Doug Becomes a Teacher... Kinda...

I approached the headmaster of JibJibe Secondary School and informed him that I was here to teach English for two weeks, but he told me I could just teach all of the subjects.  Then he pushed me into a classroom full of confused Nepali 10th graders and hastily told me I'd be fine as he walked out the door.  Ok... I guess I'm a teacher now... I assessed the situation.  60 Nepali students were crammed onto rotting, rickety benches which themselves where crammed inbetween cracking walls and a tin roof.  I had no idea which subject I was supposed to teach, let alone how to effectively teach that subject, let alone how to speak my student's language.  Also, I had no chalk.  I was fucked.  For a few moment I just stared at the class with the stupid, slackjawed expression of a nervous schoolboy who had suddenly been shoved face to face with the prettiest girl in school.

Well, I couldn't give an hour long lesson on blank stares, so I jumped into an introduction of who I was, where I was from, and what America was like.  The students probably understood only a fraction of what I said, but at least I knocked off ten minutes.  Finally, I just asked the students which subject they normally took at this time.  English!  Perfect!  Even better, they all had little exercise books, and all I had to do was lead them through practices that they were probably familiar with already.  Maybe I could bullshit my way through this after all.

The first exercise asked the students to read a passage about milk and answer questions about it.  How many interesting sentences could you craft about milk?  One?  Maybe two?  Well not this book.  Six whole paragraphs about milk!  Unsurprisingly, as one student read aloud, everyone else just chatted amongst themselves.  I continuously had to quiet down the class, but even in silence they just ignored the reading.  So did I.  It was six paragraphs about milk for Christ's Sake.

After we finally stopped reading about milk, we answered questions about milk.  I difficultly communicated to the students that they could work in groups to answer questions.  Groupwork emphasized the importance of cooperation, unity and the value of shared purpose over individualistic effort, but more importantly it relieved me from the pressure of having to do anything.  Yet after ten minutes no one had come up with any correct answers, and it became clear I'd have to intervene and at least try and communicate with the students.  Mid-way through my fruitless gesturing and slow explanations, the bell rang and class (otherwise known as "The Shit Show") was over.  At this pointed I conceded I probably wouldn't be Julia Roberts in the Freedom Writer.  It would be a miracle if I could just teach one useful thing.

Still, I'd keep trying anyways.  I was trying to ask what the next subject was, when the science teacher walked in and told me all I had to do was teach the students about heat... Ok... what do I know about heat... Quickly, I raced through the dusty corridors of my brain to uncover some dormant knowledge of heat, but all I found was a crumpled piece of scrap paper that read, "Uhh... like... heat comes from the sun... and uh...it's like... wicked hot."  As I contemplated how I could spin this knowledge into an hour long lesson, the science teacher handed me a piece of chalk and exclaimed in fractured English that he was excited to learn about Western techniques for teaching, to which I replied I had no fucking clue what I was doing.  He disappointedly taught the lesson, and as he did so, I borrowed a student's mathbook and practiced the advanced algebra I was supposed to teach next.  By the end of the lesson I hadn't got a problem right.

Thankfully, at the end of class, the principal rescued me from a failed math class and told me I could stick to English.  Knowledge of my limited knowledge must have spread quickly, but at least I offered the Nepali teachers a more accurate view of the average American's grasp of science and mathematics.  Then, almost suddenly, I found myself in front of an overcrowded class of 5th graders.  Out of the frying pan and into the frier.  Once again completely unprepared, I relied on the textbook.  Once again, the students read a passage and had no idea what they just read.  Once again, I helplessly gestured to try and convey meanings of certain passages.  Then class ended, and for the third time in as many attempts, I failed to offer the students anything meaningful.

I was getting pretty disenheartened at this point, but at least I had a break period now, finally giving me a moment to reflect.  Of course, quiet, thoughtful contemplation is difficult when you're surrounded by swarms of frenzied children screaming "Hello, how are you!!!" and "What is your father's name!!!" (Apparently, the students are taught that asking someone the name of their father is the go-to icebreaker of the English language).  Still, amidst this chaos I was able to come up with a  couple useful conclusions.  First, the text book exercises were useless for me.  I posited that the student's actual knowledge of the English language was far below what the book demanded.  Thus, I would be far more effective if I ditched the book altogether and came up with my own exercises.

So, I tried again, this time with 50 seventh graders and some reclaimed confidence and purpose.  I taught comparison words (tall, taller, tallest etc...) that I could easily gesture.  Next, I showed how to use these words in a sentence using the students as examples.  Finally, I had the students write their own examples.  The kids eagerly shoved their papers in my faces, which had to be corrected over and over again, but by the end the majority of students were showing me functional English sentences.  It was working!  They were learning stuff!  Now, I suppose this is a very basic lesson, but compared to what I offered my earlier classes, this was like offering the wisdom to overcomes all of life's problems and confusions.  Screw my earlier doubts, I could be Julia Roberts! (The one who's an inspiring teacher, not the one who's a prostitute...)

I felt I could do this because I had just realized something that I had always intellectually understood.  The key to doing anything in life is malleable persistence.  It's some blend of headstrong determination and honest humility.  More simply put, it's trying and trying again, while maintaining the awareness to realize when what you're trying isn't working, and changing course accordingly.  It's a simple lesson that most people probably understand and agree with, but frequently ignore in the practicalities of life because of the undeniable pain of failure.  This time though, I took the punches, persevered, changed my swing a bit and delivered a knockout lesson.

And that's how things went in JibJibe school and life went for the next couple weeks.  Every evening I came up with meaningful activities and lessons for the next day.  Sometimes they worked, sometimes they didn't, but I always tried.  When I realized that I should focus on fun and culture, I changed the curriculum from grammar to popular American songs.  When I spent my day off working in the rice fields with the villagers, I worked through the pain while adjusting my rice-cutting form for maximum comfort and efficiency.  It may not have always been pretty, or easy, but in the end I taught the students some good knowledge, some great songs, and more importantly made deep, meaningful connections with a handful of students and my Nepali family.  Malleable persistence made my last significant Nepali experience a great one.

Drunk Yogi Wisdom

For the past week my mind had been obsessed with soul, what it is, what it does and how to unleash it.  A fundamental part of my current understanding was interdependence, not just the intellectual understanding of it but the expression of it.  However, the more I closed my mind in on the subject, the less I interacted and connected with the people around me.  Ironically enough, this focus on interdependence and mind isolated and blocked my soul from other - the exact opposite effect I desired.  So, I entered my six-day yoga retreat at Sadhana with mixed emotions and many questions.  Will this retreat help reveals the mysteries of Soul and Mind?  Do these secrets even need to be understood?  And more practically, can I do yoga without looking like a complete idiot?  Thankfully, concern over these questions proved to be pointless.  For a few days into the retreat, I realized the focus lay less on the Soul and Mind and more on eating and chilling out.  Just what I needed.

While we did practice yoga and meditation for 5 or 6 hours a day, most of the real action occured during our huge breaks inbetween sessions.  Mainly this was due to the fantastic people.  Of course there was the cyclical discussions of where you were from and what you were doing in Nepal, but with quite a few people I was able to move a bit past these formalities and engage in some solid, meaningful discussions.  More importantly, we were able to have goofy, meaningless conversation which always seemed to erupt uncontained laughter at the most inappropriate times.  This may sound like a simple pleasure, but for the past week I felt like my mind had been spinning and flipping around on a solitary alien planet.  After a while, not pleasant.  On the other hand, talking and laughing grounded me back in reality and relieved the vertigo of a mind wandering a bit too far.  Of course, this was pleasant.

As it normally does, simply being happy and content opened the door to memorable experiences.  One morning, a few girls and I walked up to the Yoga Centre rooftop and slapped mud all over each other's bodies.  None of us could quite figure out how covering your body in mud was beneficial to your body and mind, but none of us could quite give a shit either.  It was fun so we did it.  Dancing to the Sun Gods like a bunch of swamp hippies taking ballerina lessons was fun too, so we did that as well.  Not exactly high-class culture, but I've always held higher regard for absurdity than normalness anyways.

I suppose it's good that I prefer absurdity, for there was an abundance of it during a conversation I had with a shopowner down the road.  It went something like this. "How old are you?"  22.  "Are you married?"  Haha, no.  "Do you have a girlfriend?"  Not at the moment.  "Do you like Nepali girls?"  Ya, they're pretty nice.  "Would you like to marry one?"  Uhhhh... (awkward silence)... what?  A few inquiring questions later I learned there was a young Nepali woman named Santi up the road who was quite keen on marrying a foreigner.  I explained to the shopowner that in America, two people usually knew each other and dated for years until they married, and then asked how it worked in Nepal.  "You meet Santi now, and probably later today you get married.  Maybe tomorrow."  He then went on to describe how if we married, I could buy a small plot of land up the road, build a house and farm there, and come and go from America as I please.  For a brief moment I looked out upon the lake, the idyllic hillside and joyous children playing around.  I imagined working seasonally in America for four months, travelling for two months and living on a quiet farm in Nepal the rest of the year.  Not a bad idea I thought.  Then I thought just a tad bit harder and realized this was the stupidest idea I'd ever had.  I darted back to the Centre, ignoring the pleas to wait and meet my potential Nepali wife.

Considering I momentarily considered marrying a stranger, it should come as no surprise my judgement dictated it wise to drink beer during a yoga retreat.  Such it was, when a few of my closest yogis-to-be left the course and had one more night in Pokhara, I skipped afternoon meditation and yoga to replace peace with chaos.  It started with a beer and Nepali jenga down by the river.  Then there was some food.  Next came some singing.  Naturally, entranced dancing followed.  Mixed inbetween there were public sun salutations and shameless smack talking.  Moreson that any one particular event though, it was our glowing radiance of fervered insanity that made the night special.  We carried around the auroa and grace of a wrecking ball.  No thing or person around us was safe.  Honestly, I'd probably consider our group a no-good bunch of rambunctuous jackasses if there wasn't so much sincere laughter and good spirits.

I should take a break from these stories and say this about the Yoga Retreat.  It did involve yoga.  Amazingly, I was able to retain some level of dignity despite my feeble attempts to stretch and contort my body.  Even better, I feel like I learned a valuable tool for developing two tremendously important traits - awareness and presence.  Through my daily life, my awareness is frequently held hostage by trifling thoughts and attachments.  Like meditation, yoga helps me free my awareness and bring it back to the present moment.  Once there, the inevitable times of suffering don't seem so frightening when they're stripped of the excessive worries and negative meanings I place on them.  Moreso, the dull and boring moments are invigorated with the true colors and life they hold.  Awareness and presence in the moment.  Truly so crucially important.  So important in fact, plenty of my exhausting mental explorations into Soul before the retreat were concerned with this.  So important, I made myself look like a fool practicing yoga for six days in an effort to strengthen it
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Yet, what I'm finding is that yoga, meditation and contemplation only account for a fraction of what I'm searching for.  The rest of it lies elsewhere, and it seems to be found performing an activity I have aptly titled, "Living Life."  During immersing conversation at Sadhana, I was connecting with other people.  I may not have been cogniscent of it at the time, but I was experiencing interdependence.  Making an ass of myself in public with drunk yogis may not be an acknowledged step on the path to enlightenment, but at least I was living in the moment.  Throwing oneself into absolutely absurd situations was on neither the Kopan or Sadhana schedule, but sometimes it's when I have to ask myself "What the hell am I doing?" to actually be aware of exactly what the hell I'm doing.

Meditation, yoga and contemplating the soul have certainly proved to important parts of my spiritual path, but let's be honest here.  I'm not going to be a religous scholar living in a library or a driven yogi living in a cave.  I'm a simple human being who lives in a breathing world, and interdependence necessitates that this world is just as much a part of me as my sense of identity.  So if I'm truly going to find the Nature of Soul or Enlightenment, the world and all of it people, chaos and absurdity are going along for the ride.

Everest 8 - The Way Back Down

The hike back down was interesting to say the least.  For the first time in nearly a decade I contemplated the literal existence of a God and Soul.  I read like crazy.  I meditated like a madman (a very peaceful and calm madman).  So, what did I garner from this?

Well… let’s just say I still have a long way to go.  Most of my insights were on a philosophical level, which bothers me a bit.  I’ve always been annoyed by philosophers because they seem to climb to the peaks of human thought, but never seem to bring anything meaningful back down to the valleys where people live and do stuff.

But I will say this.  My spirituality has been dull and stagnant for a life time, and if nothing else this has revived a seeking attitude in me again.  Even more, when reflecting back on all my talk on the Travelers Key and following your heart, I’ve realized that I’ve actually been contemplating a common idea.  Being in the moment.  When people say, “It’s about the journey, not the destination.” More or less they’re advocating this idea of being in the moment.  Much like my walk up to the foot of Mt. Everest was a journey, my spiritual seeking is a journey in itself, and in both cases this journey is more important than the destination.  I’m certainly still searching, but from here on out I’m not going to concern myself so much with reaching some sort of divine truth or pinnacle of spiritual experience.  I’m still going in that direction, but I’ll be sure to be grateful and aware on each step toward that goal. J

As of now, I’m in Pokhara and leaving tomorrow for a week long yoga retreat.  After that I’m off to a village to teach English for a couple weeks… Haha life is good.