Sunday 25 May at Jovi Kadhampa Monastery, the new monastery

YWe now found ourselves in vastly improved accommodation! There is a god out there keeping an eye on two Suit Efricin mamas!!!! The ever trusty Akkal brought us to to check out an alternative   home and it was a no brainer although scary to see how the older monks were shouting at and wielding the ever present stick as the boys clustered round the car to catch a sighting of their new teachers! We then drove back to the Mahayana nunnery to pack our things and say goodbye to the girls which I was dreading. So with very heavy heart I packed while listening to the girls chanting pooja before supper. There were a couple of older Chinese nuns there who had been teaching them. As they saw the case being put into the car they realized what was happening and I tried to explain that Jennifer's chest could not manage the dust and she was going to get sick. Fortunately Dinesh had told me that I would be able to visit them or even return to teach for a day once a week or so. But it was heart breaking - I was in tears and so choked up and as the girls cottoned onto what was happening more and more of them started crying. One little girl Monita run off and came back with a Buddhist medallion which she pressed wordlessly into my hands - we were both in tears in fact she was sobbing as we drove through the gate. I just wondered how many times in their short lives they have been left

So we have now settled into our new accommodation - separate rooms each with two beds and a pedestal. There is a great shrine room right on the same floor where we sat today. We have our own volunteers kitchen which we share with a French girl called Manon who has been here twoonths and an Aussie called Ben who is leaving on Tuesady next week. Jen will move into his room as her room looks out onto the bogus dorms where's Ben's andine look over the houses next door and up towards the hill suurounding Ksthmandu valley. We have yet to catch a glimpse of any mountains!! So here' s the thing. This place is also filthy - it seems cleanliness she's not big in Nepal - certainly all that we have seen!! Jen is totally bummed as it was not what she expected from places supposedly practicing Buddhism - where is the kincdness and awareness?? So most of last and this morning was spent cleaning- put rooms, the kitchen  and the bathrooms which it seems we share with the other volunteers and a couple of monks who live in this floor/ Ben tells us that they are not the most aware fellows When it comes to cleaning up after them!! So Jen and I went out today to are ally good and spotless supermafketvand bought all sorts of cleaning cloths and soaps to put in the four communal bathrooms, which have a loo and shower and basin in one room. 

Right now I am lying on my bed under the mossie net which I set up this evening as last night I was kept awake by what seemed to be only one mossie- powerful little sucker though as It won!! The windows do have nets on them but I had left the door open earlier. The boys are doing pooja now  right below us. The building is built in a square with a large well like space  in the middle sobthey  sitting in rows and chanting which would be fine except they are leaf by one of the older boys who is bellowing into a mike which is held too close to his mouth  - the noise from him is pretty excruciating - really get the feeling that he should be put out of his misery😃 in true Aussie way, Ben calls it " Nepal - whose got talent!!!" Which we (and the boys!!!) are subjected to twice a day from 6.00 to 7.30 then again at night from 7.00 to 9.00!!! Once again an older monk patrols with the long stuck which is slapped down next to a boy - we can look down on what is happening - haven't seen anyone hit yet!