Snow Day

Living in the Himalayas, one would think that we'd get snow fairly regularly. Last year we only had one day of snow. Our first snow this year was about the same--more of a light dusting.

The flowers were still able to peak out in spite of the cold covering.

Beth tried to relive some of her childhood memories of catching snow on her tongue.

The snow didn't last very long, but it was a nice surprise while it was here.

Dave and Beth

Rain in the Desert

One part of our trip that we were really looking forward to was our camel safari in Jaisalmer. We arrived very early in the morning on the overnight train. After relaxing for a few hours, we took a jeep ride out to the start of our safari.

The camels were more than happy to carry us for a few hours as we trudged to some sand dunes.

They did get a bit tired along the way, though.

We stopped by a very remoted little village and had a chance to visit with the people there for a little while. It is definitely a different pace of life than what we're used to.

We also stopped to give the camels a drink, but we didn't get off. It was a wet and unstable experience.

Our three guides continued to lead us as we neared the dune where we would be camping under the stars.

We ended up sharing our safari with a couple of newlyweds from New Zealand. They were very friendly and we had some great conversation around the fire as our guides prepared our food.

As we were preparing for bed, it started raining. Our guides had packed a big blue tarp, so instead of sleeping under the stars, we slept under that. It wasn't the best night's sleep that we've ever had, but it was a great time.

If you would like to see more picture of our exploits (including Indian army tanks and giant beetles) you can visit our website.

Dave and Beth

Christmas Morning

We were watching closely online to see where the big guy was on the NORAD Santa Tracker last night and it seems that he found our house without much trouble. We finally opened the package that Dave's parents sent and were excited to find individually wrapped presents inside. We got cappucino mix, chocolates, books and other goodies from Santa (via the Bovens).

It was great to open these up beside the Christmas tree on Chistmas morning, but it did leave a mess.

Thankfully that mess was able to be put to good use. We threw it all into our wood stove and had a little fire to take the edge off the cold this morning. The Bovens probably didn't know what a great present that would be when they shipped it over (we burned the cardboard box, too).

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Dave and Beth

Baby, It's Cold Outside...and Inside

It does get a little chilly here in the Himalayan foothills, but it is nowhere near as cold as Michigan or Chicago in the winter. The problem with the weather here is that there is no central heating in any of the buildings. So a 50° day would not be a big deal in the states, but it feels really cold when the house is only a few degrees warmer.

We do have a wood stove in one room of our house, but we try to conserve the wood that we have by building fires only when absolutely necessary. Usually, we just pile on a few more layers of clothing. It's been a few weeks since this picture was taken and both the indoor and outdoor temperatures are often lower than this now.

Dave and Beth

Hike in the Himalayas

This weekend, we had our quarter break. In the middle of each semester, we have a four day weekend to give the students and teachers an extended break from each other. Rather than simply lounging at home this break, we decided to make the most of it with a trek into the Himalayas. The starting point of our trip was a small village called Hanuman Chatti. We left as soon as school got done one Wednesday afternoon with our friends Nate and Joie and camped outside of the government guesthouse. Not exactly roughing it with a toilet nearby, but it was a good warmup.

The actual trekking started the next morning when we started up a donkey path toward the village of Khandola about ten kilometers up the hill. We saw lots of farmers digging up potatoes, large fields of chaulai (amaranthus), and plenty of cows.

The one constant was that the trail kept going up.

We passed a couple of small villages en route to Khandola and our first camp site. The shot below was taken just before we stopped for the day. We had started way down in the valley where the Hanumanganga River met the Yamuna River.

These fields were just above Khandola and just below our first camp site.

We found a nice comfortable cow pasture to set up our tents for the first night. The cows didn't seem to mind that we had invaded their territory and seemed to ignore us for the most part.

We had a bit of rain the first night that drove us into our tents early, so we had peanut butter and jelly for dinner. In the morning, we got the stove humming and made some Indian-style Malt-O-Meal to get our insides warmed up.

After starting back up the trail we shortly got a view of Banderpunch. This is the big mountain that we can see from the top of the hill in Mussoorie. It was nice to be able to see it a lot closer up than usual.

We had a really strenous climb up some slippery rocks later on Friday morning and finally reached a stream that was flowing clear and cold. We filled up our water bottles and made good use of the Steri-Pen that we bought before moving to India. This uses ultra-violet light to kills all the bacteria and other troublemakers in the water.

Our second campsite was very close to the top of the hill at a place called Sima. We fired up the stove again and made some Wai-Wai (Indian ramen noodles) for lunch and dinner.

At our second site, we got up close and personal and personal with the cows again.

After several failed attempts, we finally got a fire going (pay no attention to the can of fuel in the background) and warmed up our cold feet and hands.

Our third night in tents was extra nice because of the view that we woke up to. By the time we reached the top of the hill, the clouds had rolled in and we could no longer see Banderpunch. In the morning, though, this was the sight that greeted us from our tent.

Beth and Joie made a left their packs at the campsite and made a last push to the top to get some great pictures in the morning light. Dave and Nate stayed at camp and relaxed. Everyone was happy with the choices that they made.

The two of us posed for a nice picture in front of the mountains before the 18 kilometer trek going down 1,100 meters back to Hanuman Chatti.

After walking up ten hours over the course of two days, it was nice to have gravity on our side on the final day. It took us about 5 hours to make our way back down including some nice breaks for lunch and snacks. When we got to the bottom of the valley we found our taxi driver and got started on the six hour drive back to Mussoorie. After a shower, we went to bed and have been recovering for the last few hours. We're sore and tired, but we had a great time trekking in the Himalayas with our good friends. Unfortunately, we now have to return to school tomorrow and subject ourselves to parent/teacher conferences. If you want to see a couple more pictures of our trip, you can visit our website.

Dave and Beth

Back in our day...

As further proof that the monsoon is not nearly as bad this year as it was last year, we saw the snow-capped mountains in the distance for the first time today. Last year, it was not until the second half of October that we saw these peaks. It is nice to not have to worry about things getting covered in mold overnight and the paths are much less slippery than they were. It just feels like the new staff this year should have to suffer the way that we did last year. We remember when we had constant dampness and we had to walk uphill both ways to school...

Dave and Beth

Coming Rain

This year, the monsoon rains have not been nearly as heavy as they were the first time around. Because of this there have been moments when it not raining. The other day, we could see the rains coming from the valley below. They hadn't quite reached Mussoorie, but they looked very beautiful in the sunlight as they came up the hillside.

Of course, our pictures do not do justice to the view that we had, but we wanted to share them anyway.

Beth and Dave

More Scenery

One of the great benefits of living where we do is the amazing scenery and the way it changes throughout the day. This afternoon, we looked down into the valley and saw a beautiful bit of cloud covering the floor.

Several hours later, we came back to almost the same spot and the clouds had risen a bit high as the sun was setting. The hills looked like little islands floating in a sea of clouds.

We are really back into the swing of things here at school now and enjoying teaching our material. The countdown has, of course, begun for midterm break when we can go traveling and explore somewhere in northern India.

Dave and Beth

Colors of Freedom

We just got finished with our second Indian independence day celebration here at Woodstock. It is a really great experience to take part in the national celebrations of another country. The festivities themselves were very similar to last year. We had a speaker, we sang the national anthem, and a student raised the flag. The only real difference was that it was inside this year because it was raining.

After the ceremony, we had a food court in the quad for lunch with vendors from the bazaar. We'll make a post later about the jalebis, dosas, etc. that we ate, but we wanted to focus on the diversity of our school here. Students and staff are asked to wear either formal Indian clothes, formal western clothes, or their national dress. It is a great show of where students and teachers come from and gives everyone a chance to show off their best. Here is us with our advisor group students all appropriately attired.

Other kids cleaned up quite nicely as well. Where else but Woodstock will you see Tibetans and Koreans wearing their national costumes, a South African wearing an Indian kurta, and an Indian wearing a western double-breasted suit.

We have a lot of Korean students here. Most of them wear their Korean clothes, but one of our advisees decided to stand out from the crowd and wear a chuba instead.

We also have students from Thailand and families from Tibet.

One of our fellow teachers was wearing his traditional Persian clothes and here two of our advisees were wearing clothes from Nagaland and Tibet.

Here's another Korean dress and a Japanese kimono. The other picture is a traditional Bhutanese costume.

Beth also got a chance to pose with two of our students that have moved on to high school; one from Nepal and one from Germany (too bad Beth didn't bring her dirndl). We also have students from Thailand and Taiwan.

These boys were a bit embarassed to be shown in their Nepali clothes, but they looked great.

It is amazing how many groups of people are represented among our small student body. It is wonderful to see the pride that they can take in their cultures while still being respectful and appreciative of others. The freedom that we have in India allows us to share with each other and learn from each other.

The final part of this post is our annual Indian dress-up day picture. Dave had a new sherwani made and looked quite sharp while Beth was wearing one of her fancy saris (pay close attention to Dave's shoes).

Dave and Beth