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.

In which I pretend to be an electrician

I apologize for my rushed account of the TIPA show last night, but I was out having coffee with some friends afterward and didn't want to be on my computer and antisocial for too long, but I knew once we left I wouldn't be able to upload my post. The show was fun, even if there were moments that reminded me of one of those bizarre “hip” Christian church services with the full band and the personality cult. During one musical number, on the curtain behind the musicians there was a big picture of HH the Dalai Lama superimposed over a space scene with stars and galaxies, and stuffed doves on wires bobbed with the motion of a multicolored wheel off to the side. Kinda weird. Generally speaking, though, it was a good time and I had fun.

After some surprisingly decent cheesecake and a bit of dancing at the coffee shop, Alex and Rico walked me back to my place – a thoughtful offer, since it is a bit of a trip and I don't like doing it alone in the dark if I don't have to. It's just as well, too, because we also encountered a barking dog lurking down an alleyway, a first since I've been here. You'll be happy to know we made it back to Pause Dwelling without further incident.

I had only been in my room for about 5 minutes when the power went out. I waited a bit to see what would happen, because sometimes it's only a few minutes before everything starts up again. It didn't, so I went to sleep. Alex wanted to meet before HH's teachings began this morning anyway, so I needed some rest. To my surprise and annoyance, my lights still wouldn't turn on and the fan wouldn't spin when I got up this morning. I washed my hair in the sink because I'd really been hoping for a shower, but you do what you can with what you have. It's India.

At HH's teachings I basically tuned in and out the entire 4 hours we were there. He spoke more of compassion and secular morality, but this teaching had more religiosity in it than the one last week. He said things that seemed mildly condescending to non-believers, but I reminded myself that he is, after all, the leader of a major world religion, and so I can't really fault him too much for it. At least he said we all have the same goal in mind with regard to the avoidance of suffering and attainment of happiness, and that we all deserve respect regardless of our beliefs (or lack thereof).

I spent much of the time mulling over ideas for a sewing business I could start when I get back home. I really love my job at Duke's Catering (hi Mo! I miss you!), but unfortunately I've got bills to pay and part time work doesn't always cut it. I want to maintain a flexible schedule, and I do alright with a sewing machine, so I thought maybe I could make something work there with an online or perhaps consignment sort of thing. Regardless of whether it works out in the end, I had a good morning being creative and scribbling down notes and ideas.

On a related note, Dad, I want to go to DragonCon with you next year. DragonCon or whatever other Cons you may be planning to attend.... I've got some pretty kickass cosplay ideas.

The rest of you: go ahead and make fun of my geekery. We all know you're just jealous. ;)

Anyway, upon returning home from the temple, I found that my power still wasn't on. Wtf, right? As I headed downstairs to get someone to fix it, I flipped some switches in the other rooms (they keep the doors open if no one is renting them. I'm doing the same with mine right now in hopes that it'll air out and the sheets will dry... monsoon season is almost over but we aren't quite there yet. Damp sheets kinda suck). Sure enough, the lights worked in the other rooms. I went back and checked mine again. Still nothing.

The guys came up and after a minute of fiddling with the breaker they got it to work. I had to turn everything off, then we had to flip a tired little switch outside, and then I could go about getting that shower I wanted so badly. I plugged in my phone, set some water to boil in the kettle, turned on the water heater in the bathroom, and put the fan on to try to dry the few articles of laundry I'd hung in my room.

Everything turned off.

Well shit, I thought. I tried flipping the switch myself and couldn't get it to stick, so I had to go bother the guys again. I decided I'd have to do a little experimentation to see how many things I could have running at one time without tripping the breaker; I got it up to a light in the main room, the light in the bathroom, the kettle, the water heater, and I think I also had my phone plugged in, and it was no problem. I think that might be the limit, though.

Yup, India. It's not so bad, but I have started to get a few pangs of homesickness. I'm sure in the end I'll be glad I decided to stay until December, but if I had an open ended ticket home, I'd be tempted to use it in another month or so. I think when I get back I'll try to save some money and plan to check out Europe, or maybe Canada. Anybody want to be a travel buddy?

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.

Fish biscuits

This morning Yesterday morning Brij and I met a group of students and we all went for a hike to Dal Lake and then Naddi, a smallish village further up the mountain. Most of the students were from the Pre-Intermediate class, the one that I'd just recently handed over to Brij. Yesterday I wasn't feeling well at all and wound up sleeping for the majority of the day; luckily I was doing much better this morning and the weather was absolutely beautiful, so I was happy to get out for a little exercise.

We decided to go toward Naddi because it's only a 4km walk and mostly level. There are other places to see in the area but they involve more climbing, and some of us weren't really feeling up to that. As it was, we wound up taking a shortcut through the forest that proved more tiring than they led me to believe it would be, but we all survived.

It was a lot of fun hanging out with the students outside of class. We passed TCV, the Tibetan Children's Village, which is a boarding school for orphans. There were quite a few of them playing soccer (football) in the muddy courtyard. We joked that TCV stands for Tingmo Chilly Vegetable, three of the most common foods around here.

One of the students asked me what the name was for an insect that sucks your blood. “Mosquito,” I told her. “No,” she said, “not mosquito.” She and a couple of the others tried to figure it out in Tibetan, they told me the Tibetan name for it (which of course didn't help) and that they occur in tall grass, and I suggested that maybe what they meant was a tick. “Maybe...” they said, and kept discussing it. Eventually one of them told me it was a leech. I explained that leeches are more like worms, and that as far as I knew, they lived in the water. I was skeptical that “leech” was the word they were looking for but then again, I'm in India – what do I know? I still find it amazing that there are real live monkeys just wandering around.

That's a dog taking a nap in the grass. Somehow we managed to not drop the hackey sack on it the whole time.

We eventually made it to Naddi and played some hackey sack:

It only rolled down the hill a few times. The guys managed to get it back, though.

We had sandwiches, chips, and fruit for lunch:

A veritable feast! L to R: Ngodup (in the cool hat), Lobsang, KG, Dorjee, and you can just barely see Brij in the bottom right corner.

Lobsang -- not the one in the picture, another Lobsang -- even went out and bought us all ice cream and chocolate for dessert. We wound up with more bread and cookies than we could eat, and so it was decided that on the way back we'd feed the fish at the lake.

Naddi, not unlike the other places I've visited in India, exhibits a striking dichotomy in its architecture. You'll have fancy buildings like this one:

and then up the street there are hovels and half-built structures of concrete and exposed re-bar:

Some buildings, like this one, have both:

Check out the difference between the second and third floors!

The view of the Dhualadhar mountains is pretty darn scenic from up there.

After a delightful couple of hours near Sunset Point (during which time we did in fact encounter a couple of tiny little leeches, not ticks after all) we headed back. As we neared the lake, Lobsang said “Fish biscuits!” in the way that you do when your brain is working faster than your mouth. We all had a good laugh and busted out the bread and cookies, and fed what must have been hundreds of small fish.

Nom nom nom...

We decided to take the long, easy road back from there. On the way back we passed Tibet Charity's veterinary clinic and said hi to the doggies:

Once we got back to the main square in McLeod Ganj everyone went their separate ways. I returned to my room to pack, and then Brij came over and helped me move my stuff next door to my new place. I think I'll like it here. It's small and nice, but not fancy. It feels like a legitimately Indian place to stay; the room I'd been in the past month was quite comfortable but a little too touristy for my liking.

For all the comforts of home I'm missing in India, I think I'm adapting pretty well. I'll tell you what, though: one thing I'll be glad to have back come December is a nice, soft MATTRESS. As far as I can tell, they just don't exist here.

Technical Difficulties

I've got a post all typed up for you about the adventure we had today, but sadly my phone's battery is low and it doesn't seem to want to upload the photos. The USB SD card reader I got hasn't been working lately either, so I need wifi in order to get the pretties off my phone and onto the laptop, and then on to the internets where you can marvel at them.

If anyone is planning on sending a package to me, please include either a couple of washcloths or one of those bath loofah things you can get for $1. I have yet to see either anywhere in Dharamsala, and I miss being able to scrub in the shower (and it's so dirty here it would be really nice to be able to get clean once in a while).

Waking up early can pay off

In my last post I made mention that I have been in India for about a month. Earlier today it occurred to me that it's also been a year since I quit working at Hanger – the end of August is an important time! It seems fitting, then, that I am looking at a 6-day vacation celebration. And then we go back to class for one day, and then it's the weekend so we have 2 more off. Hooray!

Don't get me wrong, my students are fantastic. I'm having a blast teaching here at TC, but come on, who doesn't appreciate a bunch of days off all in a row?

My classes begin at 11am now, so I've got a little time in the mornings to myself. Yesterday I purchased a couple of pairs of pants from one of the roadside vendors only to find that one of them was way too big for me. This morning I decided to run up to McLeod Ganj to exchange them. On the way I scouted out some turquoise earrings; I only brought 2 pairs of earrings to India with me, and turquoise is abundant in these parts, so I figured I'd get some. I stopped at a stall run by a Tibetan man who had a 7 month old baby with him (I asked, I don't have some magical ability to tell an infant's age) and he gave me the prices on his wares. After checking my wallet I realized I had only brought about 200 rupees with me; he was asking 350 for the ones I liked. He asked how much I'd give him for them (that's how it usually goes here) and I said I could only give him 150, because that's all I had. I wanted to stop for tea on the way back and that's usually about 30-40 rupees. He told me that he'd give me a “first customer of the day discount,” and if I gave him the 150 then I could bring him the other 100 later. Seriously, he suggested it. So not only was I getting a 100 rupee discount (almost 25%), but he was letting me walk off owing almost half of it. How could I turn that down?

So I agreed, paid him the 150 rupees, and set off to do the rest of my business. On the way back down I had a cup of masala tea and a chat with a dear friend, and then I went to teach class.

After class was over I made my first solo venture to Lower Dharamsala where I picked up my custom made salwar kameez, some spices and fruit, and a few odds and ends I'd decided I could use. General merchandise tends to be cheaper down there than it is in McLeod. On the trek back up it started raining. Of course. I didn't accept any rides from taxis – or the one guy on a motorcycle who offered – mainly because I was timing how long it took me to make the trip on foot, and also because it wasn't cold even though I got soaked by the time I made it to my place. I don't mind walking in the rain now and then.

Thirty minutes to get there, and about 35 to get back, for anyone who's interested. I was a little surprised; I felt like it took forever to make my way up all those steps.

One hot shower and a tiny bit of video gaming later, I headed back into McLeod Ganj to pay off my balance on the earrings and find some dinner. I wound up at The Clay Oven, which thankfully seems to make better sweet & sour veg than the last place I ordered it. They've also got pretty good internet, such that I was able to have a couple of Skype conversations and, as you can see, post this blog. This makes me happy. The food is pretty good, the atmosphere is nice, the internet is solid, but the thing that decided for me that I'll be back is the music: since I got here I have heard Sweet Home Alabama, Wonderwall, Imagine, Ironic, Pretty Woman, and How's It Going to Be (omg omg omg) as well as a handful of other songs that fall into that "I really dig this old song but I have no idea what it is or who sings it" category. Well played, Clay Oven. You had me at Third Eye Blind.

I may finally be getting this Skype thing figured out as far as which places in town have good enough internet to support it, so those of you who haven't connected with me there yet (Lindsey, Casey, I'm looking at you!) should hit me up. Also! Who wants to learn Esperanto with me? I will give you Skyping priority if you do! (Read this to find out why I'm taking this detour on my way to learning Hindi. Check out the rest of his page too, this dude is pretty cool.)

Beauty in Simplicity

It's been almost a solid month now since I came to India. Time flies, eh? It seems to have for me, at least. There have been new people to meet, new customs to figure out, and plenty of work to do. Brij, another teacher, showed up earlier in the week and so I got to hand over the Pre-Intermediate class (the one I got asked to teach “for a few days”) and get a little time back in my mornings. It looks like I've already got the half hour before class filled with individual tutoring for one of my students who is having some trouble keeping up; I hope it goes well.

Tibet Charity seems to be one of the more organized, decently outfitted establishments of its kind here in Dharamsala. Even so, it's a charity and there's not a ton of money to throw around. For example, we do have white boards and markers, but this is what our erasers look like:

Yes, it's a white t-shirt. An increasingly dirty white t-shirt.

Until today, at least. I came in to my Elementary class to find these

:D

resting on the ledge under the board. Little pillows of handstitched cotton. I thought to myself “Were these here earlier, and somehow I missed them?” Maybe 20 minutes into class one of my students, Karma (the one who informed me that the typical Tibetan mother drives a yak), pointed them out and told me she'd made them. How sweet! And how resourceful, too. That is one thing I've noticed about the people in India: they are resourceful. You have to be when you don't have much. Food is all made from scratch. If you need new clothes you go to a tailor so he can take your measurements and make you something. There is a fair amount of construction going on around town but there is no heavy machinery to be seen. Everything is done in a very oldschool fashion, with donkeys hauling loads of dirt and bricks, and people shaping metal with very basic tools. Rain shelters are often made of a tarp held up by a long stick with a bottle on the end so the fabric doesn't get punctured. In the stores there are no prices on anything, you have to ask and then haggle it down from whatever the shopkeeper tells you. It's not elegant, but it works.

And to be honest, there is beauty in its simplicity. In a way it feels more real. It's not as safe and structured as life in the US: the roads are shitty and sidewalks don't even exist, one of the main streets in McLeod Ganj has a steep drop off down the mountain behind the shops lining it, it's not at all unusual to see people washing their clothes or themselves with any available water source, and nobody seems to notice that there are dozens and dozens of dogs, cows, and goats just roaming wherever they damn well please. Somehow it all works.

The other day I was just getting ready to take a nap when Kalden knocked on my door and asked if I wanted to go for a hike. I whined for a few minutes and then conceded, mainly because I'd chosen to indulge in some potato chips and a Snickers bar earlier in the day and I was feeling guilty about the calories. We went up (and up, and up) toward Triund. Triund itself is much farther away, but from what I understand the path we took is the first leg of the trip. We stopped at a tea shop just in time for a tremendous downpour (monsoon season, yo); we waited it out, headed back down, and the whole thing took 3 hours or so. The road was pretty:

In other news, there are some guys who have taken to chanting incessantly somewhere outside my room in the evenings. I thought it was something for when HH was in town teaching, but that ended yesterday and they're still at it. I guess it could be worse, but I still wouldn't mind if they'd go to bed.

Wednesday evening we went out for dinner at one of the local restaurants. Om Hotel is home to the Namgyal pizza place, and omg do they make good food. We had a pizza with Roquefort cheese, walnuts, chiles, tomatoes and... I don't even remember what else. It doesn't matter. It was really. Damn. Good.

Amazing, even. Who knew?

Indian chiles are pretty spicy; Bhutanese food uses them quite a bit as well. Back home I used to take a certain pride in enjoying spicy foods. Here, though, “spicy” takes on a whole new meaning. These chiles are really tasty, and they add a healthy dose of straight up flavor to whatever they're in. A lot of times I'll pull them out of the food before eating it, because just having had them touch the rest of it is usually enough. If you bite into one and you aren't expecting it, all I can say is you might want to order a couple of pieces of naan, and fast. It's a little humbling.

Oh, and an appeal to my techie friends: my iPod Touch won't turn on. This has happened before and I was always able to get it going with the whole hold-down-both-buttons-for-a-really-long-time trick, but I've done that a few times now and it hasn't gotten me anywhere. I'm getting really sad about it. Any suggestions? (I suspect that if Apple stores even exist in this country the closest one is no closer than Delhi, which is 12 hours away. Therefore, that is not an option.)