Taught young monks english in a Buddhist monastery

My experience initially was a bit shell shocked. I moved into a room with a shower that had no hot water, and the toilet did not always work. However, I did not come for the luxuries of the Ritz Carlton, I am came for the experience, AND and experience it was. I stayed with an initial host family for a week and learned NEPALI from a wonderful teacher named Pratima. I do wish however that I did not have to spend a week in this place because I was bored after the Nepali lessons and it was not in a part of time particularly interesting. A week later I moved into another host family house, and the situation was much improved because I finally got to meet my students and I was also living in a better location. I liked this second location more because it was in close proximity to monkey temple and also close to the fun downtown district, THAMEL. Again, I was not pleased that I had to take cold showers and that there were power outages at moments.

Meeting and teaching the monks was an awesome experience. I fell in love with all my students. I am not a teacher in the USA, but teaching comes innately to me and being around such sharp, thirsty minds was an honor. It was also a great honor to join them in their ceremonies, and learning about such an old and brilliant culture.

I do not think that the airport fee us justified. It's $50 when I can go to the airport round trip for $20 or less. I also thought that the daily cost of living fee was too high. I could stay in a hotel in Thamel, with hot water for $15 USD and afford to eat anything I want. I was only a mile from the schools. In the future, I will not be staying with a host family as I do not feel I need to have a curfew and eat the same food every day.

In summation, despite some of the negatives, such as cold water, and over priced living costs, I had a magical experience with my students and they touch my heart to this very day. I will not forget the intrinsic and extrinsic beauty of Nepal. I hope to return some day AND I highly insist that every one have this experience.