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A Classful of Gods and Goddesses in Nepal
195 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 1988
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January 18, 2021
Here’s a book I read long ago, shortly after it was published, whose partial title popped into my head this morning for whatever reason that things unbidden pop into people’s heads...
Maybe someone sent me the book while I was teaching my own classes full of young gods and goddesses in the late �80s in Nepal at Shri Bhanu Mabi in Danda Bazaar there on the wind blown ridge top in Chaubise above Dharan, across the Tamur from Dhankuta Bazaar. And if so, then chances are I scorned its open-hearted naive simplicity and probably sold it the first chance I had back in Kathmandu to the young book guy with the beard I sold so many second-hand books to for some extra rupees that I spent on apple pie or breakfast at Mike’s or some other exotic rarity only available in Thamel.
Or maybe it was a Christmas gift one of those first Christmases back from Nepal, newly married, living with Shashi in my parents� basement, taking classes, working for the post office and hustling for a real job. If so, then so much from those years is just a blur and that accounts for why I lost track of the book.
Either way, it was probably my librarian mother who came across the book and gave it to me...unless this is all just reconstructed false memory and I really got the book like so many others passed along to me from Peace Corps volunteer to volunteer, and so when I was done I just passed it along myself to another PCV...
Memory is a strange thing, and as I am reading a contemporary potboiler sci-fi thriller at the moment about memory, this probably partially accounts for why I remembered this book title this morning. So when I looked it up and finally found it, I was sad to discover that Ruth Higbie had zero reviews of her book here on GoodReads. And no matter how I felt about the book in 1988 or �89, it deserves to be remembered.
So thirty years after the fact, I am giving this Peace Corps memoir about teaching in Nepal a neutral three-star review, although I’m pretty sure my younger smarty-pants self would have given it one or two. But what did he really know back then anyway? Not half of what he thought he did...
For certain, this book is better than the one I never wrote and which I’m sure my old mother is still hoping one day I will. But, spoiler alert, I don’t think it will ever happen, and thus much respect is due from me to Ms. Higbie.
Maybe someone sent me the book while I was teaching my own classes full of young gods and goddesses in the late �80s in Nepal at Shri Bhanu Mabi in Danda Bazaar there on the wind blown ridge top in Chaubise above Dharan, across the Tamur from Dhankuta Bazaar. And if so, then chances are I scorned its open-hearted naive simplicity and probably sold it the first chance I had back in Kathmandu to the young book guy with the beard I sold so many second-hand books to for some extra rupees that I spent on apple pie or breakfast at Mike’s or some other exotic rarity only available in Thamel.
Or maybe it was a Christmas gift one of those first Christmases back from Nepal, newly married, living with Shashi in my parents� basement, taking classes, working for the post office and hustling for a real job. If so, then so much from those years is just a blur and that accounts for why I lost track of the book.
Either way, it was probably my librarian mother who came across the book and gave it to me...unless this is all just reconstructed false memory and I really got the book like so many others passed along to me from Peace Corps volunteer to volunteer, and so when I was done I just passed it along myself to another PCV...
Memory is a strange thing, and as I am reading a contemporary potboiler sci-fi thriller at the moment about memory, this probably partially accounts for why I remembered this book title this morning. So when I looked it up and finally found it, I was sad to discover that Ruth Higbie had zero reviews of her book here on GoodReads. And no matter how I felt about the book in 1988 or �89, it deserves to be remembered.
So thirty years after the fact, I am giving this Peace Corps memoir about teaching in Nepal a neutral three-star review, although I’m pretty sure my younger smarty-pants self would have given it one or two. But what did he really know back then anyway? Not half of what he thought he did...
For certain, this book is better than the one I never wrote and which I’m sure my old mother is still hoping one day I will. But, spoiler alert, I don’t think it will ever happen, and thus much respect is due from me to Ms. Higbie.
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