Chanukah in Nepal was definitely an interesting experience.

So first of all, we had to make our own chanukiot- you can't really go to the nearest Judaica store and buy one. But teek cha, I collected a bunch of clean garbage (yea, I've become super environmental) and constructed a small, colorful menorah. Mainly out of egg cartons. Which are flammable. Of course, I only discovered that after I nearly burned down the village on the first night of Chanukah. Good thing the guys in our group had created a giant beer bottle chanukiah to use instead...

It was hard to feel the Chanukah spirit around us but we worked at it. We made latkes, complete with fresh yogurt from our neighborhood cow, homemade applesauce and for the grand finale- sufganiyot from scratch! Of course, our neighbors wanted to know what exactly we were doing. And somehow, the Maccabee story just doesn't translate very well into Nepali...

Other than that, time has been flying. The resource room idea is going well- I've started working with three kindergarten students. One of them I've actually managed to coax out of the classroom and into the library (some candy was involved), two others I'm still sitting in their class, trying to get them to feel comfortable with me. It's been hard though, to see children who are need of obvious therapies and know they won't be getting the help they need. Huge thank you though to Rebecca and Matt for their respective OT/PT ideas.

My other groups are going well- the child club is adorable (yesterday I took them on a tiger hunt) and the young girls group is flourishing. This week, Reut and I wanted to tell a story that wove in the themes of 'small change, big difference,' along with the ideas of the power of youth. Somehow I started telling them the story of this guy Joseph who lived in a big village called Egypt. I might have used poetic license a little freely... in my story Joseph was a young teen who gathered his friends together to store grain in case of a famine when he realized his fellow villagers weren't concerned enough but they loved it.

Last story.

I was sitting in one of the nursery classes a couple of days ago as the teacher taught the ABC's.

Here was her example for letter G

Teacher: Letter G!

Kids: Letter G!

Teacher: G is for GUN!

KIds: G is for GUN!

Teacher: (pretending to shoot the kids) Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!

Kids: (pretending to shoot each other, the teacher, and me) Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!

P.S. Pictures! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?id=554350271&pid=7938057