its been a month!

Ok, I should probably begin this by saying that I did end up getting my bag back. I got it about 10 days ago, and it has been wonderful having all my stuff back again. This past week has flown by, with many changes.
Firstly, Caitlin and I no longer teach Classes 1 and 2; instead we teach Class 7, and will begin Class 6 in about three weeks when the student teachers leave. Although I'm sad to no longer have the really little kids, it has been nice to only deal with tons of noise once a day, instead of three times. Classes 5 and 7 are great at sitting quietly and working, especially Class 7. We're working on past tense with them right now, and I'm finally feeling like I'm actually imparting knowledge on someone, as opposed to keeping the peace for 40 minutes.
Last Friday David Graham, the over of AV, came to Gorkha, so everyone had dinner at the Gurkha Inn, which was a wonderful evening. On Saturday morning my house got up early to come into Gorkha again, to go to the Durbar (the temple that was the home of the prince who united all of Nepal about 250 years ago), which is up the mountain and has fantastic views. We got there around 9, and spent about an hour before heading back down the hill. Surprisingly enough it felt like further on the way down. Its a little over 1300 steps from the town up to the Durbar, but it didn't feel like it on the way up because we took a backcountry route.
Sunday was back to school, but because the Golden Jubilee is coming up, pretty much everything revolves around it right now. The school is being repainted, so many of the classes have been moved outside so the insides of the classrooms can be finished. Its made it a bit more difficult to teach, as there are no blackboards outside, which are the only teaching aids we have. At times I've resorted to writing one or two words on a piece of paper and holding them up for the class to write down. Luckily I'm doing directions with Class 3 right now, so being outside works pretty well, as I send them through obstacle courses around the yard.
Classes are only being held in the morning right now, to give time in the afternoon to prepare for the Jubilee. So one day we will have periods 1 though 4, the next 5 through 8, meaning that we only teach each class every other day instead of every day. In the afternoons we tend to hang out in the classroom being used for dance practice, and talk to the students in class 9. (Class 10 are doing nationwide exams right now, another reason for half day classes)
Yesterday the four of us came up to Gorkha again to visit the house here. We went for dinner at the Gurkha Inn, and today walked up to Saraswathi, one of the other schools there are volunteers at, to see the view of the valleys from there. It was fantastic - from home we can see the valley across to Gorkha, and a little down the valley to the right of the town. From this vantage point we could see all down both valleys. The only damper was that it very very hazy, so the mountains weren't very visible, but otherwise it was a fantastic view. What we could see of the mountains was beautiful though - they looked like they were floating, and as Julia said "It looks like they've been painted onto the sky" It was also nice to see one of the other schools. This one is about 3 times the size of Ratna Rajya, with many more students (although they weren't there today because its Saturday). I couldn't see into any of the classrooms, but they looked to be around the same size, just more of them. The main difference between this school and mine is that all the subjects are taught in English, so the entirety of the teaching staff speaks quite good English, while at my school the level of English among the teachers is quite poor.
We've so far been swapping hosting with the Gorkha house every Friday night, which has become a nice ritual, albeit one that is so far only two weeks old! Its nice to be so close to each other that we can visit often.
It's hard to believe that it is four weeks from yesterday that I left Canada, and four weeks from Monday that I arrived in Nepal. The time has gone by so fast, but at the same time it feels like a long time. We were looking at pictures from the first few days in Kathmandu, which feels like ages ago. Luckily, many more months to go!