I'm writing this sitting in the sunshine on the roof of the house, looking over the valley and the mountains behind it. They're incredibly clear in the morning, and tend to cloud over as the day progresses. Right now you can acually see the clouds forming and moving across them. It's like one of those videos where clouds are recorded for hours and then the movements sped up into a few seconds, but a bit slower and in real time. It really makes you think about just how windy it must be at the peak.
I don't think I've described where I am relative to the Himalayas, so I'll do it now. From the roof, looking straight across to Gorkha, you can see Manaslu behind and a little to the left. Imagaining that as north on a compass, the Annapurnas are at about Northwest. They're not visible as often as Manaslu, but we've been getting fantastic views of them in the morning for the past few days. It's mid-afternoon now, so they're entirely obscured by cloud. There's only clouds over the mountains though, otherwise its a cloudless sky, and an unbelievably gorgeous day.
Since the events with the missing stuff last Sunday the week has been quiet. Guarav came on Monday, and brought some things from Kathmandu that we had asked for. I now have maple syrup in my porridge (its the only way I can make at palatable!) and on my french toast (to the amusement of Caitlin, Kirsten and Amy, apparently you don't do that in the UK), and am ready for pancake Tuesday, because of course you can't have pancakes without maple syrup. (its not real, the bottle says 2% real maple syrup, but its a lot better than most of the other fake kinds at home) I was going to make Nanaimo bars, because you can get fresh coconut here, but Guarav couldn't find icing sugar, so thats on the back-burner for now.
Since my school's Golden Jubilee was held this past weekend, everything pretty much stopped during the week to get ready for it. There have been no lessons since Monday - for Caitlin and I this meant making the English language teaching materials (aka posters) to be part of the teaching exhibition. So essentially, we went to school to draw and colour all day - quite nice!
It has been getting very foggy in the mornings, and lasting long into the afternoons, a sure sign its going to rain, and sure enough, on Tuesday the heavens opened. I brought 2 thermos flasks with me from home, so from Tuesday Caitlin and I have been taking tea to school, inspired by the cold and wet of that day.
Because there were no classes going on, the staff room was full of people all week, making it difficult to find places with tables to make our posters. We ended up staying at school until about 12:30 on Tuesday and Wednesday, and working from home the rest of the time, where it was warm and dry. Much nicer.
And then, at last, after weeks and weeks of hearing about nothing else, the Jubilee finally arrived, and was held Thursday through Saturday, but its going to have its own post, next time I'm online.
The upside of Tuesday's rain has been beautifully clear weather since then. I mentioned the Annapurnas above, we've only really been able to see them from this week, before that it was just a mass of cloud all the time, with a little bit of mountain poking through. Now, however, we get the benefit of the full range in sharp, clear detail. Several times a day I tend to take a step back and marvel that this really is the background to where I'm living, its been a month but it still never ceases to amaze me how beautiful it is!
Although today is Sunday (and I'm typing this into the computer on Monday) because the Jubilee ran over Saturday we had Sunday off, and Monday is a holiday. Amy and Kirsten ended up having Sunday off as well, and we've spent the day relaxing and reading on the roof with a pot of tea and the view. A very relaxing way to spend the day.
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