My past week was great, a lot of work, most of it productive.
All READ Nepal staff and volunteers are great! Unfortunately, due to the nature of my project I haven't interacted with them as much as I wanted. I hope this will change in the coming weeks when I will finally start the workshop sessions that I have been preparing. I think it will be a lot of fun and I am hoping they will get a lot out of it!
This next week is going to be a busy one, people from READ Global (from DC and Bangkok), from READ India and READ Bhutan will come to KTM for a Regional Meeting. Everybody is busy preparing for it and excited with the opportunity to share experiences and learn from each other.
Unfortunately this past weekend was not as good as usual... since Thursday I have been sick, with a cold (maybe it is the same "self diagnosed swine flu" that John and Emily got in South America...do you think that it could have been transmitted over twitter?). Sore throat, running nose, all the works.. I spent my Saturday in my room, what saved me was the herbal tea that Sanjana, my boss here in Nepal, gracefully offered me.. the tea was really good and by this morning I was already feeling better! So I decided to get out and walk out the cold...
I went to Thamel, bought three great books and a brazilian flag ( yes, you understood it right, here in KTM, the only problem is that it is Brazil with a Z and everybody knows that "meu Brasil é com S"..., but I couldn't pass the chance and bought it anyway..) then I had brunch a Pumpernickel Bakery ( ate a delicious Yak Cheese Sandwich).
On my way back home, I couldn't resist the wide selection of DVDs offered in KTM and bought a few for my night entertainment (I was resisting, until Todd bought The Shield, season 1.. so if he caved in, so did I... what to do? as they say here "Ke garne?" :-) )
With my backpack full of goodies, I made one more stop, to buy a "mala", a item on Flavio's wish list. For those who, like me, have no idea what a "mala" is (or might be thinking a luggage - mala is the portuguese word for luggage ) I will explain...
A mala is a string of 108 beads with one bead as the summit bead called a
'sumeru'.
It is a tool used to keep your mind on the meditation
practice. Malas are generally made from different materials such as tulsi
(basil) wood, sandal wood, rudraksh seeds or crystal. Each type of material
has certain properties which subtly affect the subconscious mind of the
practitioner.
(http://www.healthandyoga.com/HTML/product/malabeads.html)
In my case, Flavio asked for a rudraksh mala. I ended up buying two malas and making a new friend, Monu. He explained me a lot about the different types of rudraksh and invited me to have some dudhchiya with him ( as you know, I can't resist a dudhchiya).
This is Kathmandu, it is a place where people still take the time to chat and get to know each other, it is very refreshing!
After a nice walk through Lamzipat I arrived home and started reading one of the books I bought and I am loving it! It is from a polish journalist ( yes, Joanna, a very interesting fellow polish!), Ryszard Kapuscinski, the name of the books is "Travels with Herodotus". In it, he talks about his travels around the world while comparing to the writings of Herodotus 2500 years ago, beginning with India and China ( yes, Josh and Todd, I think you would enjoy the book...).
As you can see, I have been working, recovering from a cold, having fun, learning and thinking about (and following the blogs of) all my classmates around the world...
The only way it could get better was if Raquel and Flavio were here with me, specially when I was watching Hannah Montana: The Movie ( a terrible copy by the way...acho que as do Shopping Oi são melhores...) ...
It is all great here, but I can't wait "to find my way back to Tennessee"... :-)
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