The month of March

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Hey everyone! Sorry it's been so long since I've written in here, although I haven't really done anything very exciting in the past couple of weeks. I thought I might just write about two festivals that took place here!

Shivaraatri, Lord Shiva's birthday, took place at the beginning of the month. Its really nice because everyone lights bonfires and sits around it together. In Pashupathi, an area where there are loads of temples dedicated to Pashupath, a form of Lord Shiva, there is a huge celebration. Although apparently it gets quite dangerous, as all the holy men start to drink and smoke, so I didnt go! During the night, we went to a nursery nearby our home and just sat by a fire eating dried noodles- it was great! Another tradition on Shivaraatri, which is one that I liked less, was giving money to children. They would usually hold out ropes across the road, so if you were trying to pass, they wouldn't let you through until you had given them something. At one point, I was walking back home from school, and saw children hold out a rope in front of a man on a bicycle that was completely loaded with water tanks! He almost toppled over- he got so angry that he got off his bike, picked up a stick and started to chase all the kids away with it! It was really funny but strange at the same time!

Another festival called Holi took place yesterday. I have celebrated Holi in India before, so was really interested to see how different it is here! In India, Holi involves throwing coloured powder at other people and getting completely covered in all these different colours! The celebrations in Nepal are not quite the same! Instead of throwing coloured powder, most people throw water balloons at you, sometimes dyed red. Its a really lovely festival, and it's a lot of fun on the day, but the problem is that many of the children start throwing water balloons two weeks before Holi- so I have been targetted by kids on the rooftops many times on my way to school for most of the month! Yesterday, me and a volunteer went out into the street in the morning which was extrememly brave, as we were hit with about 10 water balloons just trying to get a taxi! It got completely soaked by somebody who decided to throw pink water at me right in the back of my neck. It was really fun though! There were loads of people covered in paint and coloured water- some poeple even had silver paint on their faces, so they really looked like aliens! Everyone was really friendly though, and giving us a red tika (a marking on the forehead, given as a blessing), and the streets were completely dyed in purple, blue, red and loads of other colours! It was a really interesting experience, especially seeing all these really serious looking people on their motorbikes with bright pink faces!

Teaching at school recently has been really nice. Last week, we took 8 of the students out on a picnic to a local park, which was great. They don't really get to go out much, so even walking there was a big adventure for them! We have also started a project to paint the classroom, and redecorate it. It should be a lot of fun, as some of the students here are really really good at art- (I had one boy draw a beautiful beach, even though he has never been to one, and another who can draw so many things, like waterfalls and roses, from memory) it would be nice to give them a chance to make use of their imaginations!

Anyway, I need to go now! Oh yes, and just to let you all know, the elections are coming up here, which means that there will probably be more negative media about Nepal. Most of the things will sound worse than they really are, so please don't be too concerned!

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