On Tuesday, after school got out, I was walking with a big group of students and a couple of the staff up to Salleri and I was talking to the principal. He invited me to get some tea at a local teashop, and even bought me a plate of fried momos, and we talked for about half an hour. And then he asked me if I wanted to see his house, and I said sure. On the way, we stopped at Shah's sweet-shop (Shah is teaching now at the school, I don't know if I'd mentioned that before) and the principal bought me another cup of tea, and we talked some more. And then we walked to his house (which he rents with another teacher and houses like 6 or 7 students from the school that live too far away from Nayabazaar to walk to school everyday) and we sat in his room and talked some more. And he brought me another cup of tea (so, that makes three cups of tea).

A couple weeks before, he had told me he was originally from Bhutan but had been forced to leave in the early 90's and had been a refugee since. And since I probably showed how little I knew about Bhutan (I didn't even know Bhutan was a country before coming to Nepal), he had lent me a survey about unregistered Bhutanese refugees living in Nepal, which gave a brief history of the exile of people from Bhutan which started in the late 80's. So, feeling more informed, I was able to ask him more questions about leaving Bhutan and what he's done since. Apparently, as Sonam had told me, the principal used to be one of the most regarded school headmasters in Bhutan before he lost his job and was kicked out of the country. The principal didn't tell me much about this because he said he really didn't like thinking about that period in his life but he did say, briefly, "The government would give you orders to leave the country and if you didn't leave by a certain date that came to your house, bound your hands and feet, and threw you in the back of a truck like a sack of wheat or rice." According to the survey he lent me, there are about 100,000 registered Bhutanese refugees living in Nepal (and the population of Bhutan is only 600,000), and who knows how many unregistered since the Nepali government stopped registering incoming refugees after the flow of people crossing the border dropped a ton after the mid-90's. The principal had lived a long time in India, since his wife is Indian, worked for a number of years as the headmaster at a school in the West Bengal region, but has now worked here in Solukhumbu for a couple years, a long ways away from his wife and two kids who he only gets to see every 4 or 5 months. Apparently, starting in the year 2002, seven countries including the US initiated a plan to take Bhutanese refugees, the US alone agreeing to take 60,000. But, the principal isn't a registered refugee since he arrived in Nepal long after the Nepali government stopped registering people. On the other hand, because he's so well-educated, he's way better off than the tens of thousands of other unregistered Bhutanese refugees that don't receive aid from the Nepali government, which provides schools and health facilities to seven refugee camps that were started in the 90's. Over 1/6 of Bhutanese are in exile because of their cultural heritage. Why had I never heard about any of this before a couple weeks ago?

On Wednesday, there was a total solar eclipse. Apparently, some regions of Nepal were in complete darkness for a couple minutes in the early morning. Here, around 6:45, it started to get a little dark, but nothing close to complete darkness. But, that morning, the Nepali government decided to announce the day was a national holiday (even though the eclipse was over long before people would go to work, or kids would go to school). So, school was cancelled. But I still showed up at school because the vice-principal still needed help typing up the test papers for the exams that start this coming week.

Thursday was the last day of class before exams (cause school was cancelled Friday too, as a "study day") and I spent each class basically telling all the students which topics would appear on their math exams and which wouldn't. To make sure I have work to do next week, besides proctoring exams, I told all the 6th, 7th and 8th graders that I was available anytime if they wanted help in preparation for the exams. I wasn't sure if many of the students would actually take me up on my offer, but that afternoon a group of 6th graders came by my room and led me to one of their houses where we talked about algebraic expression for about an hour and a half. After that, I walked past Salleri to the principal's house, cause he had said I could stop by anytime if I wanted to watch a movie. It had been over two months since I'd seen a movie, and the pickings were slim. He had a couple pirated dvds that had like 8 movies to a disk (cause in Nepal, they lower the video and audio quality of movies so they can cram a ton on a single disk), mostly Hindi movies. The best option was "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," but I didn't really care cause it just felt good to be watching a movie.

Yesterday, since there was no school, I decided to walk to Junbesi, which is a pretty big town a little over three hours away. I had heard there was a really big monastery not far from there. So, I walked about an hour and a half past Junbesi and ended up in Phugmoche, a little town with a monastery and a Buddist school. And then I backtracked and went in another direction towards Thupten Choling, where the super-cool monastery was supposed to be. As I was walking up towards the monastery, past a stream and some really cool water-driven prayer wheels, I passed this really old monk walking really slowly with a cane. And he smiled and motioned for me to follow him. We walked really slowly around the outside of the monastery, which was by far the biggest I'd seen in Nepal, until we reached the main entrance and he motioned for me to go in. I had been told there were about 50 monks at this monastery, but as I entered I saw a couple hundred pairs of shoes sitting outside the main sanctuary ("sanctuary" probably isn't the right word, but I don't know the right word so I'll stick with "sanctuary"). A couple monks were walking around with big pitchers of tea and I kind of motioned towards the sanctuary, as if saying "can I go in?" and they all smiled and nodded. So I walked through a curtain and saw about two hundred monks all sitting cross-legged in lines on the floor, most pointing towards the front of the sanctuary, some chanting from prayer books, others deep in meditation, others not-so focused and kind of looking around. A couple of them looked at me really oddly but I tried to keep my cool and figured if I'd come this far I might as well go in. So, I sat down on one of the few open cushions in the back and smiled at a really young monk who was sitting next to me and giggling. But, just thirty seconds or so after I had sat down, a group of older-looking monks sitting in the center stood up and started filing out. But everyone else remained seated for a couple minutes. Of the monks that were walking out, I noticed that a couple very women and I thought it was really cool that all the monks and annis (that's what lady monks are called, right?) were worshiping together. I then slowly began to realize that most of the monks there were women. And then I realized that ALL the monks were women. You'd think that'd be pretty easy to tell, but when they're all bald and wrapped in thick robes, you'd be surprised. So, then I started to feel pretty awkward cause I realized I'd just crashed a big anni get-together. But everyone was really smiley and welcoming, or at least seemed amused at me showing up and sitting down.

After walking out and awkwardly tying up by big hiking shoes while everyone else just slipped on their flip-flops and slippers, I walked back around the monastery the way I'd come earlier with the older monk. On the way, I passed a bunch of groups of annis that all laughed and said "Namaste." When I had almost reached the edge of the monastery, two stopped me and laughed and said something I didn't understand in Nepali. But then one of them drew a circle clock-wise in the air and I realized that I had failed one of the most basic lessons in monastery etiquette and was walking around the monastery counter clockwise, a no-no. But they laughed and we walked all the way back around the monastery, this time clockwise. I probably should have felt really embarrassed about everything that had happened, but all the monks were super friendly and smiling and, if anything, amused by the silly foreigner that didn't know anything. Even though I'd left Nayabazaar at 5 in the morning, I didn't get back till around 4:30, completely exhausted. A couple 7th graders stopped by and asked for some math help but I told them I was super tired and they agreed to come by the next afternoon.

I don't really have anything going on today, except for helping out the 7th graders later this afternoon. So, I'm probably going to go hang out at the super cool teashop I mentioned in my last post and read "Swann's Way," which is kind of blowing my mind right now.