Dhal baat.

hello everyone!

so it has been a busy week so far. Hannah, she trained me when i first got to trisuli and kind of got me into the ring of things left on monday but Cameron, another volunteer at trisuli that trained me got back on tuesday from a 4 day trek in the annapurna region. while hannah and i were working last week another girl named magella radomly showed up. she had volunteered with the organization a year back and thought that she could help getting this organized better then it was already. It seems that there is a lot of stuff going on as GVI is working with local organizations to create progress in the country. It makes it easier for GVI to work in the country but it also means that the people here have to wear more then one hat (are working for both the tourist industry and the volunteer side of things). Anyways, we planned a huge day out with all the kids where we're going to take all 40 of them to Bandipur which is supposed to be this amazing, somewhat midevil, town and do a 4.5 hour round trip hike. 3 hours up to this very scenic area with great views of the mountains and everything, where we'll eat lunch and play some sports, then 1.5 hours down then take a rented bus home. non of them have been to banipur so this is pretty huge for them.

Anyways, monday was a bit tough as i really didn't have anyone to talk too. the locals are very nice and we have a lot of fun but bed time for most of them is 8pm and the level you can talk to them is only so high. Tuesday morning I got up early and did a hike up into the the hills which was really nice. I got right into the clouds. When I got back I was wondering why my door was open and who was in room. Preparing for a confrontation I walked in and to my surprise it was Cameron. We sorted some things out and kinda planned out the next couple of days. we did some construction for the young leaders room as it's very small and modified some desks and table so that everything fits better. we also went over to the school and tried teaching grade 1 and 2 english. it's hard, they only know how to repeat and the teacher dispeared right after I started so that didn't help. I'm going to try and figure out a way to help them understand as we continue teaching. It has been a great time and I look forward to young leaders today. They seem to get a lot out of the class and really enjoy coming. I'm doing good, I eat dhal baat everyday pretty much which is rice and lentalls. It's good but I am missing some of the simple foods we have at home. Things are great I look forward to hearing how things are. each weeks seems to be going by slowly which makes me very happy. their weekends only consist of one day, so the 6 day work week probably has something to do with it. I went swimming the other day and we've almost the got the raft fixed for the river. Sports day this week should be a ton of fun! We've done a lot along the lines of organization and created sort of a weekly outline for future volunteers. it's really great to be in the beginning stages of really making this turn into more of an organized setup as I think the kids are getting a lot more out of it. it's also teaching them basic organizational skills as they are very much involved in deciding how things are being set up.

anyways, I love you all and I'll talk to you soon. I hope it's not getting to cold and hearing about all the nice thanksgiving food is making me hungry! I'll drop you another email in a week or so and definitely before I begin my trek in a week and a half. I've already got some plans to go to chitwan national park and pokhara after the trek with some of the people from my group. I'm going to set it up through gvi so don't worry and I know to change things with the mandap hotel. I stopped taking the malaria pills as I was told there was no chance of me getting malaria as the nights are getting quite cool but the days are still hot HOT! They are good till 2010 so maybe someone from our family will need them before then and I don't wan't to waste them if there is no chance of me getting them and I was told this by the lead treking guide.

anyways, I love you and I'll talk to you later!!
raymond