Really? : question. Phonetic: munue?

So… perspective and timing, huh?  I guess it is a good thing that I am a fan of irony.

“So this is strange.  The dawning realization that all has gone wrong”

Pa-la broke out the English I didn’t know he had. “Chinese… no good.” I’m with you Pa-la, I’m with you.

I think perhaps I will blame Isabelle, even though it is not her fault.  Her and her fucking pinkies.

I choose to see this as a harsh Buddhist lesson in impermanence and the lack of inherent nature.  The truth is:  I will live.  It sucks but I will live.

All, however, is not lost.  On Wednesday we go to Mustang until the  10th.  We fly to Pokara, drive to Jomssom, and than WALK for FIVE DAYS to Mustang.  I hope someone is willing to carry me, cause that is what is going to end up happening.

SO, talk to you later.  If we do, in fact, go.

OM MANI PADME HUM

To not be- i don’t know the part of speach. Phonetic: ma rai

I am not going to Tibet.  Our visas were revoked by the Chinese government.  No explanation. 

Lesson in Impermanance like whoa.

To Go: Verb. Phonetic: Dro gi yin.

“I go so far as to think that you own the universe.  I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses.  I want to do with you what spring does with the cherry trees”

“You don’t eat much.”  My host sister peers over her pancake to tell me, after scrutinizing my awkward attempts to eat soup with a fork.  Are you fucking kidding me?? I eat my body weight, and that of an average sized dog, every day.  I got served a conundrum for dinner tonight.  Ramen-esque noodles.  Cool, that is dinner food: check.  ….And a pancake.  Not bread that was like a pancake.  A legit effing pancake.  With nothing on it.  What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?

The nutrition facts on the Fanta bottle that is used to hold water list the amount of carbohydrates, protein, fat, and energy.  What the hell goes in to Asian Fanta?

I have a cup.  The same one, all the time.  It is an orange coffee (or coppee, as Ama-la calls it) with a cartoon elephant wearing a cap with and upside down “e” on it.  It says SUPER JUMBO.  I wonder if there is some hidden meaning.  If there is something in me, the strange foreign girl who only eats 18 pounds of food a day, that reminds them of a heroic and childish cartoon elephant.  …probably not. 

Apparently we have dogs.  News to me.  The family didn’t even tell me, my language teacher did.  He asked me “Any problem with the dogs?”  What dogs?  “The ones on the roof.”  No, those aren’t…. OH. Wait…. Those are ours?

He laughed.  Yep, apparently we have dogs.  I have never seen them, only heard them.  I have never seen anyone on the stairs to go up to feed them. 

“My mind is disconnected but my heart is wild.”

These kids from the program wrote acronym poems about Tibet and Nepal.  Here is a slice:

“T is for Tibet.  We are going to Tibet.” And “N is for Nepal.  Nepal is not America.  E is for extraordinary.  America is extraordinary.  P is for purple.  The Nepalese flag is red.”  One kid wrote his entire response paper to the book In Exile From the Land of Snows as an acronym.  His first sentence starts with an E, the next an X, ect.  He didn’t explain to the teacher what he was doing, or mention it in the paper. Hilarious. 

Kathmandu is host to wonderful cloud formations.  I am a sucker for a good cloud formation.  I don’t know why, but I completely dig particular forms created by moisture rising, holding, falling.  And Nepal has some fantastic clouds.  I am blessed by this kind of thing.  Nevada gets cool ones, DC too.  Maybe everywhere does.

We had to write a strange paper about various unrelated things.  One of the criteria was to relate a quote someone said about you studying abroad and relate it to traveling and relate it to a quote from the book we read about the Chinese occupation of Tibet.  I think I may have made it a bit too intense.  I am going to put a chunk of it here.  Warning: the quote I use from the book is pretty fucking disgustingly graphic.  Feel free to skip this bit. 

Question: do I put quotes around things I myself have written? I dunno.  Sure, why not?

“…The most common response was generally along the lines of “Oh, I hear it’s beautiful! … You are going to get sick.”  The statements came together often, and were always stated as fact — simple declarations about aesthetics of the local and physical determents sure to be encountered.  Both of these supposed facts depend on perspective.  Surely, the visual elements of geography are open to interpretation and beauty is in the eye of the beholder.  I don’t believe that anyone looking at National Geographic images of Nepal and Tibet would argue that they are not beautiful places.  Yet there is more to see than mountain peaks and pristine valleys.  What meets the eye in shiny magazine pages can be entirely different than the ripe images of poverty that accost your sight when stepping out of the airport.  Beauty can be found in the face of a malnourished child as well as field of wild flowers.  Sickness may seem less open to interpretation.  However, I feel that is not necessarily the case.  What sickness am I, and my fellow travelers whose experiences these comments are derived from, apt to experience?  From the perspective of those at home, comfy in their arm-chairs, the sickness may seem horrifying.  To other travelers, an unpleasant reality that must be dealt with, later to be turned into a heroic story of survival.  To people who have gone through worse travails than travel, what does altitude sickness mean?  What foul memories will afflict me?  I doubt they will be entirely related to physical sickness.  From my perspective, the afflictions that will torment me may be more mental, and related to knowledge, or the lack of it.  I know that anything I experience will pale in comparison to the collective and individual experiences of the people I am here to study. Of the many dire situations described by John Avedon in In Exile From the Land of Snows, one small anecdote has burrowed into my mind, finding residence and refusing to dissipate.

“One day Dr. Choedrak saw a Chinese inmate holding a long red worm in his cup.  Through a fellow Tibetan who spoke Chinese he asked where he had found it.  The man replied that he had defecated the worm in his stool.  Careful not to be caught by the guards, he had picked it out, washed it and brought it back from the toilet to eat- which he did that day mixed in with his other food.” 

What is traveler’s diarrhea or altitude sickness, or any of the other usual ailments, in comparison with this?  What is the sickness obtained from traveling, filled with whimsy and for my own pleasure, when you know sickness such as this exists?  When people tell me I am going to be sick, they are thinking of temporary physical discomfort.  They are not thinking of starvation in prison camps.  They are not thinking of the oppression and torment of many people.  They are not thinking of the effect on my mind of the knowledge of and personal contact with people who truly know what it is to be sick.  What makes me sick will not be tainted water, but tainted knowledge….. People think in terms of beauty and pain.  The comments I received are sure to prove correct.  I am certain that I will experience both in majestic quantities, although not necessarily solely in the manner in which the comment suggests.  Beauty and pain may be what I end up with at the end of this journey as.  A Tibetan folk tale documented by Sudhin N. Ghose states that “wisdom is a greater prize than all the riches of the earth, for wisdom sustains the universe.”  I would happily settle for returning with a slight measure of wisdom, opposed to suitcases full of souvenirs.”  I went slightly overboard, I know.

I am going to Tibet.  I would like to say something profound about it.  I got nothing.  I look at the sheet I am sitting on and stare at the printed blue flowers, searching for inspiration.  Nothing. 

Fucking. Blue. Flowers.  They haunt me.  I don’t get the connection between Tibet, blue flowers, and my frustrations, but there is a pretty big fucking correlation.

So, to Tibetan: adding a silent prefix can slightly change the pronunciation of a word.  Certain prefixes make the word higher and more nasal.  The easiest way to accomplish this is to concentrate on pronouncing the word in a more annoying manner.  Instead of “ngee” it is “slightly more annoying ngee!”  There are literally sounds that correspond with the Monty Pithon “knights that say NEE”.  A shrubbery?  What kind of shrubbery?  Ok, I’m done. 

Language, and sickness, and beauty.  That is the frame in which my thoughts are gathering.  A lama talked to us about conventional truth and ultimate truth.  These are different ways of seeing the world.  These things have meaning beyond the conventional sense.  Conventionally, the Buddha gave a sermon in Deer Park about the four noble truths.  Ultimately, there is no Buddha.  Coincidentally, there is no spoon…

As I have said (or typed, as the case may be) before, it is all about perspective.  It is all about timing.  Sickness, and beauty, and language fit into these.  Their definitions change, based on these.  They flicker like the electrical currents of Kathmandu, creating a moving, shifting light to be emitted from the bulbs.  Beauty is this, no this, no this.  It is perspective.  It is timing.  The currents have shifted again.  The power has gone out.  I don’t mean this as a metaphor.  I mean I am currently sitting in the dark.

I wander up to the living room and Ama-la gives me a light.  She lights a candle with the flashlight/ lighter that I almost lit myself on fire with yesterday.  She grabs the prayer beads and clinks each prayer away.  Om Mani Padme Hum.  How many times is this prayer uttered a day?  By this woman, Pasang, with her two gold teeth, who feeds me constantly, and utters “chu sabo shea” (drink your hot water… it is actually tea, but that is not what she says) like a mantra.  How many times is the prayer uttered at the stupa, by how many voices?  Thousands a day, if not more.  Thousands or millions of garbled syllables, released grudgingly from the throat, escaping the lips, floating up to tangle with the prayer flags, and continuing, dissipating, settling like dust.  Clink, clink.  The prayer beads move along their string and compassion is released like an in-drawn breath in to the incense heavy air.  Talk about beauty.  Talk about language.  Ha- talk about language.  You know, the ability to do just that is one of the things that defines us as humans.  It is called metalanguage.  There’s an anthropological tid-bit for ya.  You’re welcome. 

“Chu sabo shea. Chu sabo.”  I nod.  It is still scalding.  I pretend to sip and watch the steam rise from the cup, crossing the beam of the flash light. 

So: perspective and timing.  Will they be on my side in Tibet, or against it?  Hubet-la told us stories.  Of course.  The man is a walking volume of “well, once…” or “actually, I remember when…”.  What I gathered was a tag-line for our destination- Tibet:  Where shit goes wrong.  Perspective and timing will certainly play a role, whether they are mine, or our guide’s, or the Chinese government’s, or whether they belong to the universe at large, I don’t know.  Who can say?

“Ice age heat wave, can’t complain.  If the world’s at large, why should I remain?”

Clink. The prayer beads shift.  You can hear the space between each parcel of compassion and the next. What does Ama-la think as she moves the beads?  I will probably never know.  And that is okay.

“Words just on the far side of her skin, about to fall out. “

I haven’t mentioned my beloved paper cranes.  I still stand by my whimsical metaphor here.  It is just that there are so many of them.  They could fill the room and drown me, giving me paper cuts with their sharp beaks on the way down.  Culture shock is a giant paper crane.  Swoop.  It beats its wings with visible pressure and grace.   

Culture shock.  Oh dear.  That and the S curve are all GW gave us for study abroad.  And SIT too.  They provided a helpful list of symptoms:  If you don’t eat: culture shock.  If you eat too much: culture shock.  If you don’t sleep, if you sleep too much, if you have a headache, if you are irritable, if you are happy.

If you are in a foreign country and not in a coma, you are apparently suffering from culture shock.   Although, the coma, too, may be a result of culture shock.  Someone lost their pen.  I hope they have a full recovery from the bout of culture shock they are experiencing. 

“Chu sabo shea! Chu sabo.”  Yes, Ama-la.  I oblige and only scald my tongue a little.  Only swallow a few leaves. 

Today our academic director wears a ridiculous scrunchie.  As if a scrunchie is not bad enough, it is festooned with what can only be described as multi-colored “dingle-balls”.  That and her pinkie nails.  How am I supposed to take her seriously with something so silly attached to her head?

I sit in darkness and silence.  I am good at silence. I can sink into it, emit it from my shadow.  Silence is a whole other language.  It is slow.  It seeps.  It wallows.  It behaves like deep water.

What does all this mean?  Nothing.  It means that I am sitting in a dark, humid, smoke filled room, with a single light bulb and a singed tongue and the clinking noise of compassion. 

“Chu sabo shea.”  Okay, Ama-la.

I seem to be someone who stares at candle flames quite a bit.

I am surprised at the response to my last post.  Thank you, to all of you who say nice things about me and the way I write.  It is really very nice.  But it is not deserved.  This is not some great literary work.  I quoted Donnie Darko, for Fuck’s sake.  I think, perhaps, that I wrote something that people think of peripherally.  I just dragged it up front, and people recognized it as something true for them too.  That feeling of recognition is nice.  It makes you feel not alone.  Which I guess is nice if you are reading something about being alone. 

So:  Tibet on Monday.  “Around him the air was always fraught with possibilities.  ‘I like fraught air’.” 

I will collect flowers and fraught air and kisses and good thoughts for you all. 

OM MANI PADME HUM

School: noun. Phonetic: Loptra

“’In (the) Tibetan language, there was no word which meant ‘China.’ ‘ The author, who worked as a translator during the negotiations, then notes that the Chinese name for China had to be transliterated to provide a usable term.  In effect, since the Chinese position was that Tibet had been an integral part of China for centuries, the only possible interpretation for this anecdote, if one takes it at face value, is that the author considered Tibetans to be ignorant of the name of their own country.  Of course, that ignorance is an invention; what Tibetans were ignorant of was the beginning of a process of molding and manipulating a new Tibetan identity.”

Language demonstrates culture.  Language creates culture.  So, what does this say?

I sit in a room moving with music, the taste of bad cookies and good mo-mo and strange coffee in my mouth.  I listen to music and sit on one of the 9 rugs and study a complicated language.  And right now, I’m glad I’m here.

“Oh I know it goes on, it gets old, but for now we are young, we smell good, we’re alone, so alive… Your heart isn’t breaking and mine isn’t making a sound.  So light a roman candle with me.”

See, with Tibetan, you don’t just learn an alphabet.  You learn the 30 consonants and then the 4 vowels.  And each of the 30 consonants with each of the 4 vowels.  Than the 3 types of subscript ( 7 yatak, 13 ratak, 5 latak), each with each vowel.  Then the 3 types of superscripts (12 ra, 11 sa, 10 la), then the prefixes, then the suffixes, then the secondary suffixes.  A root consonant can have a vowel, a suffix with a vowel, a  secondary subscript suffix, and a super script prefix with a vowel.  Ect.  One unit, a single syllable can read something like this: ra ka tak: ta; ta la tak: la; la kigu: lee; sa: LEE.  Oh dear… too spicy for grandma…

I love waking up to the bone deep beat of monastic drums.  I just read a folk tale that describes the roaring of elephants, or whatever it is that elephants do.  The chorus is described as “loud trumpeting, which sounded as though scores of monks were blowing their loudest on horns—gydling haut boys and rand dong wind instruments—from a distant monastery roof.”  My wake-up call eclipses a welcome given by royal elephants.

This is what they call the honey moon period. I fear its demise.  Damn S curve.  It is lurking in the back of my mind, waiting to swoop over and alter its path.  Soon the monks won’t amuse.  I won’t shrug off the traffic.  They pollution won’t be tolerable.  The dogs won’t be a novelty.  Stupid lurking curve based on a letter, supposed to dictate how I feel and act.  How about “nya” curve?  Or a “Wa” curve?  What if I base my emotions on an alphabet that twists and turns in unpronounceable nasal tones?

   Shit, the power just went out.  The computer screen is the only light.  The monks across the street continue.  The young ones are chanting the vowels “ka kigu KEE”.  From another part of the monastery drums and cymbals clang.  I can feel them as much as hear them. 

I love with my Tibetan teacher, Thupten-la.   He looks like mountains are in his genealogy.  He has a sudden, loud laugh that stops everything.  He is self conscious about it, and laughs more at himself after interrupting proceedings with his first bout.  He often looks skeptical.  He wears a turquoise and gold ring.  Someone said he has two children.  I want to know about his life. 

Today a small child attached herself to my shin at the stupa.  She wasn’t begging like the others who have done similar things.  She was just clinging.  I don’t know who she belonged to.  She ran off shrieking with wild abandon after a while.  I petted her head, so did others, walking by. 

My directions home include:  exit stupa at momo restaurant.  Right at giant hole in ground.  Straight across sketchy jungle path.  Right up mud hill.  Left at loud monastery.  I was walking back at cow herding prime time today.  Worst animals to share the road with.  They are as bad as the old nuns.  They somehow meander, making it impossible to pass them. 

Remember how I am supposed to come back skinny?  Yeah, not happening.  Ama-la feeds me HEAPS of food.  I drink about 15 cups of tea at home. Per hour.  Somehow I think butter tea is not good for you, thanks ama-la.  I must eat the equivalent of a loaf of bread a day.  And the café where we hang out (yes, we have a hang out.  I always wanted one of those) has pastries—impossible to resist.

We went to Swaymbunath, the monkey temple.  There were, in fact, monkeys.  Lots of them.  They went after Tenzin, another of our language teachers, because she had food.  The stairs were so steep, they bent back on themselves.  Hubert-la told us stories.  He has so many of them.  I want to write my research paper on him.  He is so humble and he knows everyone.

I am just pissing everyone off.  Matthui Ricard, my host family. 

I didn’t plan time for breakfast.  Not cool.  I thought that in case there was breakfast, I wouldn’t shower and would thus have time.  Plan destroyed when host mother shows me how to shower with the bucket and then closes me in the bathroom.  I have to take breakfast (runny eggs and onions) to go.  Many lectures on the point occur.  It is now established be eating breakfast by 6:30.  I do not have class until 8:00. 

With Matthui Ricard, I asked a question.  I guess it was one that he was not fond of.  God!  That man has been listed in the sources of every paper I write, and I just annoyed him.  He is referred to as “The Happiest Man Alive” and I somehow pushed his button.  Fucking buttons. 

I called the sister (who speaks some English) to tell her I was outside.  It was night and raining, I thought I would be nice and not make her come meet me.  She doesn’t pick up.  I stand outside, yelling “Ama-la!  Pa-la! Help! I’m outside! Hello?  Tashi Delek?”  Until Ama-la (“mom” in Tibetan) notices me and lets me in.  She shows me the very prominently placed doorbell.  Duh.  She hasn’t stopped making fun of me.  “Ama-laaa!! Hahaha”.  The sister sees I have called her and hurries to the stupa to meet me.  Oops.

The family has electric incense.  This is a country where electricity is very valued.  It goes out daily.  It is a constant battle of how little electricity you can use.  Ama-la switches on and off lights, seeing what little she can use.  And yet, every day, fake incense is plugged in, so the top lights up, appearing to be embers. 

The bathroom sitch is a bit complex.  ‘nough said.

The lack of program organization is just stupid.  And the director’s long pinkie fingernails are just fucking creeping me out. 

We went to see the festival of the Kumari Devi, the living goddess.  She is a little girl who is considered a goddess until she has her first period.  We met an ex-Kumari.  She was so shy, she didn’t want to talk to us.

Butter tea gets worse with each taste.  Each morning I am presented with some combination of eggs and onions. Why, dear god, whyyyy?  All the cups are pokemon.  I don’t know why.  I have a specific cup now.  It is an orange coffee (pronounced copee here) mug with a cartoon elephant in a cape that says “Super Jumbo”.

I will be in Tibet from the 21^st to October 6^th.  Woah.  It will be intense.  The political situation is really bad.  We have to be very careful.  Our language teachers, who are Tibetan, can’t come.  They can’t get visas.  It is horribly unfair that we can drop by at a whim, and their homeland is denied to them.  It is the same with our host families.  When I told Ama-la she was shocked.  “You are going to Tibet? You are going to my home land?”  Her daughter translated.  I felt so bad.  Her cousin is there, her mother is there.  She doesn’t get to see them ever.    I get to pop by, whenever.

“Take your time coming home, hear the wheels as they roll, let your lungs fill up with smoke, forgive everyone.  It’s a beautiful thing when you love somebody.  And I love somebody… The truth is I feel better because I’ve forgiven everyone.  I’m not scared of the stage, of the song, no I’m not scared, I’ve got friends, took my call, came courageous.  One more thing, I keep having this dream where I’m standing on a mountain looking down on the street and I can hear kids in low income houses saying ‘we’re through with causing a scene’ and I don’t know what it means, but I too, I’m through with causing a scene.  Don’t ever let this go.”

I think the concept of loneliness is often misunderstood.  People generally associate loneliness with sadness, and indeed there is often a connection.  But emotions are complex and run together.  Loneliness can be experienced in many forms, not solely as something sorrowful.  I have felt lonely for a large part of my life, but I have often felt contented in this.   Contentment can be a side effect or creator of loneliness as can many other emotions.  I felt lonely a lot this summer, but I also felt independent.  I felt capable.  I felt introspective and creative and smart.  When I feel lonely, I feel in touch.  In touch with people I love, who I know have felt the same way at sometime.  In touch with the city or world or universe.  In touch with a piece of music or writing.  In touch with myself.  Loneliness has its place and should not be spurned.   When it is reported that someone feels lonely, it is said as if it is a sad secret, something to be ashamed of.  Sometimes, it is good to feel like you are by yourself.  To quote Donny Darko (yep, it is happening.  Vestiges of my emo past), “every living thing dies alone.”  It is true.  When you die, you are alone.  So you might want to be comfortable with who you are, for in that moment, yourself is all that you have.  And feeling lonely is an integral part of that.  Loneliness gets old, and we move on into different feelings, if we are able.  If we are lucky and have people we love nearby, or access to social networking sites (which Bekah admonishes in a recent blog post- and rightfully so, but they have their place too), or something of the kind.  So, do I feel lonely right now?  Yes, I guess I do.  But it is a feeling that is familiar in an unfamiliar place.  Being so, it is a comfort to me.  I do feel lonely, but I feel content and connected and happy, all at the same time. For now we are young, we’re alive, we’re alone.

If you want to read something eloquent, read Dawson’s blog.  I am continually astounded by how she says everything I feel but can’t put into words.  So, go read it.  Brilliant, right?  Yeah, I second everything she says.

Sorry for the complete lack of organization.  This represents more than a weeks worth of scribbled notes.  Satisfied, mom?

OM MANI PADME HUM

Hello: greeting. Phonetic: Tashi Delek

Greetings from Nepal!  I am at a sketch internet cafe (3 computers from the 1980′s in a closet sized room).  I will try to transcribe the notes of the journey thus far.  Here we go:

There is an obese uber Caucasian woman in a pepto-bismal smock.  She strokes her cat heavily and chomps on her butterfinger.  There is what one can only assume is a slobber stain on her moo moo.  She looks like  an inflated version of my grandma, or your grandma, or any large white woman who wears unfashionable glasses and is fond of florals.

“In a coffee shop, in a city, which is every coffee shop, in every city, i read a story that I forgot right away.”

She is not what I expect for a fellow passenger to Delhi.

“Flight to Dallas/ Fortworth now boarding at gate K17. “

She heaves her tremulous bulk out of the leather seat.  It creaks, telling of the displeasure it has endured.  She waddles gelatenously away, her thick sandals are fighting a losing battle with her thick anckles.  The straps dig in, but the kanckles expand and conquer.

“I got 99 problems but a bitch ain’t one.”

I knew Jay-Z and I had something in common.

I have just been served American Airlines attempt at Indian Cuisine.  It is creative to say the least.  Inedible to say the best.  A roll seasoned with god knows what and the Indian classic Land o’ Lakes butter.  Along with tasteless rice and plain yogurt from New York.

At the Ashram.  totally Lost.  Supposed to be up at six. Don’t have an alarm or a clock.  First experience with asian toilets.  Minus light.  Minus toilet paper.  Plus ants.  Success!

I hope Evan is enjoying his birthday, and I wish we were all together.  The other kids are pretty nice.  There are a few who should get out more.  Some that should get out less.  They are nice.  If you like that kind of thing.  I am pulling pieces of my scalp out of my hair.  Side effect of sunburn induced on Tahoe.  It is disturbingly fun.  Perhaps I should not have told my room mates… these shiny haired girls who write in their journals.  Apparently it is hard for them, they must force themselves to jot down shit.  Dear Diary…

The program director does not know what she is doing.  Her pinkie fingernails are long, but none of the others. She is English, so she asks unnecessary questions as a means of finishing sentences.

We met the spoken-of Hubert.  He reminds me of a 18th century french painter.  He has a chinese emporer beard and no teeth.

We went to a monastery on a mountain, it was lovely.  We see lots of lovely religious things.  I almost die on the climb up. So. Many. Steps.

The car horns are ridiculous.  Like a spontaneously composed song, always under production.  They have tunes.

Fucking HICKED up a mountain to temples for Kali.  Everyone laughs at us.  My hair is hilarious.

These fun-sized girls I am staying with they make their bed at the “resort” every morning. C’mon.  Tomorrow I turn 20. v I wish I didn’t remember.  I have always wanted to forget my birthday.  The lightening is like the car horns.  Continuous in their overlap.  Musical in a spontaneous cacophony of notes that grates on the ears.  Now the only sound is the rain on the metal roof.  oh wait.  The electrical wires have started to make a buzzing noise.  Cool…

I was never superstitious about birthdays.  Until I read Dawson’s blog.  SHe makes a compelling argument about birthdays.  She believes that the night of your birthday, what you are doing as the clock strikes 12 will dictate your year.  Well Fuck.  On my birthday I knew i was going to meet my host family.  I will be asleep at 12.  Thanks Dawson.  Well, I decided the first hour of your birthday is more important.  As far as birthdays go, this one is interesting.  I woke at 4:45.  We hiked to a monastery on top of a MOUNTAIN.  and kept hiking. I wasn’t sure if the beating I heard was the drums in the temple or the blood in my ears.  I am going to die on my 20th birthdya. On a mountain.  More sleak, rain covered mud-stiars. great.  I made it to the top, it was beautiful. The prayer flags rain down on the steps in the gray dawn, dripping with dew. We watch the sunrise.  I am brought a piece of Nepali cake.  Not the best, but the gesture is nice.  We go to Kathmandu.  The program house is great, and has a dog (without Rabies).  I am picked up by my host sister.

The family is nice, and the sister speaks English.  But I appear to be the only one that doesn’t consider myself a member of the fam.  Everyone LOVES their family.  I just want my own room, and an actual toilet, and toilet paper.  No dice.  The mom changes in front of me.  Hello, old tibetan boob.  I didn’t expect that birthday present.  They live across from a monastery.  Cool, right? Wrong.  Drums, stomping, signing, horns, cymbals starting at 4 am.  Butter tea: not my fav by any means, but drinkible if forced.

SO: Kathmandu is cool.  I am excited to learn things.  I feel awkward about the home stay.  The program is disorganized.  I miss you guys.  lots.

Love you all.

OM MANI PADME HUM