Sup Nepal!

So today the school we were supposed to teach at unfortunatly cancelled on us, so we spent the day with our contact, Yubraj's family. We had a great time and they made us a great Nepali Lunch and then we stayed for tea. We had a great time and will Miss Yubraj's family when we leave. We have two days of teaching left which include two schools, a group of mountian bikers, and a village just north of Kathmandu. We will be so sad to leave on Sunday, we have had so much fun in Nepal!!

Namaste!

Team Tiik Chha

Nicole, Jacque, Amanda, Nick, and Paul

A Visit to Kopan Monastery Plus a Great Day of Teaching

The five of us taught in the sun today at Joseph School--it was a really nice experience. We have taught in a variety of settings now--big and small groups, tightly packed school rooms, large auditoriums, indoors and out. It is such a satisfying and rewarding experience to teach such attentive, lively, and inquisitive audiences. I know I can speak for all five of us when I say that we are in a fortunate situation to be teaching as we do! In between teachings, we try to get a little cultural tourism in--these pictures are from Kopan Monastery, which sits on a hilltop on the Northern outskirts of Kathmandu. This is a really, really cool place to see.

Paul

Teaching is Complete!

We finished our 10 full days of teaching today! We cannot believe that our trip is almost over! We taught a total of 1,943 people over the course of 10 days! Our most memorable teaching experience was yesterday, we taught 50 adult women at the Madurai Non-Formal Education Centre (MNEC), an organization that provides women from rural and urban slums with food, medical supplies and education, and it also has a center for HIV/AIDS for women and children. These women were fantastic! They were so eager to learn, and they presented each of us with beautiful flower garlands. At the end of our lesson, a few of them came up to us and thanked us. One woman told us how they see drownings occur fairly often, and they never did anything because they didn't know what to do, and they were excited because this was the first time they had ever received any information about how to rescue someone, and they were very excited to use what we had taught. We were so moved by these women, that we donated our teaching bag with all of our teaching supplies and script of what we taught to the MNEC. This entire teaching experience has been great, some of the boys we taught at an all boys high school near our hotel recognize us on the street every morning.

Tomorrow morning we leave for Mamallapurram!

--Kaitlin, Caitlin, Carley, Beth, Jesse and Bella.

Back from Chitwan National Park!

Hi Everyone,

The five of us had a great side trip to Chitwan National Park for a little R&R in between teaching. We rode elephants, took some nature walks, and went canoeing with crocodiles--yes, that's a crocodile peering up from the water in the first picture. I think he was looking for breakfast! Even on this side of the world, we have heard the bad news, and are deeply saddened by the shooting of Congresswoman Giffords, as well as the other victims wounded and killed at her side. Our thoughts and prayers go out to all.

We are back to teaching bright and early tomorrow morning--goodnight.

Paul

From Nepal

So ends our first week of teaching. Our student numbers have been great, and have so far exceeded our goals. We are off to Chitwan National Park tomorrow, where we will visit until Monday. Hopefully we will see some Bengal Tigers while there!

Paul

Half Way and Happy Birthday!

Today we completed our fifth day of teaching, it is hard to believe that we are half way done, only 5 more days of teaching. Today we taught about 130 students, from 3rd to 8th grade. The school correspondant gave us each a home made towel! We each now have three towels that we were given as gifts (the first two came from our partner, Grace Peter Charitable Trust, during our orientation). And while we were talking in the principal's office after our teaching, a cow came up to the front gate, hit it with its horns and moo-ed to be let in!!

Yesterday we taught 450 kids! All at once! We were able to break it up into morning and afternoon sessions so that we taught and demonstrated the skills in the morning and in the afternoon we were able to have each student practice the skills! It was our longest day yet. Oh, and in the midddle during our break, each kid came up and asked for our autographs, some asked 2-3 times! It was crazy! There were mobs of kids around us, we were all covered with pen ink.

It is truly amazing how fast the kids catch on, and they are all able to ask and answer questions at the end. We are all so impressed with them!!

Annnnndddd it's Carley's 19th birthday today!!! We are going to a Dosa festival on our hotel roof top restaurant to celebrate tonight :) Happy Birthday Carley!!!

Sending our love,
Kaitlin, Carley, Caitlin, Bela, Betheny and Jesse.

1,428

So far our water safety, cpr, and first aid program has be taught to 1,428 students in 5 different schools. The students have been so warm and welcoming. They are incredibly smart and ask very good questions. We also taught a CPR review class to 22 of the lifeguards our previous group taught this past summer. Thank you Bree and Drew, they were a great group!

We feel so privileged to be here and the schools have been treating us so well! We love all of our classes and can't wait until tomorrow! We will at the same school we were at today.

Much Love! Team Tiik Chha

Nicole, Amanda, Jacque, Nick, and Paul