a half hours east to delhi, only to fly 2 hours back west to calcutta because there are no direct flights on fridays to the city an hour south (by air) of us. we arrived late in the evening and took a prepaid taxi across the city to our fancy hotel. along the way, many, many people were sleeping on the medians and along the sidewalks. it made crawling into my cushy bed that night a little creepy... but, after crashing for a quick 6 hours of sleep, we headed out in the morning to catch the bus to the sunderbans, which is a mangrove forest on an archipelago at the mouth of the ganges between west bengal and bangladesh...you can see them jutting out on a map and there's a great wikipedia page on the place if you're interested. it's a unesco world heritage site and is home to a few hundred tigers. for some reason they thrive in the thick brush and have adapted extremely well to swimming between all the islands. the tide comes in and out twice daily and the landscape is constantly changing. it's a unique place for many reasons, but this is where salt and fresh (they call it 'sweet') water, meet so there's a variety of animals, birds and amphibians...and then the mangroves themselves have over 50 different varieties. so, the bus ride was a typical, crazy indian driver beeping the entire 3 hour drive, dodging and weaving around people, livestock, rickshaws, bikes, motorcycles, cars and trucks...driving as fast as possible while the hot and sweaty passengers on the bus swayed back and forth from quick changes of momentum. from the drop off point on the ganges, we then got into a boat and went an hour and a half into the sunderbans (which means 'beautiful forrest' in hindi). that part was very peaceful and pleasant with the a cool breeze and interesting scenery. for the next couple days we spent many hours on the boat moving through the channels looking for well hidden animals. we thought we'd be able to see tigers, but friends we met said this is one of the worst places ever to see tigers due to the heavy brush. tigers are rarely seen. we did see lots of birds and some lizards and deer, and even despite not seeing any big cats, i enjoyed the reprieve from the city. our meals were really good, our accommodations comfortable and the people we met certainly made the trip. christy and i were used to being amongst many ex pats whilst in these touristy sites. here, however, half of the people were indians taking their families to the forrest to show them nature and how village people live. we took a walking tour through one of the villages on the islands, all of which have no electricity and running water, and the 'city indians' on our tour were just as fascinated by life there as we were. i was watching their reactions to the things we saw with great interest. after our time there ended, we took the above mentioned trip in reverse and wound up back in calcutta around mid day searching for traditional bengali food. the next day was our only full day in the city, so we made the most of it. we went exploring around the city, took a rickshaw ride on one of the few remaining human rickshaws in india, walked through a fantastically indian flower market (we were the only foreigners i saw), saw some tourist sites, went to the enormous botanical gardens in search of a huge, 250 year old banyan tree and then met some of christy's family for dinner. her sister married a bengali man, sumit, whose parents moved to the u.s. during the pakistan partition, before he was born. his mother's sister still lives in calcutta and so sumit's first cousins took us out for dinner and we enjoyed them so much that we hope to go trekking in ladakh (the indian himalayas). the next morning we were up super early and back on our zig zag trip home. a whirlwind trip, but i'm so thankful to get to travel and see such cool things...i'm very fortunate. i'm in the process of editing photos, so they will be posted soon. lots of love, j

peace corps nepal

this evening i went to a "more peace corps" event across the street at a famous-amongst-kathmandu-people-restaurant, mike's breakfast. mike was a peace corps volunteer in nepal during the 60s and loved it so much here that he stayed and started an american (ish) cuisine garden restaurant. he passed away last year, but "more peace corps" celebrated him tonight by hosting an event in which the ambassador, nancy powell, and others spoke about the re-establishment of peace corps in nepal. a few years ago, the u.s. government deemed nepal too politically unstable and pulled volunteers from within the country. since, there's always been an undercurrent trying to reinstate the organization, both from americans and nepalese people. since obama's taken office, that current has become much stronger based on his promise to double peace corps funding while he's in the white house. well, this year it only was raised minimally from $340 million to $349 million, but hopes are high that more will come in the near future. nepal seems like a perfect place for peace corps and the maoists taking office last year have certainly thrown a wrench into the mix. because the current nepali government is on the u.s. terrorist list and security is a very real issue, it's probably unlikely that p.c. will return any time soon...unfortunately.  6 teachers at lincoln are returned peace corps volunteers (rpcvs) and several of those are from nepal's contingency. 6 rpcvs work at the embassy. in general, rpcvs make up a big part of foreign service workers around the world. nepali rpcvs have wonderful stories about how beautiful the land and people were 20 plus years ago, how small and quaint kathmandu was, and how, despite any political discontent, the people never showed it and as pcvs, they were largely unaffected. total opposite of my post-apartheid time in namibia! i can understand why people came here 10, 20, even 30 years ago, grew enamored with the culture and beauty of the place and have just never left. what i don't understand is why they are still staying! rumors float of increased power cuts, again. we are currently at 16 hours and it's said we will go up to 20 because there's just no water in the reservoir that powers the hydro-electric dam. dam... pollution is 2nd worst in the world behind beijing and traffic can be unbearable at times. that piled on with garbage strikes, petrol shortages, high unemployment rates, unstable government and crazy corruption, they have a hard time seeing the nepal of their past. people say it has changed so incredibly much in the last few decades it has become nearly unrecognizable. well, going to mike's breakfast tonight was interesting to talk to people i already know, but didn't know were associated with p.c., and then to meet new people within the community. the nepali teacher across the hall from me worked for 7 years as a language instructor for p.c.! i had no idea until i saw him at mike's this evening!  peace corps is celebrating their global week to tell the world about the organization and share stories from people's time as volunteers. i'm supposed to share stories of my experience in my classroom and with anyone who will listen! i decided to blog about it instead. if you're interested in further info about the attempt to get "more peace corps", i've added the link to my links of interest in the upper left hand corner for your perusal. bye, love j

update

the weeks fly by, don't they? it's nearly the end of february and 6 weeks since i've been in the states. i truly hit the ground running upon re-entry, and the time has virtually evaporated. it was interesting teaching WW2, but now we're moving on to the chinese communist revolution. unfortunately it's not in our textbooks so i'm going to have to improvise quite a bit. the subject is relevant, however, seeing as china is our neighbor and big bullying brother. it is highly relevant however, now that the newly elected government is maoist. should be interesting! in other news, c and i are planning a trip to calcutta for a long weekend in march (7th-11). we'll spend a couple days in the city exploring, but then want go to a world famous game reserve, sundarbans, in hopes of getting a glimpse of a tiger. if you've ever seen the discovery show on 'man-eating tigers,' well, that's where they are. there are so many people in surrounding areas, that the tigers have taken to the furless, clawless, featherless variety that are easy to catch, every now and again. it has a lot of waterways and the tigers are such adept swimmers that they'll pull fishermen off their boats. indians now wear masks on the backs of their heads cause tigers won't attack when they think they're being watched. we'll spend 3 days there in a rudimentary bamboo hut with cold running water and ac. it's going to be quite hot, apparently...in the 90s during the day. it's still been only in the 70s here (beautiful), so i could go for a little pre-heat to gear me up for nepal's coming summer months. later in march is lincoln's spring break. we get from march 21-april 5 off and so i'm going to head into thailand with a colleague. christy has to work, so will be hanging out in the 'du, while i go to fabulous beaches, snorkeling and scuba diving with a really mellow, nice, canadian woman, shayleen. we should have fun and i hope to do something special for my 40th while i'm there. maybe scuba on a coral reef or indulge in some other cool activity i'll discover once there. after that i'll have just over 2 months of school left! as i write this, i'm sitting at the american club watching people play tennis, drinking a delicious minted lemonade, using their wi-fi and waiting for my $15, 90-minute massage. it's a good life. today's friday and we had the day off school due to a bandh give back day. we have a set number of them built into the calendar, but if we don't use them (much like snow days), then they periodically give them back to us to create long weekends. now, if strikes happen between now and june, we still have a couple as a cushion, but if too many occur, we'll have to extend our final day of school accordingly. let's hope that doesn't happen! alright, just an update...take care and thanks to those who comment; i love hearing from you! love, j

a little reminiscing

for some reason, this place is stirring up old memories unvisited for ages. well, i guess i should say teaching at lincoln is bringing up a lot of these memories...nepal is crazy and reminds me of nothing else i've ever encountered! : ) so, this past weekend was the saisa (south asia conference) girls' basketball conference. i was supposed to help coach, but realized when i accepted this second semester job that i had not taught any of the subjects before, and so had to graciously back out of full time coaching and simply assist once a week with practice. lincoln got to host this year, which was thrilling for the kids to have so much activity swirling around them. if you've been a regular reader of my blog, you will remember when i coached the saisa girls' football (soccer) team and went to dhaka, bangladesh for a long weekend in november that turned into an even longer weekend when 3 of our girls wound up in the e.r. with one sustaining a concussion and requiring an extended hospital stay. well, with the tournament here and beginning friday, campus was chaotic and lively and the whole school got to watch 2 of the girls' games to end the school week. there was to be no teaching done and it would have been instructor suicide to attempt anything but letting the kids go to the games. since i've been here, word has gotten out that i played "pro" basketball and i frequently get 'challenged' by kids to play one on one. i've played against the girls' team in practice and they think i'm amazing...i tell you this just to give you some perspective. they are...well, ...not so talented! after working with them several times and analyzing their skill level, i thought they may have a tough time in the tournament. boy, was i wrong...they won it! last night's final game culminated a great run and a win against arch rival delhi. apparently the tournament was a bit watered down this year, but none-the-less, our girls have the swagger and pride of champions this morning at school. the boys' football tournament was last weekend also and our snow leopards won that, as well. they made it home in time to watch the girls play last night. our small gym was rockin and kids were cheering all done up in red, black and white facial war paint. the school spirit is unrivaled here and kids bleed lincoln colors. as i sat in the bleachers that were so hard my rear is still sore today...don't miss those at all and thank you mom and dad for the countless hours spent parked in ones just like those! but last night i remember looking around seeing how serious the girls take this game and the emphasis they have put on it. this was a reeeeally big deal to them, just as it was to me when i was a kid. after the game the girls were crying and carrying on as if this was the wnba finals. even if it was, who cares? and why? what is the big deal? i couldn't stop thinking about the purpose of it all and why i spent infinite hours putting the energy and time and importance on such a benign activity...and then multiply that by volleyball, track and soccer! what's the whole point? i wish that i would have been more diversified interest wise, but that can not change now. why couldn't i have stuck with my piano lessons instead of letting the lure of my friends playing kick ball in the court outside drive me away from the ivory? choir, debate, foreign language, drama, etc. you name it; i wish i would have tried it far more in depth. the fact is though...now i realize that playing sports was my one outlet where i truly felt comfortable and like myself. it was a creative avenue and the court was my palette. i excelled and was wanted and was encouraged to continue; it was where i gained a lot of value and developed self worth. i am still, to this day, most confident on an athletic field or court! last night was not only a convincing win for lincoln, but it took me down a memory lane that i hadn't traversed in ages. i have no regrets about it, but it was interesting to mull over while watching 'my past' run back and forth in front of me last night. love, j

just another day in the 'du...

today in my two history classes, i had the pleasure of having a pulitzer prize winning author come to my classroom and hang out for 3 hours discussing world war 2 and the holocaust. kai bird has written for the nation magazine, washington post, has numerous awards and is a very down to earth, easy going guy. i have his son in class and so kai offered to guest speak, knowing we were covering the above topics. uh...ok. so, sure enough, he arrived at 10 this morning with a tape recorder and a handful of thick books, excited to get started. the kids in my first class were enthusiastic, asking questions and contributing quite a bit as he told the story of his wife's grandmother being a jew in austria in the late 30s, being kicked out of their family's mansion at 12, her father getting arrested and sent to a concentration camp on her 16th birthday (he survived a year) and her exodus to rome where she was approached by the resistance movement to be a spy in the italian government. the woman's still alive and he only recently interviewed her and got this outpouring of stories that she'd kept inside all of these years. even her daughter...kai's wife, didn't know a lot of them. the kids were riveted! ...as was i. then he switched gears and talked about evidence he's uncovered that questioned if dropping the bomb on hiroshima and nagasaki was necessary due to japan being so close to surrendering anyways. he accessed truman's misplaced until recently personal diary, oppenheimer's comments about the bomb's destruction, his own books, etc. it was great! he included the kids and asked their opinions about things and wanted to know what they knew. next he moved on to whether the outside world knew about the holocaust and what was happening in the concentration camps. the general consensus is that no one really knew. well, again, he provided much proof that congress knew, the president, there were movements that rescued thousands of jews, but we wouldn't bomb auschwitz or its transport lines because that would 'divert from the war goals'. great stuff. he calls himself a historical revisionist and he got the kids to question what the textbooks teach and to understand there's more than one perspective to any story. after the bell, we shared a pizza on the back patio and he told me more stories of his wife's family's attempt to get back their mansion and receive monetary reparations from the austrian government. fascinating! now, after lunch, my next class was full of 'the naughty boys' and they  hardly blinked let alone participated, but the stories kept coming. surprisingly, although they didn't say much to him, after class and kai had left, i had a load of them up near my desk asking questions about what he had said. my final class of the day, after kai had left, was spent talking to my writing lab class which is mostly comprised of those same 'naughty boys'. i was impressed what they pulled from it! it was as if something finally clicked for them. as kai was leaving, he said he had fun and would talk again when i get up to vietnam. unfortunately i won't...doh. now i'm totally interested in his books and am checking them out on amazon. if you google his name, the first entry is his on wikipedia. huh...i've never known someone personally who's been on wikipedia...check out  his stuff, anyone interested in history! lots of love.