Namaste Nepal Namaste

I can't believe it...I still can't believe it. I'm leaving tomorrow. It feels so weird. The past 4 months flew by like it was nothing. I'm very proud of myself of what I've done here. I can say though, that I am ready to leave Nepal. I did everything I wanted to do. I taught monks, helped out keeping street kids in school, and shared my life with orphans.

Last weekend I went rafting with a few volunteers, that was the last touristy thing I am going to do. Great fun! Then, I had a momo (nepali dumplings) party with my boys at the house. I was really surprised how all the boys participated. I bought all the ingredients to make the dough and the meat, they mix it up at the butcher shop, and then we started folding the momos. We made small momos, big momos, chinese momos, nepali momos, and different shaped momos. I was really impressed how they came out, I think it's the best momos I tasted here.



I love what I'm doing now. I waited for so long for this trip to start and now I'm going to my 2nd destination. This is why I like traveling; staying in one country for months, learning the language, building friendships; with the bakery shop owner, the restaurant busboys, the bar keeper, the cooks and didi's at all the houses, and my neighbors. What I will miss the MOST, are my boys, my monks, Daryan (kaaraazzzyy bitch), Caroline (miss you!), Conor (you're such a DICK), Indu Didi, and the rain in the late afternoon.

I'm going to miss Nepal. The only thing special about Nepal that will make me want to come back is the people. I will miss my boys and will be hard to say goodbye to them tonight. But we all know that there has to be an end. It was hard to say goodbye to my monks, but I know I will visit them in India the next few months. India is very close to Nepal, I can't see why I couldn't visit, even as a holiday. I'm making a promise to myself that I will come back.

This is only the beginning. It really is...my first stop and the beginning of something extravagant. I feel like something is waiting for me in India, something big. How long will I stay in India? The answer is I Don't Know (sorry dad). I am absolutely free.

By the way, Namaste is a respectful way of saying Hi, Hello, and sometimes...as a goodbye.

Good times with my monks

Last thursday was my last day of teaching the Tibetan monks. They went back to India yesterday. I have been teaching them for 7 weeks. I will miss them.

It took me by surprise when they told me the last day of teaching would be a week earlier. I only had 2 nights to prepare for their exams. On the day of the exam, it was hot, muggy, and tense. The kids were really nervous taking the exams. I saw some of them PRAYING before class started. They did very well on their exams and I was extremely proud of them. During lunch, I walked around the school and one child came up to me, and handed me a folded piece of paper. I opened it and it was a letter, thanking me. So CUTE! Then more kids ran in and gave me their letters, it was so great to read, I will save these letters forever.



After the exams it was playtime. Yay! No more class! Few of them were playing football (soccer) and most of us talked on the porch. The younger boys sang and danced for me. For dinner, we had Thukpa, which is a thick flat noodle soup with vegetables. After dinner, all the kids gathered in the big classroom. Tashi, the owner of the school, told me the kids had something to say in English, they all said "Thank you Miss for teaching us!" Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Then, Tashi gave a speech, appreciating me for volunteering and going through the awful transportation to teach his monks. He pulled out a Mala sash and put it over my neck. Then presented a Buddha statue as a gift (definitely sending it home cause I cannot travel that heavy thing in my backpack), a gray pashmina (to wear when I visit northern India), a DVD about Limi (a town where the monks are from), and a thank you letter with all the monks signatures and a photo of all them. I wasn't emotional, there were smiles everywhere. As I was leaving on a motorbike back to home, all the kids were screaming on the top of their little lungs "GOODBYE MISS!!!! GOODBYEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!"

Mala Ceremony, any type of thank you gift always includes a sash (called a mala).

Sunday morning, Tashi called me and invited me to a pilgrimage. They picked me up at my bus stop and traveled for 40 minutes up north into the mountains. We went to a monastery that once belonged to Pema Simbawa, from the 7th century. In history, it was said that Simbawa was an Indian monk that brought Buddhism into Tibet. We walked up a long flight of stairs and reached to the top of the hill. All the monks gathered in a circle and started chanting.



Myself and a few others went further up the hill to hang prayer flags. After an hour we had a picnic and did more rituals. One of the rituals, each of us grabbed a finger-full of flour, lined up in a circle, and looked at each other. Tashi raised his arm slowly and said "ohhhh," then everyone else copied, after 3 more times all the older monks released their flour and went "Aiiiiiiiiii!" and then the rest of us screamed "Aiiiiiiiii!" and released the flour, the flour was blown away onto the people facing east and was covered with flour. Everyone was laughing hysterically, I will not forget that moment.

monsoontoenailsfallingoff4monthslovingit

I finished the book "Everything is Illuminated," by Jonathan Safran Foer, I deeply enjoyed it and was fond of his eccentric writing style. The title of this post is inspired by him. Anyways...

So yeah the monsoon is here, it's no longer friggin hot, humid, muggy, sticky, annoying, sweaty, polluted, and dusty. It is now overcast, rainy, muddy, cloudy, sticky, humid, muggy, annoying, polluted, but cooler. I don't know which I would rather deal with. Either way I am dirty and have to take a shower in the late afternoon. Okay wait...I made up my mind, I prefer the hot days, the reason for this sudden decision is because I take an hour bus ride at least 8 times a week to teach in Bouddha, the rain slows down the roads, which makes my ride sometimes almost 2 hours. 2 hours in a microbus (minivan) filled with 15-20 people (sometimes people sitting on your lap, or the other way around), hot, sticky, damp, stuffy, annoying, cramped, and sweaty. But hey, I'm paying 20 cents for this bus ride.

Teaching is great, the monks are actually learning from me! But they're learning so well that it is hard for me to prepare each day for a new lesson. The past month I was working on a major photo album that took a lot of my time, I had to have EVERY child in this album (325 kids). However, it was a fun project to do because I was able to take artsy photographs and the chance to meet every single child of Umbrella for them to sign their name in it. So it was quite difficult to balance teaching and my work here at Umbrella organization. But I finished the album! I was proud of myself, I even finished it right when Jacky (creator of Umbrella) of the organization said 'goodbye' to everyone. I couldn't have finished it without some help from other volunteers, but still...I was so relieved. When I handed the album to him he said he would look at it when he gets home, him and his wife (both created Umbrella) have been very emotional the past week. I left shortly after to have dinner with my boys and found out that night that Jacky called a few minutes after I left to say 'thank you from the bottom of his heart,' and he was emotional on the phone. Exactly what I was aiming for.

3 of my toenails are dead and I ripped them off. This is what trekking in rented shoes will do to your toe nails. I painted over the healthy ones and left the others un-painted...primarily to disgust people when they look at them because it somewhat pleases me when they are disgusted, and besides it's their fault for looking at them in the first place.

I extended my visa for one more month and currently looking for flights to China. I have nothing to go home for...I can stay anywhere as long as I want. There is a high possibility, which I am positive, that I will come home a lot later than I said I would. Who knows...I may come home in a year, 2 years, fuck...5 years, I may even be a volunteer for life, we will see. I am not ready to leave in a few days (my original plan), it would be too weird. Plain and simple: I am not ready. I just began teaching and it would be too short of an experience, and I also feel like my boys at Umbrella really like me now.

The past few weeks has been the most busiest. Past couple of days I needed a retreat to the mountains. I went to Nagarkot with a couple of other volunteers, Daryan (American) and Doc (Irish), a few hours above Kathmandu, it was rainy and cloudy, but I didn't care, I just had to get out of the city. I spent the whole day napping, listening to music, played Irish Monopoly, didn't even finish Monopoly, reading, sitting outside of the balcony watching the clouds hover the mountains as if I was living in slow-motion, smoking (sorry people...everyone here smokes, can't help it) talking about nonsense, talking to the dog, played home-made Scategories, sipping milk coffee, and looking through photos in our cameras. Now I am back in the city, writing this late blog, and I'm about to see my boys and have dinner with them. Cheerio.