Teaching Conversational English and Losing Weight!

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Ever since I arrived at the monastery, now over a month ago, my most consistent job has been to help Khenpo Sonam Dhondup improve his English conversational ability.  Khenpo Dhondup is the Principle of the school and the head of the monastery administrative committee, in effect he is the person who is in charge of the monastery on a daily basis.  Not being a trained teacher I wasn't sure how I was going to go about this teaching, however, being someone who loves a good conversation, I knew I would be able to carry off the conversation part of the job.  As it has turned out, lucky me, I haven't needed any teaching skills for this job, Khenpo has a huge vocabulary, notebook after notebook filled with words he knows, he has a reasonable command of English sentence construction and loves to converse.  As a result, all I have really had to do is engage him in conversation, the reverse is just as often true, he is anxious to engage me in conversation, spell and define a few words for him, correct some pronunciation and tell him to speak more slowly so that he has the time to pronounce each word clearly. This last challenge I have almost given up on.   And the best part of all, being an administrator, which by definition means  always being sought out to answer some question, he was anxious to work on his English someplace where he wouldn't be constantly interrupted.  During our first conversation we decided that we would work on conversation while taking  walks, at least every other time we met.  This worked well for me as well, since one of my goals in traveling was to carve out more time for walking/exercise.  As things have turned out, this plan has worked out almost perfectly, when we are both here at the monastery, which is most of the time, we have walked every other day and sometimes more often.

                       

Since the monastery, which you can tell from some of the pictures I have posted, is perched on the side of a very steep hill there is no choice of flat.  The only choice for our walks is up first or down first.  Especially initially I usually opted for up first, worried that I would not have enough energy for an up last toward the end of the walk.  On our first walk I told Khenpo, which means senior teacher, that as part of my trip I had hoped to get in a little better shape and loose some weight, for me these are actually perennial goals.  He took this as a challenge and saw to it that our walks got me sweating and were long enough to make a difference.  We were always out for between two and three hours, though some of this time was spent drinking tea with some of the many people he knows along the course of our walks.  Every so often he also threw in what I found to be really difficult walks to places we didn't usually go.  So far I haven't collapsed on any of these walks, though a couple of times I thought I was close.  And the good news is that Khenpo is an excellent coach, at this point I can handle our standard walks easily, something that was not true when we started and I have lost a good amount of weight.  I cant tell how much, no scale, but it is several notches on my belt, always a good sign.

As I mentioned earlier Khenpo seems to know people all over this hill and so our walks are often interrupted by stopping to visit with some local farmers over a cup of tea, which has really been a great introduction to the local culture.  The photos that accompany this post has views of some of the many people we have stopped to visit and some of the sights along our walks.  One of the most amazing sights along our walks are what local people call the "snow mountains" the high Himalayas.  Unfortunately, the pictures do not show them well, as on the clearest days I managed to forget my camera,  but they are amazing and fill the entire northern skyline, 180 degrees at some outlooks.  It is impossible to find anyone around here that knows which mountain is which but suffice it to say, what we are seeing are some of the highest mountains in the world, and perhaps even the highest mountain in the world, Chomalungma, known in the West as Everest.  

At first I was somewhat concerned that we would run out of topics to talk about, but I shouldn't have worried, we both love conversation and, it turns out, we both are fascinated by the cultures and systems around us.  He has explained a great deal to me about how a monastery runs, about the many cultures that intersect at a place like a monastery and about the education of monks, which as head of the monastery  is his main job.  I have also learned a great deal about the culture and economy of the Ladakh area of India, which is where he and the vast majority of the monks at this monastery are from.   Ladakh is in the high mountains of north-western India, it's capitol Leh, in the Indus River valley, is located at over 10,000 feet altitude, and most of the area is uphill from there.  It is a  traditionally Buddhist part of India, with ancient trade routes into western Tibet, that is populated by an industrious people who somehow earn a comfortable, self sufficient living from Ladakh's alpine geography.   Needless to say, Khenpo's stories about growing up in Ladakh have made me even more interested in visiting, and now I have many invitations.  So, it is definitely on the list for my next trip.

It is hard for me to look at my time here at the monastery, and especially my time with Khenpo, as a job teaching English.  I think it could be better described as  a mutual learning experience, and, lets not forget, a very pleasant way to get in shape and loose some weight.     

My Days at the Monastery

I have gotten so far behind that I have given up any hope of detailing what goes on for me, on a daily basis, here at the monastery, but I would like to take a stab at describing my daily life at the monastery.  One thing to remember is that while I have been here the academic year has ended, we have gone through a period of exams, some time off for the monks, which included the picnic, and have now entered into a period of training in temple practices and preparation for the celebration of Tibetan New Year, Ladakhi version.  The Ladakhi's celebrate Tibetan New Year but on a different date than the Tibetans for hazy historical reasons that relate to a Ladakhi king mandating an early celebration because he wanted to fight a war and not have to stop for a celebration.  Since most of the monks from this monastery are from Ladakh and because the Rinpoche who raised the money to build it is from Ladakh the monastery celebrates Ladakhi New Year (called Losar).  All that is simply to say that this will be a composite of the days I have been here and not a typical day, I dont think there is such a thing, at least not during the time I've been here.

My alarm generally goes off  at 5:30 or 6 AM depending on what time I've gotten to bed the night before.  Sometime after that I crawl out of bed and head downstairs to the bathroom mostly in the hope that movement will wake me up.  After finishing with my morning routine I head back up the stairs, the first of many walks up flights of stairs for the day.  Then, if I've gotten up early enough, its some time for meditation and yoga, getting dressed and heading out, and up more steps, this time about 50, to the dining hall, where breakfast is served about 7 AM.  Breakfast is served cafeteria style, but with few real choices, when you arrive your first day you are given a plate, a bowl and a spoon which you clean yourself at a long dining hall sink and bring with you to each meal. .  Breakfast consists of, on most days,  chapati flat bread, either a potato and vegetable curry or a similar soup and Tibetan milk tea which is slightly salty, there is also some tsampa (barley flour) available that you can add to the tea or soup.  I most often sit at a table with older student monks, many of whom speak reasonably good English, especially when you compare it to my complete lack of competence in any other language.  Most of these monks speak three to five different languages, often Ladakhi, Nepali, Tibetan, Hindi, English and some of them Bhutanese.  Generally, conversation starts with some mumbled comment about how each day seems to be getting colder, no heat and nighttime temps in the low 40 F, and then slowly builds from that into what is going on that day and only then proceeds to things like Nepali politics, world events, the Nelson Mandela funeral or even if we are really awake that morning Buddhist or other philosophy.

After breakfast I often walk up, only about 20 steps this time, to the plaza above the dining hall, where the classrooms are located, to check my email and catch up on the news of the day, or actually the day before if it is American news.  The plaza area, which contains the classrooms, the library, a computer room and the monastery office is the only area of the monastery with wifi.  On a normal day, there are few of these, I download my email to read later and then read some US and world news.  By this time it is 8 AM or later.  Many days during exams I would start helping Jo administer the exams to her various classes at 8 or 9 AM usually until 10 or 11 AM.  On other days I would head back to my room and help correct exams, something new for me, but it doesn't take long to get the hang of it.  On days when I didn't have any of these chores I would spend more time catching up on news and friends often spending until 9 or 9:30 on the internet.  I usually do this sitting in the sun on the stone steps of the plaza, though if the computer room is open I sometimes sit in there.  In either area a foreigner with an iPad usually draws a crowd; the young monks want to see if I have any cool games,sorry, and the older ones often stop by to try out some English and /or just pass the time till there next activity with some conversation.  In either case we are communicating in English and that is my reason for being here.

Recently my morning schedule has gotten a bit busier, regular classes are over and Jo has left for a few weeks to spend the holidays by meeting her sister from London, and her mother from Australia, in Borneo, leaving me to teach two morning English review classes, one to late grade school level monks and the other to late high school level monks.  The young monks class is at 8 AM and I am definitely awake after that class, to say that they have lots of energy is a huge understatement.  Keeping even a semblance of order in this class is real work.  Teaching them is also challenging due to the wide disparity in their English competence.  The older class at 9 is a lot more laid back, and easier to teach, as they all have general competence and only need conversation practice, some work on pronunciation, and a little work on sentence structure.  Most of the time I divide them up into groups of three or four for conversation practice and then rotate amongst the groups to see how they are doing.  And yes, I do see the great irony of me, with my great lack of competence in learning languages, teaching a language class.  Class is over about 10 or a bit later and after some after class chatter I am back to my room by around 10:30.  I usually take some of this time to read, or more generally pitch, my emails and then do a little work to prepare for the next days class while todays is still fresh in my mind.

Before I can get to much done the gong sounds for 11:30 lunch and I'm up the steps and back to the dining hall again.  Sometimes I think of all the step climbing as a training regime.  Lunch is much like breakfast except you take away the chapati flatbread and substitute rice and add dahl (lentil soup).  There is curry to put over the rice which usually has more veggies than the breakfast curry but always has the ever present potatoes.  Again, like at breakfast, there is lots of conversation at my table and we are usually the last to leave, the young monks have wolfed down there food at lightning speed in order to get outside to play.

After lunch on at least half the days I hurry down to my room to drop my dishes and change into walking clothes, for now it is time to do the work that is my main assignment here.  I need to meet Kempo Dhundrup at 12:45 for our walk and English conversation practice.  Usually I meet him at the top of our campus, over 200 steps up, which manages to get my blood started circulating.  Both of us like doing the English practice during a walk.  We both like to walk, it gets him away from constant interruptions, he is basically administrator of the monastery, and it is helping me to loose some weight and get back into a little bit of shape.  I might add, that Kempo has also taken pride in the fact that our classes have helped me to loose weight,  Our walks usually take about three hours, we most often get back between 3:30 and 4 PM, and involve a lot of walking up and of course back down.  We are in the foothills of the Himalaya and are starting our walks at about 6000 feet so the going is pretty strenuous, especially for a 71 year old.  On days when we dont go for a walk, days when I cant lift my legs, I meet him in his room for two to three hours of conversation, usually starting a bit later in the afternoon.

If we have gone for a walk I usually need to take a shower when I get back and after that a bit of a nap feels awfully good.  When I wake up from the nap I take some time for reading, working on this blog or returning emails until the 6:45 PM call to dinner.  Dinner is much like lunch, actually very much like lunch, so that about all I need to say about the food at dinner.  Conversation is usually at full swing at dinner and the time passes quickly.  A few nights a week a monk will come down to my room after dinner for some English help, to continue a conversation we started earlier or, on several occasions, to share a video or movie about Tibet on his laptop.  But usually by 8:30 PM I'm on my way downstairs to the bathroom to brush my teeth before crawling into bed before nine.

So, thats an outline of my laid back days here at the Rinchen Palri monastery.  More later on the walks, which are great fun and learning experiences for me as well as for Kempo and of the several trips I have made back to Boudha.  

Picnic Pictures

Around the Monastery

Upon arriving at the monastery we were greeted by many of the monks, they all knew Jo, whose  Tibetan name was Tsomo, and I was introduced to many of them.  It turns out that most of the monks at this monastery are from the very mountainous Indian region of Ladakh, a part of the state of Kashmir, combined with a few Nepalese and a few monks from Bhutan.  The Rinpoche, high teacher, who started this monastery is from Ladakh explaining the preponderance of Ladakhis.  Since this monastery is new, building was only finished about seven years ago, and has not graduated a full class yet, most of the monks here are quite young, ranging from about 7 or 8 up to the older ones, who started elsewhere, and are in their mid-twenties.  The only monks here older than that are the teachers and the administrators of the school and monastery.  So, when I talk about monks most of the time I mean the younger ones who are still going through the required education given to all Tibetan Buddhist monks.

After being introduced around I was guided to my room, in the guest house section of the grounds, down about fifty steps from the level of the dining area.  I dumped my bags in the room and Jo gave me a very quick guided tour of some of the monastery before the gong rang to call us to dinner.  One thing I learned in this short time was that I had better get used to steps and ramps as the monastery is built into the side of a steep hill and everything is either up or down, few buildings are on the same level.  Dinner was tea, rice, vegetable curry and lentil soup all nicely spiced and in more than adequate quantity.  I would learn as time went on that this was a very common meal sometimes more veggies sometimes more potatoes, sometimes, not often, a different soup and often freshly baked flatbread.  We sat at a table with many of the older student monks and many of them began to try out their English on the new foreigner.  There was great variation in the quality of their English and I had a lot of difficulty understanding it because my ears were not yet tuned to their accent.  When dinner was over I returned to my room, unpacked, took a shower downstairs in the bathroom and was asleep by 9 PM, a full and rewarding day ended.

The next day after breakfast I took a longer look at the monastery campus, including climbing to the upper level where the shrine room and the large prayer wheels are located.  I had planned to count the number of steps from my room to the top but lost track along the way, but I can confidently say that it is at least 250 steps not including the inclined ramps.  If nothing else happens I am assured of the exercise that was part of the goal of this trip just by a daily walk around the campus.  Another thing I discovered in the morning is that there is fairly fast wifi in the classroom area and in the plaza in front of the classrooms, which makes life much easier in terms of keeping in touch with friends, checking emails and getting the news.  It will be easy to do the writing in my room and then before or after meals stroll up to the plaza and send off my work.  After lunch I had an opportunity to meet Kempo (kind of means head teacher) Dhundrop who was the one who asked for an teacher to help him with conversational English.  He is principal of the school and head of the administrative committee that runs the monastery on a daily basis, but you wouldn't know this on meeting him as he is very unassuming, down to earth and friendly.  One of the first things he asked me was if I liked to go for walks, I answered that I did but wasn't in very good shape because of the effects of Lyme Disease.  He said we could walk at my speed but that he would like to go for walks and talk.  So, it seems that in addition to the exercise I get walking around the monastery I'll be getting even more from our walks.  After the talk with Kempo Dhundrop, Jo and I talked some more about how I could help her with her work teaching English to the student monks, we didn't come up with a concrete plan but decided we would first see how much of my time would be spent with Kempo and then figure out how I could help her.  At 7 PM I had dinner in the dining hall and some great conversations, the the older monks and I are getting better and understanding each other.  After dinner I checked my email in the plaza, went back to the room, read a bit and was again in bed by 9 PM.  Not so early since I was now in the habit of getting up at 5 or 5:30 and doing some meditation, yoga and reading before breakfast.

No pictures this time, I'm still smarting from trying to get them set up the way I wanted last time and failing, but I hope to post again tomorrow, trying to get a bit caught up, and I'll get some pictures up with that post.  

 

It has been a long time, over a week I think, since I last updated this blog.  For me it has been a time of change and adjustment, I've left the town of Boudha and the Kathmandu valley for the Rinchen Palri monastery in the foothills of the Himalaya. (the picture above features some of the very young monks studying for an exam on the steps in front of their classrooms.)  The monastery is really not that far from Boudha,, just over an hours drive by car, but a world away in terms of surroundings and especially in terms of air quality.  The Kathmandu area, being in a valley surrounded by mountains on all sides, it is an ancient lake bed, holds all the smoke and exhaust fumes that it generates and a clear day is rare indeed.  It is bad enough that after a week there you  start to wake up with a cough.  And so, though I really love the quality and pace of live in Boudha, I was ready to head out for another slice of life in Nepal.

And, so at 4 PM on Monday the 25th of November I met Jo at  the gate in Boudha that marks the
transition from the, mostly, traffic free old town to the very much not traffic free balance of the town.  There we negotiated with several taxis before finding one that would take us to across Kathmandu to the north side of the hill called Swayambhunath for a price not to much higher than the locals would pay.  The hill of Swayambhunath, another World Heritage Site, is packed full of Buddhist and Hindu holy places, but we were not going there today for the sites, we were going to meet the car from the monastery that would take us up into the foothills north of there to the monastery.  Our ride was there waiting when we arrived, a local driver and a young monk with the monastery vehicle.  We soon had out things loaded and were on our way up another hill, at the bottom there were lots of houses and shops, we were still in the far outreaches of Kathmandu, but as we climbed the houses became less frequent and before to long we were in a small pine forest.  About a half hour after starting up the hill we came around a sharp bend in the road, calling it a road is actually quite a compliment, and there was the gate to the monastery.  The driver honked the horn and soon the gate was opened for us and
we drove in.  I had no idea what to expect, I only knew, from Jo, that the monastery was quite new,
What I didn't in my wildest dreams expect is what I saw (see first picture on the left below for the view from the gate we entered).

Rinchen Palri monastery was built mostly with German and Austrian donations and, it turns out, the architectural designs of an Austrian firm.  It makes extensive use of red brick, an important element in traditional Kathmandu valley houses, and rather than asphalt or concrete it uses flagstones for all the paths and plazas.  I would soon find out the the monastery, which is perched on the side of a quite steep hill flows down the hill, moving from the spiritual at the top, the shrine hall, and the large
prayer wheels, then down a long series of steps to the next level, the intellectual level, which includes classrooms, the library, a school office surrounding a beautiful plaza which has a wide view of the
Kathmandu valley.  Below this level, actually under the plaza is a communal dining hall (this is the
level at which we entered the monastery), then down another flight of steps, below the dining room
sit the rooms of the monks and a bit off to one side are several buildings for the use of guests, which
is where I would be staying.  Below.and above are pictures of the grounds, I tried to put them in some order but Blogger won and I wasn't able to put them in order. You can probably figure out most of the order from the description above. Sorry.