Hello! This is Nicholas, and I’m in charge of recounting day 3 of our trip. Today, we slept in a bit and had breakfast around 7:30, although some of us (Chesley) woke up early for a frigid shower. We had tea and hot chocolate, which was followed by a hearty meal of oatmeal and toast. We then had a group discussion about ethics and its definition. We concluded that there was a difference between morals and ethics in that ethics must include action while morals are more passive ideologies. We then got in our groups to study more specifically and in detail one of the Five Lenses: ethics, economics, politics, geography, and culture.
Vivian and I have the economic lens, and we plan to focus on different incomes and percentages regarding wage to living cost ratios. Following this, we received a small language lesson from our Small World guides and staff. Charpi kaha cha is a good phrase to know when nature calls. We had more time to work in our lens pairs and then had a delicious lunch of bread, potatoes, veggies, and cheese.
Then, hiking back down the trail we had entered on last night, we were received warmly by the local Small World affiliated school. They gave a ceremony of welcome consisting of marching, saluting, and chanting, and they presented us each with scarves. We broke up into our pairs and entered the surrounding classrooms. Vivian and I learned names and ages, as well as favorite sports, after being left alone with a class of rowdy ten year olds. Chesley became an instant celebrity and left to cheers and high fives.
After finishing up to many cute goodbyes, we visited the nearby monastery where we encircled a large prayer wheel and spoke to a monk inside the beautifully carved and painted walls. We were followed by some of Chesley’s adoring fans and arrived home to tea and cookies. Sardines was played for over an hour, during which Zella hid in a bathroom for 20 minutes alone. That dissolved into content conversations and more frigid showers.
At dinner, we ate well again and were surprised by a birthday cake and dance party for Chesley. Karma showed us some of his moves, and Proud got rowdy to Despacito. Tucker, our photographer, showed us his work to start a nonprofit through videos and explained some of the difficulties they faced. Tomorrow, we will trek six hours to our first homestay. We are all excited to see what happens.
Suva ratri (good night)