Some random and rather rambling thoughts

This blog is probably going to be sort of long and rambling with no real subject or direction.

A couple of interesting happenings have happened recently, as I suppose happenings tend to do.  One day at the health post I felt like I had a real job, meaning I was actually really busy all day.  I’m not entirely sure how I feel about being so abruptly forced into an average American type working environment, but I suppose the change was nice.  The two health post workers had shown up at midnight to deliver a baby, which they only finished doing when I showed up at around 11AM.  Needless to say, they were very tired and went home to sleep.  My counterpart had a meeting all day, but he was the only one that knows how to examine patients so he had to be taken out of his meeting from time to time to deal with the huge number of people that had built up.  On average we probably see about 25 people a day, but that day 45 people came in!  I had to write their names into the records, and then tell them to wait an unknown amount of time until my counterpart could break from what he was doing to see them, and then I had to run the pharmacy to give out the meds my counterpart prescribed.  That doesn’t sound like that much now that I’ve written it down, but I didn’t have any time all day to sit and work on my language book, read, or stare aimlessly at the leaves blowing in the wind while I contemplate all of life’s big questions.  That’s a busy day in my book.  Regardless, my counterpart was very thankful for my help, and I felt like I accomplished something.  Win!

And as I tend to do every week or so, I went to the government school and did some teaching.  I had some decent success this time around.  I think I am getting more comfortable teaching, and this is paying off in the classroom.  In a few English classes I successfully made up some very basic conversation role-plays and the students practice them.  The speaking practice is what all the teachers say the students really need, and I think that they benefitted from the little dialogues I made up.  And understood a majority of the vocabulary I used, and the little they didn’t understand they learned during the practice.  Then I had the treat of teaching some second graders about health.  This second grade class was huge with a grand total of three students: two boys and one little girl, all of whom I would describe as buttons.  My fellow teacher and I asked a few questions about when you should wash hands, brush teeth, and what to do if you have to sneeze or cough.  Then to help the students remember and to keep their attention span for the whole 45 minute period I invented a little song and a dance on the spot that was about the above mentioned subjects.  The dance was really just miming the actions with a jump to the left or right after each verse.  It went something like this and was done in Nepali with a lot of help from the other teacher:

You must wash your hands (mime washing) before you eat (mime washing, and jump right) x2

You must wash your hands (mime washing) after you eat (mime washing, and jump left) x2

You must wash your hands (mime washing) after you go to the toilet (squat, and jump right) x2

If you have to cough, do this (mime coughing into your sleeve, jump left) x2

If you have to sneeze, do this (mime sneezing into your sleeve, jump right) x2

Morning and night, you must brush your teeth (mime brushing, clap hands) x2

Pretty simple, and they had a good time and at least retained some of the information I think.

And last on this blog’s agenda, a random thought from me.  As usual, all the below statements are based on absolutely no formal research and are simply my opinions based on what I’ve seen in my rather limited experiences. Things I may have presented as facts stand a good chance of being completely untrue. Feel free to call me an idiot, and set me straight because I can’t change my opinions about the world if I don’t know I’m wrong.

People here keep telling me that in five years China will be the most powerful country in the world which I have been hearing all my life.  I don’t buy it, not that it really matters what the most “powerful” country is, but the people who said this kind of meant it as an insult to make sure that I know that I am not as great and all-knowing as they seem to think that I think I am.  (That sentence does indeed make sense, just give it a second).  So I’ve given that statement some thought.  China (I think, at least) is now the richest country in the world (GDP).  That could be wrong, but is sort of irrelevant either way.  If they are the richest, they are not the most powerful and will not be because wealth is an undeniable fact while power is simply a matter of perception.  The US is perceived as the most powerful country and will continue to be because of the US’s historic and continued role in the world.  The US puts itself out there.  This can be a good thing sometimes, but frequently has unintended and bad consequences which I think most people know.  China tends to keep quietly to itself.  The US comes to the aid of other countries (even if they don’t want it in which case it is definitely arguable whether this is actually “aid”).  Even though China has a big and powerful military, other countries rarely ask for any sort of aid from China.  They ask the US because the US has a history of getting involved (good, bad or indifferent), and continues to get involved.  The US kicked some Nazi ass back in WWII just because Europe was like, “Hey man, help us out here.  The Nazis are giving us a whooping.”  And since then we’ve continued to “police the world” as people say.  I’m not saying that this is good or bad, but I am saying that this gives others the perception that the US has power.  Even if we aren’t sending troops or other aid directly, the US is involved in every conflict in some way, shape, or form. It could just be negotiations, but it means something to other countries that the US is involved.  They either hate it or are glad we are there.  Almost every place the US Secretary of State goes makes international news, and your average semi-literate person can probably tell you the current US SoS, and most definitely the president’s name. I doubt they could name a single Chinese government official.  The fact that people even talk about American politics at all outside of America means they think the American political system yields some sort of power.  Also, as I travel through developing countries I see signs plastered everywhere of projects funded by USAID or some other US NGO, which again, (even though many of these projects have failed or will fail), gives the perception that the US is everywhere and involved in everything and is therefore powerful.  I don’t see many Chinese aid organizations working.  I don’t think peoples’ perception of this globally reaching power is going to change in the next five years, or even the next twenty.

All this said, China doesn’t have entire populations of the world in a sworn holy war against it and the average Chinese citizen travelling in a western country doesn’t receive scorn from 95% of the people they meet just because of their nationality, but they also never hear “thank you” for just walking into a classroom, hospital, or business place and having a look around in a community that is struggling.