We went on a Field trip to some place out in the country yesterday. (Yes, on a Saturday, to make up for the day of school that we missed because of the typhoon.) The kids had a ton of fun. The first thing that they got to do was search for and collect chesnuts from a small field. They picked the field clean, and all took home small bags full of them. The best part was getting pictures of them. The school has a website that parents can go on to see pictures of the classes, so it is important that I get pictures of all of the kids while we are doing anything. The students had given me some chesnuts to hold on to before they had bags to put them in. In order to get pictures of a few of my students, I had to call them over, and throw the nuts out for them to scramble for. It was almost like feeding the squirrels or something. I'm not exactly sure how you deshell and cook the chesnuts when you get them home, but the kids didn't really care.
After the chesnut hunt, they brought the kids out to a field with a small stage and sang songs and did dances and fun stuff like that. The poor kids were wearing their school sweat suits and the sun was beating down on them as they jumped and danced. Some of them were as red as tomatoes, and sweating buckets. The teachers were all going around with waterbottles dumping water in kids mouths.
After we had lunch, they brought us over to a tiny little "mudpond," which was a small cement pool built into the ground, with about 5 inches of water in it. There were mudfish, which kind of look like little eels, swimming everywhere. The kids got to take off their socks and shoes, and wade around trying to catch the fish. I had one student who was absolutely terrified of getting in the water with those fish. I asked if she would get in if I went in, totally thinking she would say no way, but sure enough she said okay, and I had to take off my socks and shoes, 
roll up my pants and get in that water. I carried her in, but she freaked out whenever I started to put her down. Eventually she let me put her down, but the moment a fish swam over her foot she jump on me again. Other kids had a ton of fun. The boy in the picture that is holding the fish ended up basically sitting down in the water and playing. We found out later that his mom, knowing her son, had sent an extra set of clothes with him, something that we were really greatful for.
After the chesnut hunt, they brought the kids out to a field with a small stage and sang songs and did dances and fun stuff like that. The poor kids were wearing their school sweat suits and the sun was beating down on them as they jumped and danced. Some of them were as red as tomatoes, and sweating buckets. The teachers were all going around with waterbottles dumping water in kids mouths.
After we had lunch, they brought us over to a tiny little "mudpond," which was a small cement pool built into the ground, with about 5 inches of water in it. There were mudfish, which kind of look like little eels, swimming everywhere. The kids got to take off their socks and shoes, and wade around trying to catch the fish. I had one student who was absolutely terrified of getting in the water with those fish. I asked if she would get in if I went in, totally thinking she would say no way, but sure enough she said okay, and I had to take off my socks and shoes, 
roll up my pants and get in that water. I carried her in, but she freaked out whenever I started to put her down. Eventually she let me put her down, but the moment a fish swam over her foot she jump on me again. Other kids had a ton of fun. The boy in the picture that is holding the fish ended up basically sitting down in the water and playing. We found out later that his mom, knowing her son, had sent an extra set of clothes with him, something that we were really greatful for.the boy with the Yankees cap on is a three year old who was on the bus with my class going to the field trip. At one point I took his hat, put it on my head, and made him say "Go Yankees!" to get it back. He ended up giving me his hat again and again just so that he would have to say "Go Yankees!" again and again. I also ended up with three other kids giving me thier hat so that they could have a chance to say it. This was one of my favorite parts of the whole field trip!
Nepal Trip, Part 2
Nepal Trip, Part 2
On our first day of "treking," we were going to take a couple hour jeep ride to a village, and leave from there. Jeeps there are kind of like taxis. They are available for hire, and usually leave the larger city once or twice a day to head out to the villages. The first jeep that we hired made it about 50 feet before breaking down. They then spent about an hour under the hood, and got a mechanic out. We drew a crowd while they were trying to get it working, including this little boy in the red shirt. It finally got started and we headed up the mountain. We made about another 200 yards before it broke down again. We finally called another and had another jeep come down from the village up the mountian. They said that they would be about an hour. That hour ended up being more like three or four hours. We finally got going up the mountain 5 hours after we had started. 
The road going up the mountain was like nothing that I have ever been on before. There is really no way to describe to you how bumpy and uncomfortable it was. We were sitting in the back of this jeep on two metal benches, haning on to a bar mounted on the roof with all our might. The road had ruts that were 2 feet deep, and the mud was crazy. If you know what the driveway that goes up to my dads house is like, think about a road that is ten times worse, and goes on for 6 hours. We got stuck in the mud multiple times. Everyone just got out and pushed. If we passed someone who was walking up the road, they would just jump in the back , or climb on the top, which creeped us out at first. I have no idea how someone stayed on the top with out falling off, but multiple guys did it. One time we ran out of gas. A jeep who was headed down stopped to give us some. We used empty water bottles and a big kitchen bowl, and leaves that were used as a funnel to transfer it from their jeep to ours. I can't say that I have ever done anything like the jeep rides that we had there. They were long and bumpy, often times we were 2 inches from the side of the road that dropped hundreds of yards down the mountain, and people were jumping in and out as we went. 
We finally got to the village that we were going to stay at that night right as it was getting dark. This is the home that we stayed in. It was a very nice home in the village. We found out that it had been built 150 years ago. The building had been built with rocks that they had stacked and cemented together, and the roof was very typical sheets of metal. It was the families home, but they cleared out two of their rooms for us to use. The room that I was in was about six feet by eight feet. We fit four of us in it! We were extremely sore that night, but it was from bumping up and down on metal benches for hours, instead of treking like we had expected!
The road going up the mountain was like nothing that I have ever been on before. There is really no way to describe to you how bumpy and uncomfortable it was. We were sitting in the back of this jeep on two metal benches, haning on to a bar mounted on the roof with all our might. The road had ruts that were 2 feet deep, and the mud was crazy. If you know what the driveway that goes up to my dads house is like, think about a road that is ten times worse, and goes on for 6 hours. We got stuck in the mud multiple times. Everyone just got out and pushed. If we passed someone who was walking up the road, they would just jump in the back , or climb on the top, which creeped us out at first. I have no idea how someone stayed on the top with out falling off, but multiple guys did it. One time we ran out of gas. A jeep who was headed down stopped to give us some. We used empty water bottles and a big kitchen bowl, and leaves that were used as a funnel to transfer it from their jeep to ours. I can't say that I have ever done anything like the jeep rides that we had there. They were long and bumpy, often times we were 2 inches from the side of the road that dropped hundreds of yards down the mountain, and people were jumping in and out as we went. 
We finally got to the village that we were going to stay at that night right as it was getting dark. This is the home that we stayed in. It was a very nice home in the village. We found out that it had been built 150 years ago. The building had been built with rocks that they had stacked and cemented together, and the roof was very typical sheets of metal. It was the families home, but they cleared out two of their rooms for us to use. The room that I was in was about six feet by eight feet. We fit four of us in it! We were extremely sore that night, but it was from bumping up and down on metal benches for hours, instead of treking like we had expected!
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