It was the end of December and I was coming back to Birganj from Rajbiraj. I’d celebrated Christmas for the second time in Rajbiraj and was thinking that this would be the last time I’d be there, the last time I’d make the trip I’d made perhaps ten times before.
Last year’s Christmas was, well, difficult. [...]
Things should be simpler. If people can travel to another hemisphere, learn a somewhat obscure second language, eat with their hands, and grow comfortable with the sounds of bombs and gunfire then surely organizing and executing a basic teacher training with motivated teachers in a scenic location shouldn’t be a problem.
Piece of cake. Kid stuff. [...]
Birganj to Kolkata, November 26–30, 2003
If I said that my Thanksgiving plans for this year were made by my friends while trekking around Kalimpong and Darjeeling with the US Consulate to India, I might sound a little over the top, as if I was trying to impress whoever might stumble across these scribblings.
Actually, that’s about [...]
This morning as I left my flat to head out into Birganj, I discovered something very troublesome.
On many levels.
I paused, then composed a haiku:
I gave this country
education for the poor,
and they stole my bike.
So there it is. Nothing else. Moving [...]
As I mentioned before, former fellow Birganj-wallah Rob departed Nepal. On his last day in country, he hired an elephant to take him from his hotel to the Peace Corps office to hand-in his final paperwork.
It’s lovely living in a place where the elephant is just as much of a zoo attraction as a mode [...]
