No More Monkey Business

**Disclaimer: due to technical issues I have been unable to post for several weeks. The next few posts are severely back dated. In real time, my grant in Nepal is finished and I am travelling before returning to the US. If you were thinking about sending me something, just send it to my US address and I'll get it when I come home.**

From February 20, 2014
Friends, I am very happy to announce that Kitini school no longer has a resident monkey! He was picked up by employees from the zoo in Patan. I hope that he lives a long and healthy life under their care.

He is gone now, but in the three days between the first terrorizing event (see here) and his departure the monkey did manage to create havoc in my classroom.

The monkey was consistently entering classrooms, going through kids’ backpacks, jumping on desks, etc. which is disruptive, but I had little sympathy for teachers who this happened to because they left their doors wide open. I worked very hard to make sure that my door and windows were always securely shut.

Well, except the one day when I didn’t notice that the last window was only closed, but not locked.

Naturally, the monkey sensed this opportunity to pry the window open and come in. He sat directly on top of the bench where I lay out all of my materials. On top of the materials. He dumped out the entire contents of the trash can and spread them all over the front of the room. He flipped through my flashcard box and moved all of the g’s to the front. (Monkeys really are quite clever with those opposable thumbs.) He chewed on my colorful pen and every single one of my board markers. Then he walked over to the only student who didn’t hurriedly leave the classroom, climbed onto the desk next to him, bent over, and stared at said student from between its legs. I wish I had been faster with my camera.

 

 

Needless to say, I was quite pleased to see him go. But just because my classroom is all one species again doesn’t mean they always act like it.