I haven’t had time to get an official posting together because for the past 3 days, the nunnery has been holding it’s end of summer picnic. Good Buddha! 3 days of eating, playing games, taking photos and video and there has been some napping in there as well. I went to McLeod Ganj on Saturday to pick up Isabel and escort her down the mountain to my little piece of heaven. Isabel came down for the 3 day event to get loads of snaps and with the good ones, we will be getting together a fund raising project for the nunnery. We’re going to do a traveling photo exhibit! She’s going to start it in Spain when she gets back and I have to start making contacts and getting things set up for the US eventually. It’s just super difficult to get anything done on the internet over here because I have to pay for internet time and I just seem to be mowing through money like CRAZY on the girls. Which I COMPLETELY don’t mind but it’s making me rethink exactly how long I can stay here. My official budget for the trip was shot about 3 weeks ago just on internet, transportation and medicine. Ouch.
The student loan situation still hasn’t been sorted out and there has been a MAJOR snag with my cousin registering the corolla which SUCKS and I feel horrible for her. I’m sitting still and letting some things sort themselves out before I go off the deep end. Well, I take that back. I’ve already been to the deep end and back, to be completely honest, and I finally just had to declare to myself that what ever happens is what is meant to be and I have to try to quit controlling things. If Sallie Mae is meant to call me home then so be it. If shit falls apart, so frikken be it. I have plenty of other things brewing on the back burner that I can get started on. Just a warning, that if Sallie Mae doesn’t cooperate, I’ll probably be heading for Seattle for the month of January, to re-group and pat the babies, and then off to South Korea to make some fast money starting in February.

I’m just trying to keep an open mind! I also still haven’t gotten rid of my ear trouble. After talking to Jamyang Choling’s very own Australian nun, I found that there is a Tibetan hospital near by that has Scottish Volunteer doctors and they are quite good. She suggested I stop in there so I will be going there first thing tomorrow morning on my way back down the mountain. I came to McLeod Ganj tonight to escort Isabel back (Gharoh can be tricky) and attend to some business on the internet.

Y’all deserve SOMETHING in the way of a post and I feel kinda bad for neglecting said audience. Truly, I do.

Thanks for all of the emails full of humor and support. I really do appreciate it. Some days when I’m walking across campus getting hit in the head by 3-inch beetles, getting 4-foot snake molts wrapped around my ankles, and stepping in cow piles, I just think of all of your emails of support and of course, MY GIRLS, here at the nunnery and I can’t help but want to stay. I was just requested to help one of the monks learn english in the evenings so my dance card is filling up!

I am officially smitten with Northern India and the great little place on this huge planet that I have landed. Amazing things.

Next post will probably be this coming Sunday. I have tons of things to catch up on before coming up with a good, official posting for you. Really cute pictures are in the works!

The girls got through exams last week and I’ve launched them into hard core computer classes.  Of course they love it.  They are learning english and computers at the same time and I think all is going well.

Be well.

Lots going on here in Gharoh.  Things are fine.  My ear isn’t better yet, still painful.  Got emails from Jen and Tracy at Sopris and that made my week.

I’m sure most of you are wondering why I didn’t post Thursday.  It was because I was at The Dharamsala Hospital for the entire morning.  They don’t have a lot of independent doctor offices in Dharamsala, so when you have something wrong that is a little beyond the chemical shop guy, you go to the hospital.  For the price of exactly one Rupee and standing in line for about 30 minutes, 20 of my closest “friends” standing in the doorway and a doctor with what appeared to be knitting needle, examined my ears.  You see, I had an earache.  So bad that my ear clogged up, the side of my head swelled up and I was in pain.  The doctor prescribed 4 different things, one being an antibiotic, told me to go purchase the items and return to his office.  I got all four things to the tune of 300 Rupees and then set to return to his office.  Once again, 20 of my favorite friends were there, pushing and shoving in the door.  I got elbowed quite a bit and some guy just wrapped himself around me at some point and I had to pry him off.  My gawd this is a sad country.  And I can understand the doctor’s obvious lack of enthusiasm.  I only paid 1 Rupee to get to see him.  I can only imagine what he gets paid, but with all of the people that were there, I can imagine it all adds up, right?  The inside of the hospital sported the 1950’s iron curtain décor.  Concrete and iron all the way, baby.  There were some things painted on the wall in English but most all of the directions around the inside of the hospital are in Hindi, of course.  I do have to make mention of the most IMPRESSIVE collection of solar panels I have ever laid eyes on!  The exam rooms are equipped with those mini, on-demand hot water tanks but the gigantic wall of solar panels looked like it was attached to a water tower that was all inside the hospital compound.  Not sure how that all plays.  

 

I found a Senior nun this morning to ask her directions to the hospital or a doctor, she was kind enough to assign a junior nun to patiently escort me to and through the Indian hospital experience.  I had no idea my ear was this bad!  Other wise I would have gone to the chemical shop sooner to have it taken care of.  I figured that since my ear was draining at night, it was taking care of itself, no?  Wrong.  So with that, I apologize for not posting on yesterday.  I did manage to check my email but I was tired and the keyboards, in the cyber café that I found by the hospital, sucked big time and I could hardly stand checking my email in there. 

 

On this past Sunday night I stayed the night up in McLeod Ganj with the Tibetan family and got to attend the Miss Tibet 2007 competition.  It was sooooo not The Miss America pageant and that is what made it GREAT!  The five contestants answered their interview questions in English and the talent was in good taste and well done.  There were no ridiculous coached answers or flubs that made it all seem so staged and the girls never appeared ditzy or flighty.  The girls were simply themselves.  The costumes were GORGEOUS!  In the finals, they all came out wearing traditional costumes from the area of Tibet their lineage goes back to.  I know I was impressed.  With what little they have to work with and the fact that these girls try to live two lives, one of a traditional Tibetan and one of a potential spokes person for an entire culture, they looked damn good!  Of course the technology wasn’t up to par for the music and the microphones and for that I felt bad for them.  They deserve so much more for their efforts.  They all looked forward to going on to be in Miss Earth, a great platform from which to discuss the Tibetan issues!

 

The rest of this week I have spent time reading and “laying low” trying to figure out if my ear was really going to get bad and low and behold IT DID!  I’ve gotten acquainted with the visiting nun that lives in my building.  Makes it not seem so lonely when there is someone else to share the bathrooms with, ya know?  She is visiting from our parent nunnery up in McLeod Ganj and is in the same class as the nun that placed me here.  Her English is quite good and she is VERY nice, so I’m enjoying having her as a neighbor.  She’s only here for one month, which is too bad.  She actually brought me over coffee last night!  It was way too late for me to be drinking coffee and I felt HORRIBLE for refusing it but I just couldn’t be up all night!  I tried to drink a coffee about a month ago and got a splitting headache and got cranky, so no more coffee for me.  I drink two, 4 oz glasses of chai every day and that’s IT. 

 

BIG NEWS!  I was informed the other day that there is no other English teacher coming, so I guess I’d better get on the stick and get some lesson plans made up, yes?  The girls are expanding their vocabulary and getting the hang of computers so I’m happy.  I need to get Dawa and Choden back over here for laptop play time again!  That was fun!

 

Had a great morning this morning.  I went to the kitchen to get breakfast and one of the nuns offered me some momos for breakfast.  MOMOS FOR BREAKFAST?!?!?!  Of COURSE!  I sipped my butter tea and watched her put a plate of steamed momos on a cast iron plate over an open flame cooker.  She fried them up quickly and sent me on my way.  It WAS fun hanging out in the kitchen during breakfast time.  Kind of made me feel like a part of things.  The girls are fun to watch.  I got back to my room and was eating and there was a knock on the door.  One of the nuns brought me Puja offerings!  The girls must have prayed for the speedy recovery of my ear infection.  How sweet!  Potato chips, Bourbon/chocolate cookies (my favorite) and an apple, of course.  I love apples.             

 

One last sad note before closing.  I got an email from Sallie Mae.  Some how my student loan repayment schedule was moved up to TODAY.  CRAP!  So now I have to contact them, plead my case or fill out a hardship deferment form or something SOMETHING to keep me from having to come back to the US posthaste.  I’m not even CLOSE to being done here.  This can’t be over yet, it just can’t.  So everyone, please say a word of prayer to whomever your god may be that things work out for me.  Thanks.

 

So, I made the grave mistake of watching “The Horse Whisperer” friday night. GAH! It took me all of 5 seconds to fall into that movie and feel like I was back in America and it made me more homesick than a Pepsi. I am suddenly longing for that 660-acre parcel that I looked at up in Wyoming but know I can’t do that right now, however I do feel that large parcels of land and farm animals are in my not-so-distant future. I surely hope so.

I had a great experience Friday night. Two of the girls here at the nunnery invited themselves to my room to play on the laptop! Chodon and Dawa came over to play! How great was that? Chodon is a very social and well-spoken 15-year old from Nepal. Before she became a nun she attended an English school when she still lived in Nepal. She has hip glasses, an email address and is quite computer savvy. She is self-assured and quite funny. I learned a valuable lesson through her as well. I got pictures of she and Dawa on my bed playing in Microsoft paint and I got a shot of them from behind. So cute and funny! There was a small tussle for the camera after Chodon realized that I took a picture of her butt. Her words were “my butt is too big! Delete that picture!” Lesson? Girls will be girls. It doesn’t matter if she owns her own company, she is a prison inmate or she is a nun. Girls hate their butts. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHH. Dawa was learning how to use the touch pad and made a great picture. I can’t find it or I’d post it. She loves to draw pictures on the white board in my classroom so I suspect she’ll be back to play some more. I know Chodon wants to come back. They also ran across pictures I took while hiking above Nederland this past spring and some of Red Feather. They both gasped and exclaimed “You’ve been to Tibet?!” So now you know what Tibet looks like. It looks like Colorado at about 10,000 feet. Jasper Lake made them both ooohhhh and aaaahhhhh.

I’m jealous of my friend Isabel. She’s going to go to the India/Pakistan border this coming week to watch the border closing ceremony. How cool would that be? I’m going to put her website link in my blogroll. She is a traveling photojournalist and has been taking some great pictures of the world! I wanted to go with her but can’t seem to shake this runny nose I have. My ear has been draining too. Wondering if I should go to the doctor? I’ve been spending more time with some monks. They are so hospitable! I went to one monk’s room to give him a computer lesson and asked me if I wanted some tea. I said no, I’m thirsty and forgot my water. He said he had some. He then takes some money and goes to buy me some water! What? They’re the poor ones and they’re buying ME water? I also had a monk pay my Jeep fare after having some great conversation with him. He asked me what I was doing in Dharamsala and I showed him the brochure of the nunnery. We talked quite a bit about it and at the end of the ride, gave me back my money and insisted on paying for my ride. Wow.

This weekend I decided that since I had 2 days off, to go to McLeod Ganj and stay with the Tibetan family that Isabel stays with. It’s an interesting set up. Nobody at that altitude has their own house, per se. It’s more like apartment buildings that are 6 units long and one unit deep. They have their own bathrooms and mini-kitchens and the rent includes breakfast and dinner! It’s quite a deal. If you stay for a couple nights, it’s Rs350 per night and if you stay a couple months, it’s around Rs400 a week. The family occupies a couple of the units on the main floor and they rent the remaining units. I tell ya, its like college without the drama. They have an 8-year-old daughter that is quite well spoken and knows Tibetan and English. They also have 2 other children, one is out of the house already and the 18-year-old boy is still at home. The husband owns his own bakery, which means every morning the kitchen is full of muffins and breads and such. Dinner is always a feast! The wife has a job outside the home but is home quite a bit! These people know how to live! They’re always home spending time with each other or in the kitchen. There are also 2 relatives that help with the bakery. One helps bake, the other helps run the little store front.

We were sitting having dinner and the greatest thing happened. A sparrow flies right in the living room window and starts cleaning up the floor! There were some bakery crumbs from something on the floor and that sparrow comes in every day to clean the floor while the family is eating. Instead of watching TV, they watch the wildlife. There are bird nests everywhere on the outside of the building and the birds are very comfortable with the family and quite social. That is all for today. I have to go give a computer lesson. Next Sunday, Isabel and I will be walking from McLeod Ganj to Gharoh taking pictures. Can’t wait for that post!

The following posting was supposed to happen on Thursday, but Thursday got away from me and now it’s Sunday and a ton happened between Thursday and today and I haven’t had time to type it out.  SO, next Thursday will have today’s post AND Thursday’s post.  I’m so busy!  Hope you enjoy this post and the latest pictures.

Thursday, October 12, 2007.

I’ve officially turned a corner here in Northern India.  In the past few days I’ve come across a few things that would have normally scared the shit out of me and instead I wished I had the Internet here at the nunnery so I could go look the stuff up.  The first thing is I pulled a cushion away from the back of a chair and jumped back after seeing something that looked like a leaf that had turned brown for fall and fallen off a tree.  The trick here is that it had LEGS and it was suspended from the rail of a chair.  Not a leaf.  So it’s really cool, looks like a leaf at first glance but then you notice the legs.  WHAT IS IT??????  The next is the molted skin off of one the snakes that live here on the property.  The snakes are about 3 feet long and are the color of brownish clay.  They live in a hole in the ground and only come out to sun themselves between 1 p.m. and 3 p.m.  I want to know what kind of snakes they are!  The third thing was just this afternoon.  I was sitting on the wall outside the dining hall having my afternoon chai and I noticed something move around the trunk of a tree about 20 feet away.  I looked and looked and figured it was a leaf or something but then saw it.  A lizard that is about as big around as my balled up fist and about 2.5 feet long.  Talk about COOL!  I immediately went and asked the girls what all three of these things are and they all have no clue. SO with that said, I’m determined to purchase a copy of MSN Encarta for them.  They have no encyclopedias and no way of finding things out that are outside of these walls.  Now where I think it’s kind of neat that they are existing in their own vortex, there is also the one thing that fails to escape me and that is these are grown women that have either been a part of the world outside of these walls and have chosen to leave it or there are people like Dawa who know nothing else.  Now it’s not to say that they now NOTHING because I saw one of them with an Ipod and I know quite a few have cell phones but these are things that provided by their sponsors or family members.  A lot of them record lessons and listen to them while they are on cook duty too.  This world is so great and so strange to me at the same time. 

It’s so completely different from the world I wade through when I go to McLeod Ganj to get to the Internet.  Take my bus rides to and from McLeod Ganj, for instance.  They literally squeeze as many people as possible on those scary buses until there are men sitting on top and hanging off the sides and the guy collecting fare is scaling the outside of that bus like he’s spider man on a mission to get your 7 rupees!  Women with babies NEVER have to stand.  Women never sit on top or hang off the sides either.  Men don’t cop feels or get creepy.  And if you’ve given up your seat to a woman with a baby and you have a heavy bag, someone seated will offer to hold it for you and not try to steal anything out of it!  There isn’t even room to fall down if you should lose your grip on the ceiling bar as the bus driver slams on the brakes to avoid a sacred cow laying in the road. And the fun part of this is that as those buses slowly weave their way up and down the mountain, all of those people on that bus act like long lost friends holding onto each other and giggling with someone’s ass in their face or armpit waving above their head.  That’s another thing.  These people don’t stink!  Sure, they crap in the woods but they always wash afterwards.  I have not smelled armpit odor or anything even remotely unpleasant coming from any one on any of these buses and jeeps I’ve been crammed into.  Jeeps that would seat 6 in America so everyone can have their “personal space” seat 12 here, and sometimes it’s pretty damn funny to see them cram in.  Also remember, these people are tiny and poor so if there’s a cheap way of getting somewhere, they’ve figured it out here.  Wow.  One more thing on transportation, in every jeep and bus there is a first aid kit and a complaint book.  Notification of where said first aid kit and complaint book are painted on the dashboard of the vehicle.  I gotta tell ya, since I don’t know Hindi, I have a hard time explaining why I giggle when I see the word “complaint” misspelled 4 different ways on the dashboards.   They mean well by putting everything in English but dammit SPELL IT RIGHT if you’re going to go that far?  Yes, I’m going to start teaching myself Hindi soon.  I want to be able to go hang out “in town” and chat with the old men hanging around their shops watching traffic go by.  I love hearing their stories.  That was one of my more favorite things about Hawaii, the old men and their stories.  They always have a million of them and love to tell them.  “Town” is Gharoh and it’s smaller than Seville, that’s what makes me think the stories would be good.  And the neighborhood boys invited me to play Cricket with them the other day and I declined but couldn’t do so appropriately because I don’t know Hindi. 

And with that I give you some pictures.  Some are of my “bathrooms”, most are of goofy nuns vogue-ing for the camera while on “working party”.  Any former military people will understand this theory of working party.  Everyone stops their normal daily routine and they all take a couple days to take care of the place.  This includes painting, yard work, you name it.  The six cows on the premises aren’t able to keep the grass under control so they all had to do working party to take care of it.  I even took a picture of the tool they all use.  They wear rubber gloves that one would wear to wash dishes (as if that happens any more) and they wield these crazy sharp weapons and giggle and goof around while they’re at it.  Good Buddha.  Anyone feel like donating a tractor?   HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH.   

I came here looking for something other than a normal American existence and got way more than I bargained for. 

I’ve also taken my anti-malarial meds for this week and didn’t get sick so I guess I’m doing well!

Okay, okay, maybe I got a little carried away with that last posting? Khenpo Jampa is just overwhelmingly sweet, gentle and kind. What’s not to love? Of course I’m not IN LOVE with him but it’s really easy to get caught up in the good vibes when I’m around him. Same as His Holiness. People talk about the Dalai Lama’s contagious good vibe like it’s The Yeti unless you’ve actually been there for it. I’ve been there for it. I’ve stood 10 feet away from the Dalai Lama and it’s like he has an aura made of sunshine and Smarties. I am soooo not kidding. Had a good day today. Nun Tenzin showed up with a brand new computer for my computer lab and we made up a list of nuns and a schedule of computer classes. The youngest of the troupe, little Dawa is on the list for creative classes. The other day I took a bunch of silly pictures of them and they wanted to see them BIGGER! So I down loaded the pictures to my laptop and we had a picture slide show in the kitchen. My little Dawa commandeered the laptop and maneuvered deftly through the pictures, doing some forward and reverse and also started fiddling with my digital camera. She’s 10, the youngest in the order, terribly clever and silly, incredibly cute and has never laid hands on a laptop before. She’s the nun that always scoots over and makes room for me to sit next to her. She and I are buddies and I’m going to help her to be the best little nerd nun possible.

 10 or 15. Their naming convention for ordination is 2 names. Their first one is masculine and second one a feminine name. They all run together when you’re tired. The monks get one name that I know of. When I was doing English conversation class with the monks they all gave me one name. The girls always give me both names when I get them to introduce themselves. I’ve also noticed that when people ask me where I’m from, the first guesses are always England and France. I asked one person why he assumed I was from England or France and he said its because I’m polite and say “Thank you”. Huh. Go figure.

Am I missing anything? Anyone have any questions? Oh, before I forget, I think I’ve figured out why I always seem to have a spider in my room. I’m pretty sure it has something to do with the mature bamboo stand that is right outside of my bedroom window. Did I mention that already? It’s about 6 feet in diameter and about 35 feet tall so you can only imagine what lives in THERE. I’ve also seen mature Indian Ring neck parakeets in it! They’re gorgeous. Someone tell Larry that the really loud grackles with the yellow rings around the eyes, yellow beak and feet also squawk loudly here. They make much more imaginative sound here though. The pictures I’m posting today are mostly of up and down the lazy country path that leads from the main road in Gharoh to the nunnery. There are plenty of pictures of houses with either cornstalks or rice drying on the roofs of most of them. I got some good shots of the view of the rice fields from the road as well. Notice that there are small and HUGE houses all scattered around. Yu can also see some of the people out in the fields harvesting manually in the hot afternoon sun. There are also pictures of a few of the nuns goofing for the camera and a picture our revered and yet much-cursed cow tender from the village. I wanted to get pictures of the guy plowing with an antique plow and a pair of cattle and the cow patties, lined up drying for fire fuel and of course the sweetest water buffalo calf but my camera batteries gave out. Maybe next trip. It really is the middle of nowhere here and it’s lovely. I’m also preparing to do a walking trip from McLeod Ganj down to Gharoh to get a series together of the Hindi temples and their mystical beauty. If only I had a way to record some of the hilarious music they play! More pictures to come. I start giving computer classes tomorrow.

Almost forgot. The weather thus far.

The first two weeks I was in McLeod Ganj. Elevation ABOUT 5,500 feet.

September 7-23 it was the very two last weeks of monsoon season. The average temperature was 70 degrees. It averaged 70-80% humidity (my hair was HUGE) and there was heavy fog and mist with brief periods of sun but never a clear sky. The clouds sat low on the town. The first week I was here, it rained twice a day, downpours lasting for approximately 1 hour each, both in the afternoon and late evening. Watching the storms move through was fascinating, very much like living in western Longmont and being able to tell exactly where the clouds are headed. It also rained at night. The clouds and mist DO let a filtration of sun through and it never felt dark or dreary which was nice. It actually felt cozy during the downpours. As monsoon season comes to a close, the rainy period of the day gradually moves towards morning and then disappears.

With monsoon season over, McLeod Ganj is lovely, sunny and WARM.

The second two weeks here in Gharoh. Elevation 1,000 feet. It’s tops about 80 degrees in the shade, always clear and a breeze, which is nice. It averages 75 degrees in my room and the building faces west so it heats up to about 80 around 6:00 p.m., the coolest being 70 degrees at 6:00 a.m. when I wake up. As long as you’re in the shade, it never feels 80. It’s averages 40% humidity steadily but once again, the breeze doesn’t make it feel bad at all. It is getting cooler and I notice the weather becoming more mild as we move towards the winter months. I might be spending the month of January in South India on a trip with the senior nuns or I might just stay home and work with the little nuns on computer stuff.

It’s been a busy week! I almost forgot to tell you guys the sweetest story. One of the girls actually had the nerve to ask me if I wasn’t feeling well on Saturday (some are still painfully shy around me). I told her that I was sick from the anti-malarial meds and she said she hoped I felt better soon. Sunday morning I was still not quite up to snuff but had no way of contacting Isabel and letting her know that I was just not up to a hike up at Bhagso waterfall, so I woke up early and prepared to go up. While I was in the loo, I heard someone knock on my room door and go in all the while calling “Teacher? Teacher?” I come barreling out of the loo, swatting at the mosquitoes and there’s the Nepalese nun that speaks really good English and she’s got her apron full of food? I asked her what in the world she was doing with an apron full of food in my room at 7:00 on a Sunday morning. She said that they take collections from each of the girls and made offerings to the neighboring village and for those that weren’t well. Well, I got on the list of people that needed collecting for. So guess what was in their offering to me? JUNK FOOD. Evidently, when an American girl is sick, she must be suffering from crap deficiency! They sent me things like potato ships, cashew butter cookies, a chocolate bar, a pineapple juice box and some apples and a banana. This must be the anti-malarial medication sickness cure! WOO HOO! How sweet are they?

I finally got over the anti-malarial med yucks on Sunday night. Maybe I needed a hike to sweat it out? I was determined not to let it get to me and I am notorious for working through illness so off I went and sure enough, on Sunday night (after taking two more advil) I finally felt great. Slept like a baby in McLeod Ganj at a hotel that is managed by a friend of mine. I was also given the advice that I should take my anti-malarials right before bed so that my body can be resting to combat a lot of the symptoms. Fine. I can do that.

I’ve been attending the Dalai Lama teachings in the mornings from 8-noon. The afternoons are not teachings but reviews. I take that time to discuss the teachings with Isabel. Funny, I’ve really been concentrating on the 4 noble truths and the Bodhisattva in my reading lately and wouldn’t you know, that’s what he’s been covering this week. His Holiness is coming home in February to give teachings in English and I am excited to go to them! The teachings he’s doing this week are in Tibetan with a Korean and English translator on site. H.H. talks for about 20 minutes and then the Korean translator repeats what he said over a loud speaker and then on the radio there is the English version at the same time. It’s hard to dig through some times but if I let my mind float away and not concentrate so hard I can actually do fine.

I’ve been riding to McLeod Ganj every morning with the girls. It’s me and 45 nuns in 2 jeeps from Gharoh to McLeod Ganj. The jeeps are open in the back and we all stand in the back and hold on for dear life for the 45-minute ride up the mountain and it is something that makes you feel alive. There are so many things that one misses from the back of a bus with grime-smeared windows. What’s great is seeing the looks on people’s faces when the jeeps full of nuns go barreling through town at 6:45 a.m. and then they see me in the back. I have a lavender shawl that I wrap around my head and try to keep from getting whipped in the face with branches. All of those maroon heads and then me. Villagers usually stare or smile and wave. I just smile and hold on. Tucked in the post-monsoon foliage of northern India are some beautiful houses and impressive farms. I have yet to get some good pictures of the sunrise illuminating the carefully carved and rolling landscape but will do so soon. I’ve also seen the other end of it, which is people that bathe in rivers or brush their teeth while sitting in a ditch, getting covered in diesel exhaust. It’s hard to get my head around sometimes. The girls are starting to warm up to me and will try their English out on me in casual conversation about His holiness and this week’s teachings. Rumor has it the official English teacher volunteers will be arriving next week.

One last note. I’ve met someone. He’s sweet, funny, extroverted, supportive, charming, has a huge heart, so caring and gentle, he can even out-talk me…. everything I’ve ever wanted in a man. I don’t think the fact that he’s Tibetan and I’m American would be too much of a cultural boundary. The one problem I do see with this relationship is that his name begins with Venerable Khenpo. He is a pure delight to be around and he wants me to give him some computer lessons and in return he’s going to give me Buddhist philosophy lessons. He had me laughing in one 15- kilometer jeep ride. If he weren’t a monk (and so high on the monk food-chain), I’d marry him. I will keep everyone posted. And if you don’t know what the title ‘Venerable Khenpo’ means, GOOGLE IT! Learn something!

See y’all later.