The Quest Office and the Final Days at the Monastery

As my trip winds down (this is actually my last full day at the monastery); I realize how much I will miss all these monks! It's been a good time, yet it's also about time to head home and return to my life as a law student! I said that I was going to blog about the Quest Office and post some pictures on it.

Quest is the local NGO that is the intermediary between uVolunteer and Siddhartha Foundation. Their office is located near Thamel and I highly recommend them for anyone looking for a local volunteer agency at Nepal.

Where I slept when I stayed the weekend, and most likely where I'm going to be tomorrow night, my last night in Nepal!

The washroom facilities are much more on par to our Western Standards and there's also ample supply of warm and hot water.

Nice Kitchen!

The Front of the Office. I noticed that I forgot to take any pictures of the actual "office", but it's all good, you get the picture.

Anyway, the last few days. I've been a lot more relaxed with the monks. Time is running out, so the teacher/student barrier was being removed! We've had quite a few visitors as well, with sponsors of the monastery from Hong Kong and France and also Khenpo Rinpoche himself dropping by. It's been good. Tyler and I are also planning a special meal tonight (my last supper @ the monastery); we're going to do home-made pasta. Apparently the monks haven't eaten pasta before, or at least very rarely, so lets see if we can effectively cook pasta for 80 individuals; all for $20 CDN!

Just one of the monks posing for me and above, it's some handwashing that Tyler and I did. Yes, we used soap and water only. I figured I had to experience that at least once.

Goofing around with the monks. Teaching them some card tricks, etc.

Singee (the monk) with Thupten, the greatest dog in the world!

Et (And!). The Next Post.... All about the local internet cafe and the owner! The origin of the majority of these posts!

Weekend at Thamel

So yeah, it's been a few days since I've written on the blog, eh. Sorry about that. It's been a different sort of weekend, as I returned back to "Thamel", which is the tourist district of Kathmandu; and went to stay at the Quest Office for the weekend (with the local NGO - they have offices near Thamel and places to stay for us volunteers). The people at Quest have been great and greatly hospitable (and the uVolunteer staff has been amazing as well, with emails, skype contact and paperwork for me to do =); that's how I know they care!). Here's picture of the team from Quest:

Top (Left to Right): Sanju, Baby, Djamilia, Lauren, Sila
Bottom (Left to Right): Dennis, Deven, Julius

They were quite absolutely amazing as well, and surprised me with a birthday cake Friday morning. I should have seen it coming; since they're just generally amazing people and take volunteers in as if we're family. But for whatever reason, I was 100% caught off-guard with the birthday cake. Here's some pics.



But yes. That's about all I want to write about right now. I just started teaching a 2 week curriculum on Canadian History with the older monks, so I have to do much more advanced preparation! I'm a law student, NOT a history teacher!

I have so much more I want to write about: the status of Kathmandu, infrastructure, much more on the daily lives of the monks and I have tons of pics of it too (we've been on quite a few adventures), but I'll just have to post them later, the duties of a teacher calls!

Till then.

- Julius