Pizza & Momos

This is it. I'm done teaching at Tibet Charity. Final exams were held yesterday; most of my students passed (a few of them have the extra credit to thank for that) and some did exceptionally well. 

Today Gusti and I took them out for a pizza party in Dharamkot. The students brought some momos, we ordered ten delicious pizzas, and everyone had a lot of fun.

They kept telling me to sit down and relax, but I can't help it -- I enjoy entertaining and if I'm in anything resembling a hostess position, I tend to get into it. I asked them if they have winter holidays coming up in Tibetan/Bhutanese culture aside from New Year's. They said no, but asked about what we've got in the US. I told them all about Thanksgiving (Happy T-day to my friends in the States!), which most of them seemed quite interested in, and they asked all kinds of questions about turkeys. I don't think they have them here. I told them how most Americans prepare a big meal for this holiday so the fact that we were all out having food together was, in a way, quite similar. It's like they'd gotten together to make a Thanksgiving-away-from-home for me, and they seemed pleased that they could do this.

They insisted on doing everything. The students wouldn't let Gusti or me cut the pizzas, they wouldn't let us serve the food, and they always gave us the first slices when a fresh one would come out. Tibetans can be very bossy, but when it's in the context of such hospitality, how can you get upset?

After finishing our lunch and taking a bunch of photos on a dozen different cameras, phones, and tablets, they instructed us to follow them "up to the mountain." When I asked how far they answered "not far," but pointed to some indefinite area wayyyyyyyy off in the distance. I joked that it would take so long I'd miss my flight home. I hadn't worn the proper shoes for a real hike; I knew we'd be taking pictures so I opted to wear my red jutis that I got in Jaipur. People have been telling me they're more like house shoes. This bothered me at first, but then I remembered: I don't wear shoes in the house. If they're shoes, and I'm wearing them, it's going to be outside.

I pointed this out to them, that I wasn't wearing anything that could possibly pass for hiking shoes. Jampel, the one monk, told me "the Bhutan guys are very strong, they'll carry you!" to which the "Bhutan guys" responded that Tibetans were stronger (it's true, they tend to be tall and tough in general), but one way or another they'd get me where we were going.

This is Dolker. She's super sweet, and a pretty good student, too.

The view just never gets old.

Eventually we came to a Hindu shrine where we took some more photos and then backtracked just a little to a grassy spot where we could chill, sing songs, and munch on snacks for a while.

When we finally headed back down to McLeod Ganj, they insisted on taking a shortcut -- the same shortcut that Kalden, Brij, Marie, and I took when we went up to Triund that one time. At one point my foot slipped a bit and I heard a chorus of "Ohhh!" from the students who were in the lead and down below us. Lobsang Dolma, one of my quietest but most thorough students, insisted on holding my hand the rest of the way to make sure I didn't fall, even though she had also earlier insisted on carrying my bag as well as Gusti's, even though she already had her own. "Tibetans are very strong," I observed. They asked me if the roads were "like this" where I live; I told them no, only in the forests in some places. Generally they are in much better condition. They seemed to take this as a perfectly good explanation as to why they could navigate the rocky, irregular path so much more easily than us westerners.

Regardless, we made it down with no casualties. What we had originally planned to be a 3-hour event turned into one that lasted all morning and into the afternoon. It was fantastic. I love the comfort level that you reach with people after seeing them nearly every day for weeks or months, and when the official business or class or whatever is done, everyone can just relax and have a good time together. This evening we had our last staff/volunteer dinner at TC, tomorrow morning we have our closing ceremony for the semester, for which I still have to put together a speech of some sort, and after that.... we're all done. I just have to tie up my loose ends around town as far as last-minute gift obtainment, pay my bill at the hotel, eat at my favorite restaurants once or twice more, pack up all of my stuff -- and decide what's not coming back with me -- and that's it. Get on a night bus to Delhi next Tuesday or Wednesday evening, make sure I tell my students ahead of time because I know at least a couple will want to see me off, and go. Exactly one week from this very moment I'll be somewhere in Indira Gandhi International Airport, maybe waiting to go through security, maybe chilling at my gate with a book, but I'll be having my final few hours in India. 

Four months sure flies when you're having fun. I knew it would.

Where should I go for my next trip? I've got a couple of places in mind, but I'm interested to see what kind of input I can get from my dear readers......

Morning hike, afternoon wrestling

Those of you who know me know that I am not what is typically called "a morning person." When I wake up in the morning, I like to lounge in bed for a while and ponder my next moves. I like to have a leisurely breakfast and a nice, warm shower, and then get on with my day.

This tends to surprise "morning people," who don't seem to understand why a person would want to waste any time taking advantage of a morning. Kalden is one of these people. There have been a good number of occasions where I've woken to him hollering outside my window "Magda! Wake up! Let's go hiking!" I have tried -- and apparently failed -- to explain to him on each of these occasions that I need some mental preparation for something like a 6-plus-hour hike. Today he wanted to go to Triund. I told him straight out that I wasn't up for it; it was nice to hear Brij say the same thing. Eventually we regrouped and after a few false starts, the two guys, Marie, and I set out for a "little hike."

We wound up taking the long way to Dharamkot, which involved navigating a very, very muddy stretch where there had been a landslide recently. We got pizza at this restaurant that is generally regarded by people in the area to be one of the best around, and then we tried to beat the rain at least to Bhagsu, after which point we could head back to McLeod Ganj.

Some of the only flat space I've seen since I got here.

A nice, small, well-kept house. I think I could live someplace like this.

 Navigating the slippery stone path from Dharamkot to Bhagsu. No casualties.

Brij wanted to be back because apparently there was mud wrestling as part of the fair that's been going on lately. We decided that sounded like fun, so we made sure we were back in town before 2pm.

We found this!

A marching band!

As it turns out, they were on their way to the wrestling match as well. We just followed them, found seats, and hung out for a while.

Indian wrestling is somewhat more interesting than American wrestling. This is mainly due to the fact that they have live music the whole time.

Filthy Bodies

This morning I got up, took a shower (since I now have hot water), chowed down a Luna bar (thanks Mom!), and headed up to the temple for Day 2 of HH's teaching. I actually found today's lesson much more interesting than yesterday's, which was a nice surprise. I did get one small sketch done, which turned out better than I expected given the embarrassing length of time that's passed since I drew anything. That was also a nice surprise.

When HH held teachings last week, he spoke exclusively in Tibetan. This time around, he has been switching back and forth between English and Tibetan periodically. He seems to make more jokes when he speaks in English; I think this is fun. Each morning before he takes his seat in front of the giant Buddha statue, he makes his way around the temple greeting everyone. The crowd is basically silent as he approaches, so when his hearty "Good morning!"s boom out they reach everyone. I also really enjoy the way he doesn't seem to ignore anyone. He occasionally starts a conversation with a random person asking where they are from or some such generality. Each one of those people obviously feels very special afterward, and why not? His presence lights up the room, everyone smiles, and I don't think it's just because he's famous. You can't help but join when he starts laughing, which is fairly often.

Today HH spoke of zombies. Imagine for a moment the Dalai Lama talking about zombies. Go ahead, I'll wait.

 The point he was making was that our bodies are the same in life and in death. In death we are just flesh and bone, held together by muscles and such, and so why in life do we get so attached to these things? He spoke of our bodies being filthy. Reading from a Tibetan book, he said "I have no desire for a face smeared with excrement, so why should I desire to touch the body the excrement came from?" Personally, I think that's a little extreme. I was very interested in what he had to say, though, since he seems to be more progressive than most religious leaders on a whole bunch of matters.

He spoke of how having children comes with all kinds of problems. Married people without children have their own problems as well; in fact family life comes with problems no matter what. This is how he finally brought us around to the justification for choosing a celibate, monastic life and why it should be praised.

Fair enough, I suppose. I have no desire to become a nun, but there are a whole lot of them here and I'm sure they all question the decision at one point or another, so I imagine it's nice for them to hear him remind them why they're better off.

Criticism of sex aside, he had some other gems in the teaching: "Peace is not achieved through prayer, it requires action," "we must be 21st century Buddhists," and my personal favorite: "If not truly practiced, religion teaches hypocrisy."

The main theme seems to be that suffering arises from attachment. When and only when we can free ourselves from attachment, we can be truly happy. He said that self-sacrifice is the greatest thing we can aspire to, for if we let ourselves come to harm in the pursuit of saving all sentient beings "until the end of space" from harm, we gain the greatest honor. He urged us to forgive others for their faults but readily admit our own.

At exactly noon he wrapped things up for the day and said he'd see us in the morning. I made my way downstairs to leave and stopped with everyone else, mainly because I wasn't in such a rush that I was about to push my way through a bunch of monks and old Tibetan people. HH came down the steps, waved to everyone, and got into the Suzuki SUV that was waiting for him. And off he went.

After that I went back to my place and met Ricky, and we took a trip up to Dharamkot for pizza. The place was filled with a whole bunch of Indians, at least two dozen, presumably having some sort of party. We did manage to find two seats at a table in the corner, out of the rain, and got a mixed veg pizza.

There is a reason everyone has been telling me that this place is amazing. It was some of the best pizza I've had, and we all know I grew up in the general Chicago area. This particular selection had cauliflower, carrot, cabbage, and probably a few other veggies on it along with spices, and it came with "homemade sauce" that I have no idea what it contained but it was damn tasty. I'm pretty sure I'll be going back there again. It took a solid half hour to get there, but it was well worth the trip. Plus, you know, you can eat more because you burned a bunch of calories getting there anyway. ;)

Oh, and I put some photos from home up around my new room last night. It's finally getting cozy around here!

This is the only photo of the photos I have... Casey, I figured you'd appreciate the humor in this.

I also finally got some real food to keep at my place:

The only block of real (not processed, shelf-stable) cheese in town.

I bought this homemade peanut butter from a stand outside the temple. Ingredients: peanuts, salt, and a little bit of cane sugar. It's not too bad.

New Friends All Around

This morning I woke up in my new room and decided it was cozy. I did some laundry because it was gloriously sunny outside; I think the monsoon season is in fact on its way out. This is exciting news indeed -- the promise of dry clothing and bedding is near!



My new residence, Pause Dwelling, has these great big communal balconies on each floor that also have clotheslines that we can use. Since Brij and I are currently the only occupants on the 3rd floor, we get to spread out basically as much as we'll allow each other. This is especially fantastic because I am still trying to get out of the mindset of not doing laundry until I have a full load -- a great idea back home so I save water, but completely irrelevant here since washing machines exist only at the fanciest of laundry service places, and it's much cheaper to buy some powdered detergent and use the bucket that's provided with the room -- and so at any given time I've got a fair amount of clothing that needs to be cleaned. I managed to wash a few of my favorite items and find spots for them in the sun. As I was doing this Ricky, one of the guys who seems to be in charge around here, told me that we still needed to do my check-in paperwork and could I bring a copy of my passport sometime soon, please?



I told him I'd see if I had one in my room, as I had made a few copies earlier in the trip because I was informed by others who had traveled abroad that this would be a good idea (thanks, Jillian and Cory). Sure enough I had one and so I followed Ricky downstairs to the office where he took out a huge ledger and invited me to have a seat at the nearby padded bench. I had forgotten that everything in India takes a while; it's not just a matter of "let me look at your license, how will you be paying for that? *click click click* Here's your room key" like it is in the US. In India things are done by hand. Here it isn't uncommon for shop proprietors and the like to invite their customers to have a seat, and I've found that it's usually a good idea to take them up on the offer because it's their way of telling you you'll be there a while.



Ricky, an Indian guy who looks to be more or less my age, set to writing my information in the book. After a while one of the older men who works here came out and offered me some tea -- it's all called "chai" here, and none of it tastes like the chai we have in the States; I'm pretty sure it's black tea with milk and sugar in it -- which I accepted since by this point I'd been hanging around for a good fifteen minutes longer than I'd anticipated and I figured why not? Ricky finished getting me in the system, as it were, and asked me about home. Do I have family in the United States? Yes, my parents and one sister. Do I live with them? I live with my dad. Is my sister older or younger? She's a few years younger. She lives with her boyfriend... actually, her fiance, they're getting married.



This led to a discussion about weddings in which we found that people tend to spend an awful lot of money on them both in the US and in India, but in India everything is of course cheaper by default. He suggested with a wry smile that maybe they should have their wedding in India to save some money -- nevermind the fact that plane tickets are not cheap by any means. (But hey Lon and Dan, maybe it's worth looking into...?) ;)



He asked me if Obama was popular in the United States and I told him what I have objectively noticed, that his popularity has been falling the last few years. We talked about how politics in general doesn't benefit the average person and how we'd just as soon have nothing to do with it. I told him how life is not easy in the US even though the standard of living is very high. He told me that in India there are many people who don't have much, but they also don't owe much. It's not like in the west where there is always someone -- a bank, the government -- coming after you for money. He told me that people who live in villages don't have as much access to education, for example, but they also are largely farmers and craftsmen who support themselves and each other, and they don't need to rely on the government for as much. This in and of itself appeals to me. Obviously there are drawbacks to this lifestyle, such as the relinquishment of certain comforts and luxuries (like education, unless you find a way to tackle that point), but it's certainly something that might be worth considering.



An hour and a cup of chai later, and after a cheerful promise to trade English practice for Hindi lessons, I told Ricky I was going to let him get to his work and I'd hit up the ATM so I could pay him for the room. "It's no problem," he said in the easy way that most Indians tend to. No one ever seems to be in a rush here. He had asked if I'd been to Dharamkot for pizza yet; I have not, but everyone keeps telling me I have to go because it's amazing. When I suggested that we go sometime he asked my schedule; when I asked for his to see what times might coincide he smiled and said that he could go pretty much whenever. Around here if you want to leave for a while you leave for a while, as long as there is someone to cover for you. It's not like other places where you must stay at your post until your shift is over, there is no one micromanaging, and as long as everything gets done, everyone is happy. It's much more laid back, according to him, and I must say that my observations support this.



Thankfully, Brij was home when it started to rain early this afternoon, and he moved my laundry to a dry area since I wasn't back yet. Later, as I sat here on the balcony enjoying the rain, typing up this post, Ricky happened by and struck up a conversation, and then offered me tea. I already feel like I'm becoming part of a small community in my new Dwelling. I think I'm going to enjoy living here.

I went out for lunch today and ran into a few friends: Tashi, Tashi, Alexandra from London, Rico from Colorado, Sonam, and Sertso; you might remember them from sushi a few posts back. Tashi the monk mentioned that there was going to be a show of traditional Tibetan song, dance, and drama at TIPA tonight, the Tibetan Institute for the Performing Arts. The Tashis, Alex, and I were the only ones who wound up going.



It was pretty awesome.



The dances involved a lot of stomping, brightly colored costumes, and cool hats, and the content revolved largely around the everyday lives of the average Tibetan: farming. One dance even had people dressed up in yak costumes. The guy sitting next to me asked if I could understand the Tibetan. Of course I said no, but I was enjoying it anyway. He proceeded to translate much of the rest of the show for me, which was a big help during the two acting pieces at the end. They both revolved around the prompt “the importance of preserving the Tibetan language.”



The first was a drama that included a surprisingly convincing depiction of both a fight between Chinese police and students, and later a self-immolation.



The second was a comedy that opened with a great scene of modern McLeod Ganj. I felt like an insider since I actually recognized what was going on even if I couldn't understand the language.



Now we're sitting back at the Clay Oven where Alex couldn't believe they were actually playing Blink-182. I informed her of the amazing music selection this place has, and now we are having some cheesecake, and Diamonds by Rihanna is on the radio and I really, really wish I had a hula hoop.