Kaiser library scavenger hunt

Today was a very fun day for me. Asoke Sir and I took the twenty-one fifth, sixth, and seventh graders to Kathmandu's wonderful Kaiser Library. However, this once-palace is more than a library--it is the house and private collection of the son of one of Nepal's Rana kings from the early 20th century. It is a musty and dusty series of fantastic rooms filled with old tomes, statues, animal "trophies," and portraits of anyone who was anyone in Nepal in the first half of the century.

If you can't tell from his name, Kaiser Shamsher Jung
Bahadur Rana's 486 publicly displayed pictures of himself
point to a man whose only love greater than old books,
old statues, and dead stuffed animals, was himself.

So naturally the kids could hardly contain themselves. But I had a surprise for them. A few weeks ago, I scouted Kaiser and created a scavenger hunt. The students had to split into their houses and search for information buried in the palace's books.

They actually had a lot of fun doing this, and I like to think they learned a few things on the way. Apart from learning the hunted-for information (when did Darwin's U.S.S. Beagle set sail?), they got practice deciphering Dewey Decimals, navigating a library, and navigating within books for specific information. These students do not have easy access to a library (a school library is almost unheard of here), so this allowed them to run around one (a quite impressive one) and have fun. At least, more fun than doing a research project. Several of their tasks did not involve cracking an ancient spine and dusting off a book cover--below, Suprina is searching for a certain Devanagari symbol in the library owner's biggest portrait:

"I don't know Alex Sir, all I can see is his ego..."

Find a great buffalo head. Check.

After the wildly successful scavenger hunt, we ate some lunch and took a tour of the ornate building. The biggest hit by far was the Bengal Tiger.

Although, I thought it was the creepiest. No matter where you
stand, the beast is always looking right at you

Yuvraj, giving the beast a wide berth and the respect it deserves

Karan and Rasik, discourteously taunting the tiger
(by my suggestion)

Kaiser is a wonderful place to spend a whole day poring over pages you have to blow dust off of before reading, or to take a quick tour taking pictures of the unique royal collection of one of Nepal's historical elite rulers.

Or, of course, to take part in a kick-ass scavenger hunt