9/11
No observations today- the physics teacher is absent and I am the sub- no lesson plans or any idea what he is teaching. Not to mention that the 2 11th grade classes meet twice on Monday and Tuesdays. The first period class ended up being class pictures anyway after the students brought cake for all of their teachers and were scolded by the principal for wasting time and neglecting their studies and then we spent the entire class outside waiting for the principal to show up for the picture.
So far LOTS of classroom disruptions. Since I really had no idea what was going on in any of the classes I ended up spending a bit of time helping some students with problems  on calculating resistance in a circuit (10th grade) and vectors (11th), but mostly ended up talking about the US answering questions (do students in the US  bring guns to school?) and comparing schools. not much science today.


Yanchan told me last night that the "lecturers" (highest ranking Teachers with masters) make a lot of money, 30,000R/ month (about $600)! I couldn't. Bring myself to tell her we make 10x that and that that is pretty low for a professional in US. She also told me many teachers leave the private schools for govt teaching jobs, because of the security and pay, but that many get stationed in very small remote villages with 5-10 students in the school. In these small villages there may be 3 teachers who share the job switching every couple of months.

9/12
One week in Leh and 10 days since I left  Portland. No school for me today. last night started to feel a bit queasy and a little feverish and went to bed early. Woke up at normal time, but had a headache and stomach not good. Had some tea and toast and then went back to sleep until about 1130. I am up now and drinking more tea and feeling a bit better. Hopefully even better tomorrow. I was thinking if I felt better this afternoon I would wander down to the market for some shopping but Yanchan just came back and said the market is closed after lunch today. She is not sure why, but a truck was driving around announcing it. Last summer when this happened it was in commemoration of the big floods- not this time.....(According to Dorjay they are closed because the telephone lines have not been working and this is a protest by the shop keepers- this time restaurants are still open, not like last year!)

I did do some laundry by hand (Yanchan does have a washing machine and did a big load for me already, but I just have a little now so....) and finished the novel, A Fine Balance about India from about 1940-1984. Very good, but quite depressing and just made me angry at the cruelty of Indians to each other over this time.  

The season is starting to change. Noticeably chillier each morning with fresh snow dusting the peaks when they appear from the clouds each morning. I am also starting to see a hint of color in the leaves and most of the small hay fields behind or house have been harvested and the hay put up for the winter feed for donkeys and cows (whoops, that is barley for the humans). I wonder how cold it will get before I leave and whether I brought enough warm clothes....?
I am hoping to be able to do the mtn bike (actually all on rough roads) ride down from Khardung La ( world's highest road pass at 18000+) on Sunday. They drive you up and then it is a few hour ride to town. It's pretty expensive if you go by yourself, so I am hoping to find a group to join. After talking with Yangchan last night, it sounds like I should also try to go to Pangong Lake, high up near Tibetan border, next weekend before the road gets snowed in. This is a 2 day trip, so I will have to take next Saturday off ( which she says is no problem with the school). Eventually I hope to do a 3 day trip to the Nubra Valley, but that can happen later- they keep the road open and it is apparently warming than Leh in the valley.

Slept a bunch more this afternoon and ate a little Maggi (top ramen). Still not feeling too well and decided to try some of the Zithromax that I brought. Apparently there is a bug going around. I was able to have a longish talk with Dorjay about various things  about Leh and comparing living here to living I'm AK. He told me a lot about how Leh has changed over the last 30 years.  Later on Mr Eshay came by to check on me. Told me if I needed to rest to stay tomorrow- hopefully I will be OK. We also discussed the mandatory parent meeting held yesterday afternoon to which 50/300 parent came- same issues as at home: the parents who you need to talk  to don't come and the one's who you say "doing great" show up. I also cleared with him to get off next Saturday to go to Pangong Lake.Now I will need to find people to share a jeep. I had a call from Rupak (our guide last year in the Sunderbans Tiger Sanctuary). He says he will be coming to Leh with his wife in 10 days. Maybe we can go to Pangong Lake together.

9/13
Feeling better today but still a bit weak. I did go to school for the morning 3 periods and came home for lunch- a banana and some more tea and Maggi ( which is usually served in a bowl with a fork- I guess I'm supposed to drink the broth. Everyone wants me to drink warm water. I have been drinking straight from the spring water at the house which all of the dentists seem to do, but today I decided to start using the ate steripen just to be safe. This morning I observed  chem, bio and physics classes. The first thing I learned is that even though this school is supposed to be English median most of the teachers teach mostly in Hindi with a bit of Bhodi and some English mixed in. Because they usually use English for scientific terms I can understand the lessons pretty well, but am a bit concerned about how well the students will understand me. All of the teachers say the students do understand very well and that it will be good for the students to hear my pronunciation. I am still quite confused by the daily schedule and how the whole system works and it is difficult to get a straightforward answer from anyone. It seems that in the 11/12 science classes, many meet 2-3 days/ week but they seem to meet 2 x on the days that they do meet and the second section is "extra"  and the teacher can decide whether to "rest" or teach....... Much of the teaching I saw today consisted of teachers reciting a question in English which the students copy into their notebooks and then the teacher goes through an explanation/answer and the students record. In some classes their is actually discussion between the Ss/T as they record the answers. It will be interesting to see what I end up doing actually. It seems to me that VP wants to use me as a sub to fill in wherever, and it sort of seems to me that the regular teachers want me to just take some of their load and I'm not sure what they will be doing instead. Even though there are apparently lots of volunteers coming through here all of the time, I'm not sure the school really knows how to use them/us productively. It may be easier to figure how to use an elementary volunteer or someone who is going to teach or help with English.

Oh, almost forgot about attendance: in one class there was no attendance taken, and in the other class the teacher had a roll book and called out numbers("1,2,3,etc, no names) and the students responded. There also doesn't seem to be any consequence for tardiness. The problem is that when a student is tardy ( and there are quite a number of them) they come to the door, say "Sir" or ma'am before sitting down and it is another disruption.

I left school at lunch and went home for a bit of a rest- felt better and went to town to shop and check email. I first had to return to a Tibetan woman at one of the outdoor markets who I had owed some money to since Tuesday. All of the vendors on the streets and in the little shops say, " closing for the season next week, give you good price. 1500 Ruppees, in summer 2500!".  Yangchan tells me to wait another week or two and then prices will really be good, but I wonder what will be left. Went to the OpenHand restaurant. To see about having my first cup of coffee since Sunday (there is Nescafé at the house but I drink the tea here) and use their wifi. Everything was shut down and they are packing up for the season. There are a few other places with reasonable coffee still open, but not sure how long. Then went to find an Internet cafe. Of course the broadband was down again, so I used the slow Internet to catch up on the many emails- very slow

Went to dinner with Yangchan, Dorjay and their daughter at Dorjay's borther's Tibetan restaurant in a building upstairs in the main market- very good. Dorjay was in and out running errands and, I think visiting his brother in the kitchen. Yangdill's boyfriend also showed up. He seems very nice but apparently had a bad motorcycle accident (was in a coma for a week and now has a lot of memory loss), and goes to college in Jammu. Told me he wants to be a psychiatrist. Yangchan told me lots of stories about growing up in villages and how hard it was with no transportation, tiny houses with fire pits in the middle and no chimney. Her father was a herbalist who also travelled the trade routes trading tea, salt, etc and they raised goats, sheep and ponies. Dorjay's mother died giving birth to his youngest brother (who owns the restaurant now). The father remarried a woman with 4 of her own children and she apparently did not take care of Dorjay and his siblings. The youngest was sent off to a Tibetan family in Leh at the age of 10 to wash dishes in a restaurant and eventually learned to cook, etc. she talked about how it was much better now, but then as she talked about how busy life is now and the gatherings and shared meals with dancing, singing and sharing she said some of the old was also better. Not surprisingly it sounds a lot like the stories of old Pt Hope vs now and the big changes in the tinupiaqs villages.

At one point I asked how Dorjay and Yangchan had met and learned a new term. With a small smile Dorjay replied," ours was a love-marriage". They didn't tell me much more except that some relatives had introduced them. According to them about 50% of the marriages are arranged still.


9/14
Stomach better, a little queasy still but getting there. It is almost 9am and the electricity is still off- usually on by now. Hopefully can get a charge sometime today. I would like to go up to the school early but it seems that all of the buildings and rooms are usually locked up until things start after the assembly and there don't seem to be any teachers around until 930 at the earliest.

Had a hard time sleeping last night because of the constant howling and barking of the packs of dogs in the area. The lazy friendly, solitary dogs that lie around in the streets and on the sidewalks during the day apparently join into large vicious packs that fight and howl and bark at each other all through the night. ;for some reason I have been noticing it more in the lat few nights. Dorjay told me you can often see dead dogs (from the fights) in the morning along the road- I haven't yet. Seems like a public health issue that police could take care of, but there doesn't seem to be a lot of concern.

As I said they really don't know what to do with volunteers who have expertise here.Today I am the "games" (PE) teacher, or in fact splitting with Federica the Italian philosophy prof from the Netherlands. Actually, the first period was quite fun. The 9th grade students asked many more questions and carried on more interesting conversations than any of the older classes I have had. After a little introduction and questions we went to the "field", they rounded up a couple of balls (apparently the real games teacher keeps the key with her) from somewhere and they played futbol and volleyball. I played a little with them but mostly riffed. The next class I taught was the seniors. A small class and they seemed very apathetic and uninterested (except for young man), could not find a ball so we and a few other classes (no other teachers around) hung out talking at the field. I have one more class: 11 Arts last period- not sure what we will do if I can't find a ball. The arts track takes no science so I can' help with that. Today I got lunch at the canteen and ate with the other teachers on the assembly field- better than eating alone in the girl's hostel. I also met a young German girl who is living in the girl hostel and volunteering in the kindergarten. We may be able to arrange a trip to Nubra valley later and share a taxi.

The wifi signal is now working in the teacher lounge, but there (Shannon mentioned in email that I mix up there and their in this blog and I just figured out why- the autocorrect keeps putting them in and I don't usually look!) is no connection to the actual Internet? Hopefully when I go town after school......