Obama and giardia...

Right now I'm sitting in my usual internet cafe, and about every other person around me is scrolling through Google News or exclaiming to their friends and family about Obama. I still can't quite believe it - I've been grinning all day. This morning I grabbed my toast and jam and sprinted down to the lobby, where someone had found a very fuzzy CNN and a group of confused looking Nepalis were huddled around. I sat down as the "Obama declared president-elect!" announcement was flashing across the screen. It was so weird because I've never experienced tears of joy before - I didn't really think it was possible - but all the sudden I was crying. The Nepalis noticed after a few minutes and got very concerned, and it took me a while to convince them that I didn't need a doctor.
The rest of the day has been surreal, but great. Erin (a 20-something from LA who volunteers in a nearby village and stays at Student Guest House) had heard of an election event at the "American Rec Center," so we went down the street crying and skipping to a huge compound a little south of Thamel. It was so fun to flash my passport and suddenly feel like I was home. The entire main room was crammed with Americans circling around a big, glossy TV and watching Obama's speech, and everyone was wiping their eyes. Just hearing the familiar accents made me happy - I've never considered myself that patriotic, but turns out, I really love America.
Anyway we saw some girls who Erin had met before, they introduced us to a couple guys who they were friends with, and we all sat around eating free pancakes and smiling. I guess I should mention that for I've been sick for around a week, and worse the last couple days: upset stomach, fatigue, etc...symptoms of giardia, a common Nepali parasite infection. The guys had been in the Peace Corps in Nepal and were back for a visit, so I asked them what they thought. They said they'd both had it at least 10 times and agreed it sounded like I did too. They also knew the Nepali name for the necessary drug and offered to take me to pick some up. So after a lot of wandering at Nepali banter we found some for 45 rupees and I took my first dose - hopefully tomorrow I wake up better!
The rest of the day we walked around, got some pizza ALMOST as good as Pagliacci's (can you believe it?) for lunch, talked about the Peace Corps, and tried to figure out my trek. So far I still haven't booked anything, mostly because I was waiting to see what was wrong with me and whether I could fix it. Most of the companies I've went to don't have any groups for when I need yet, or aren't doing the trek I want (5-6 days in the Annapurna, the range north of Pokhara). The guys took me to a couple trekking centers they knew of and I posted requests for trekking partners with my email, so with any luck I'll get some responses! But if not, I think I'll just take the bus to Pokhara on Monday and see if I can find someone there to go with...everyone keeps telling me that there are thousands of people looking for company just like me. I hope they're right!
Other than today, the week has actually been pretty uneventful. Sylvia left last Sunday and it's been a little lonely without her - I miss having that mother figure around. Sunday was also Steph and my last day at the orphanage, so the night before we took out one of the very friendly older boys to dinner. I think he was a little overwhelmed with the five of us chattering in English, but seemed ecstatic when he got to order hot chocolate. Then Sunday morning Steph and I spent three hours making origami stars as a present for the kids...of course, once handed out half of them were soon on the ground. Even though it's a relief not head off to the orphanage every day after teaching, it was also sort of sad to leave them. It's hard to imagine that we go off and continue with our lives - return to hot food and clean beds and modern countries - and they stay there in the dirt and the corruption.
Mostly this week (my last at the monastery...weird) has been teaching through a giardia daze. Steph gave me some phonics worksheets to do with the little kids, which was a disaster at first: instead of circling the words which started with the same sound as "ball," they circled all of the words and colored the entire picture before I could look up the Nepali word for "WAIT!" But the last couple days have gotton better and better. Yesterday they could even recite the difference between a long and short "a" sound by the end of class! And I'm continuing on the "environments" theme with the older class by discussing the animals, plants, and people of each habitat. They seem to love animals especially - one said he wanted to go to the zoo this weekend and see everything we were talking about!
So that's it for now. The next couple days are going to be busy, because I've got to figure out what I'm doing for the next two weeks. But it's only two weeks! I can't wait to see or talk to all of you again. Much love and more updates soon.