Teaching in Nepal: Lumbini and the Women's Festival

From being bored to death I now find my self busy all the time. I will try to include a lot of pictures this time so you can see that I'm still alive and not starving.

Monks

Lumbini
Last weekend me and five other volunteers went to Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha. I thought Lumbini would be as touristy as Pokhara but there were no tourists anywhere. All restaurants were empty and it felt as if we were the only ones visiting Lumbini. You would have thought that many people would go to Buddha's birthplace but apparently that is not the case, at least not this time a year.

Buddha's birthplace

Hanging out outside Buddha's birthplace

Buddhist temples are nothing like churches, they are more like a circus

Lumbini

The Peace Padoga in Lumbini

In Lumbini we rented bicycles and rode around looking at different temples. Sarah from the US got in a bicycle accident because she was riding on the wrong side of the road, which easily can happen when you're not used of riding on the left side. Sarah payed the guy 500 rupies (50kr) and after that everyone was fine, except for the other guy's bike which was totally ruined.

The bicycle accident

Riding bikes in Nepal = getting stuck n the mud

Lumbini is a small place so I'm glad we only spent one night there. Me and Sarah walked to a Buddhist temple were monks between the ages 11-14 (or something like that)were living. The monks found us very exotic so we stayed there and talked to them while we waited for the ran to stop. However the rain didn't stop so we ended up getting soaking wet just before we got into the cab back to Rampur. On Sunday I'm gong to the temple in Rampur were the Buddhist monks live. I'm exited about actually getting to do some real work but not for leaving my host family. This week has been a really good week even though I haven't one any teaching...

Me and Sarah with monks

Inside the monks' temple

The Women's Festival
The women's festival is a festival were women pray for the husband's good health and long lives. The festival is also a time for dancing and singing. My Nepali singing is not very good so I stick to dancing (which is not very good either but hopefully it's better than my singing). Yesterday me, Julia and Josana went to a holy place called Devghat, I will write more about it another day. However, when we got back to Rampur my host family took me to someone's house for dancing. I was really tired from walking in the sun all day but was forced to dance. It s really hard to say no when everyone is asking m to dance and when my host sister tells me "Come on, you have to dance, everyone wants to see you dance". I guess they just want to watch someone else dance and that they find it funny to watch me dance. I'm getting used to it though and have stopped fighting it. Today is the last day of the festival so guess we're gong to the temple tonight for more dancing.