beards + leeches = beardleeches

Yesterday, I was sitting at a computer in the vice-principal's office. And I reached up to scratch my chin…(and I haven't shaved since I've arrived in Nepal. At first it was out of laziness, but up here in Nayabazaar, there's not a mirror anywhere in the house, so I just decided to shave when I got back to Kathmandu. And since it's been a long while, I feel I've made the transition from facial hair to beardage.)…and I felt a little clump of something in my beard. And I scratched it and it came off and landed in the palm of my hand. And then it started to squirm around. It was a leech. I've seen a bunch of leeches since I've gotten here, but this was the first time I'd found one on me. It was just a little one though. And I ran my fingers through my hair and I'm pretty sure there aren't any more crawling around and sucking my blood.

I've had a lot more work at the school lately. All of the students have first-term exams starting next week and all of the exams have to be typed up. But, since all of the school staff either can't type or can't type very fast, I've been given the assignment of typing up loads of exam papers, from kindergarten (why do kindergarteners have final exams??) up to 10th grade. So, when I arrive in the morning, I go straight to the vice-principal's office where there are a couple computers, and I start typing. And then I go teach my three classes (for which I've had to write exams), eat lunch, and go back to the office for more typing. It can get pretty boring. But, I've started bringing my ipod and connecting it to the computer speakers and listening to music while working. Sharon Jones kept me company today.

Last week, I gave the 8th graders a math test. So, I wrote the questions on the chalk board, they all copied them, and then they all went out to the volleyball court and spread out and took the test. And I kind of walked around and did my best to make sure nobody cheated, even though most of them tried. When there was just a couple minutes left, one student came towards me with his finished test, and on the way over dropped a piece of paper near a friend of his. It was pretty sneaky, but I saw it. I figured it probably had answers on it, but I gave the kid near it a dirty look, a look of "don't you dare look at that piece of paper," and the kid looked away. I was gonna go pick it up, but the bell rang and all the students swarmed me with their tests. Later, when grading the tests, I realized that I had two absolutely identical test papers, except with different student names on them. One kid had made two copies of his answers and passed one to his friend, who wrote his name on the top. And the copies didn't even look kinda different. They looked ridiculously identical. It was the absolute dumbest example of cheating I had ever seen. I showed the copies to Sonam and he laughed, pointed at each paper and said, "Yeah, this kid is really smart. This kid is really dumb." Since I figured this was a pretty huge case of cheating, the copying of an entire test paper, I took the students to the principle's office after class. Take that, cheaters.

Usually, after school, I walk to Salleri with a big group of the kids and go hang out in this little restaurant in the middle of town. If you walk past the little kitchen in the back, there's some stairs that lead up to this outdoor area where there's a table and some plastic chairs. There are plants and flowers all around and there's usually wet clothes hanging on lines cause that's where the family that owns the restaurant does their laundry. And it's really homey and great. And there's almost never anyone out there. So, I usually get a cup of tea and sit out there and read for a while. And then go back to Nayabazaar in time to catch the Aljazeera 5:45 news.

On Saturday, I walked up to Chialsa and then kept going for another 2 hours or so, just walking up a path not really knowing where I was going. I passed a couple kids that had a couple hundred plums spread out on a blanket by the path and I bought 20 for 5 rupees (so, for the price of about 300/$1). And I just kept walking, eating plums and chewing on the seeds, sometimes passing through little towns in the middle of nowhere. I eventually stopped a one little house and got some tea. A family that had also stopped there was eating lunch and they shared a big piece of flat bread with me. And then I walked back to Nayabazaar, eating plums. It was nice.