The master-plan, however, backfired this morning along with Giles' bottom as the belated but inevitable dose of Pedong belly struck. With G firmly glued to the loo I set about honing my skills in choreography and set building!
Of course things are never that simple. I won't bore you with the details but a near comical sketch arose involving me, the school management and a particularly lazy teacher to whom I'd delegated the responsibility of sourcing stage-building materials over a month ago. As you can probably
imagine there was a lot of head wiggling and nothing was resolved. Still, as per my last blog, I have no doubt that the resourceful children will save the day!
So, feeling a little down-hearted by the lack of progress in the set department, and minus my usually willing partner in crime, I set about writing a pile of exam questions to pass the afternoon.
It was after about an hour that 3 shy little faces appeared around the door holding flowers and asking after Sir Giles. 'Miss, we brought you these'. So touched I dug out a colouring sheet that I'd made just last week and invited them to join me at the table. We talked and worked together, me devising questions and they being sure not to cross the black lines as they carefully coloured the sheet of shape outlines. After 20 minutes I found a balloon and blew it up. You'd have thought it was Christmas! They graciously accepted and went about conversing in Nepali as to how they were going to look after it!
When the worksheets were finished the girls started writing on the top and eventually revealed a get well message for Giles. Without any hint they decided that it was time to leave so thanked me for my time, returned my pencils and set off for home.
Just 20 minutes later there was timid knock on the door; they'd returned, only this time with a small carrier bag of home-grown oranges and guavas... 'For you and Giles-Sir... Get well soon'.
The most humbling part of all was knowing that this fruit came from a family who are too poor to treat their children to the start of Pedong's tourist festival tonight. Everyone's going but at just 5 rupees a head it is too much of a stretch for their pockets. Whilst I can hear the stage blasting from the comfort of our room, I know the girls aren't there, but I'm willing to bet 3 guavas that they're enjoying a bright purple balloon and wearing genuine smiles to prove it!
Picture: the epitome of our day... It's as if the children knew how grateful I'd be for such pungent and zesty flowers!
Priceless!
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