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.

I got another piercing

My nose. It's a Nepali thing, almost every little girl or woman has one. Divya took me to get it done. $3 fools.





Sorry Dad.

Hello Miss!

I have been teaching young Tibetan monks English for over a week in a district called Bouddha. I was really nervous on my first day. To get there, I take an hour bus ride, then a 20-minute walk. By the time I get there I'm either sweating when the sun is out or wet from the rain. But the frustration is immediately gone when I see the young monks greeting me "Hello Miss!" The monks are extremely respectful, obedient, and shy.



I had a chance to meet the owner of the organization, Tashi. He called me the day he arrived in Kathmandu, we arranged a meeting to plan my opportunities on teaching 20 newly arrived young monks from India. So here's how it is; all of the new monks are Tibetan but live in India. There are 17 monks that live at the Lama Center permanently, from Nepal. I teach 37 young monks from age 5-18, and 5 older monks from age 19-30ish.

I met up with Tashi at the orphanage and we walk to the Lama Center, 12 minutes away. His English is very good and he seemed glad that I wanted to volunteer to teach his monks that are visiting for 6 weeks. We talk about America, Tibet, India, the monks, and my time table. We agreed on this respective schedule: come to the center 4 times a week, 4 classes a day, 45 minutes - 1 hour each class. Afterwards I ride back home to see my boys for Tiffon (tea & bread). I stay at the boy's house for a few hours and come back home to work on a photo project for the organization. The owner of Umbrella Foundation is leaving Nepal back to Ireland, so I am creating the photo album and getting all the children and volunteers involved. Basically I work 8:30 am-7:00 pm, 2 different locations, sometimes 3.

The monks are so cute! Sometimes you can't take it on how stupidly cute children are and you want to hug them, hold them, or pinch their cheeks. But with monks...they're not allowed to be touched by females. Okay that's fine, I gush and make funny faces at them to get a laugh.



Bad news on my third day of class, I found out that the secretary of the organization, Pachung, mother passed away. When there is no power, there will be no gas to cook. Pachung's mother used Petrol to light a fire and continue cooking. They decided to get a lot of Petrol just in case and put it in a bucket. There was an accident and an explosion occurred. Fire burned bottom half of her body, but then a random woman that was around the area grabbed the bucket of Petrol, when she thought it was WATER, poured it over her. Her body was completely burned and was taken to the hospital. Bad luck. Two days later she died. Hospitals in Nepal are not great and they think she would've been alive if she had proper care. Half of the monks are gone because they are mourning, praying, and chanting at Pachung's house. During lunch I spoke with one of the teachers. His name is Kunchok Mingyur, we were talking about death. He believes that if you do bad in your life, then you will go to hell, if you do good, you go to heaven. He isn't Christian, but this way of thinking is similar to Buddhism.

"Everyone dies at some point! This was her destiny, so sad...everyone was crying. I am not going to worry about death because I have done good in my life, I am not afraid to die," He says.

"Me too." I responded.

God isn't in me today

I was in Kalimati (the slums) to help out at another orphanage and found out that the neighbor was a fortune teller. One of the teachers (Divya) from the orphanage said she'll take me that day and was curious what her fortune was too. When she asked the Spirit Lady if we can see her that day, the Spirit Lady responded "No, God isn't in me today."

Since the Annapurna trek I was able to finish my website and logo designs for the organization. So I've been filling my time at another orphanage that's about 15 minutes from where I live. I get there by tuk tuk and most of the kids have already gotten dressed and waiting to walk to school. I see the other volunteers and we talk about work that needs to be done that day. Around 9:30 we start walking, holding hands, dodging cars through traffic. I drop off the kids and see Divya so we can get our fortunes told.

Before visiting the Spirit Lady we had to buy a bag of dried rice, when we do, we put any amount of money in it to pay the lady. I put in 25 rupees, 25 cents, Divya says that is enough. We walk into her home and there is a woman inside getting her fortune told. We were allowed to come in and sit next to them on a mat. Spirit Lady's room was very interesting. It was hot, dark, and tons of ants. One side of the room is trash; empty water bottles, rags, and plastic bags. On the other side were 2 mats (for her and her client), candles, incense, rice, and goblets. I realized that the 3 volunteers and I were sitting on her bed. Sorry for no photos, I wasn't allowed to take any.

First off, I'm not sure if I believe in this stuff, and I never visited a fortune teller, but this lady was creepy and for real, we were freaked out. We were watching her as she was doing the woman ahead of us. She had her eyes closed and was jerking her body around like she had Tourettes. She opened her eyes wide and told her to turn around. The woman turned around and the Spirit Lady grabbed a huge bundle of weeds like a brush, sprinkled rice on it, and mixed it with smoke of incense. She then dabbed the woman with the bundle and mumbled words that Divya couldn't understand. The woman turned back around the other direction and I was able to see her face, she looked sad and sick. Spirit Lady grabbed a few incense, lit it, and gave it to the woman to hold awhile. They pray together and Spirit Lady tells her that she had evil spirits in her, after this meeting, she should pray all the time. 1 volunteer (Sushil) went first, she closes her eyes for a calm 15 seconds and started telling him who he was in the past, who he is now, and what he wants in the future. Sushil kept nodding his head in agreement and kept looking at us like "oh shit." To me, Sushil seemed like he wouldn't believe in this stuff and was only doing it because of us. Afterwards his opinion was completely different.

My turn, I was kind of skeptic but we'll see yeah? I sat down, gave her my bag of rice, and told her my first name. While she was preparing, pouring rice around us and into a plate, lighting new candles, collecting her money and putting it away. I was thinking that she wouldn't be able to read me, I'm a private person, and I think it's difficult for people to know what's going on in my head. She fills my rice into the palm of her hand, webs incense into her fingers, and closes her eyes trying to read me. It took her 2 minutes, lots of jerking and heavy breathing. I sat so close to her face to face that I thought she was going to slap me and shout "There are EVIL spirits in you, get OUT of her body!" in Nepali. Instead, she calmed down, opened her eyes and started speaking. Divya translated for me and said that I have been having lower back aches for a very long time (since I was 14). I've been thinking a lot of things lately and unable to sleep (yes, true). I have so many things to do, I have to do work at this place, work at another place, work here, work there (so true). Another 15 seconds, she looks into my eyes and says that I'm a good person, my reason to come to Nepal is good. What I chose as my career back at home is the right path and I will stay along that path for the rest of my life, and be successful. I have no major obstacles and will be happy, and said that I had no bad energy in the future. She asked if I had any questions, I went ahead and asked it...what about my love life? (you would ask the same question too, so shut up) IMMEDIATELY she responded "I can't tell you anything about your love life, because you had never fallen in love." Whoaaaaaaaaaa...haha...heavy shit.

She then takes another half a minute to read me and asks if I was a Christian. I said no and she looked confused, she asked if maybe a Buddhist, I said no. She tells Divya that she feels there is something about me that is religious, she sees a pastor, priest, or some sort in my life. I tell her that I don't see either of those kind of people. Then she asked "Are you sure there is no one in your life that is like a priest? Ancestors?" Then I told her "Wait yeah, my grandmother is a main nun in South of China, she has her own temple." Spirit Lady said that I was thinking of visiting her since I'm so close to her, and that I should. She said to follow my grandmother, anything my grandmother says, I should listen, visit her and take her advice with me when I continue traveling. I won't know what it's about until I get there.

There are more things she said that I will not mention, things are just meant to stay quiet. At the end she tears a piece of newspaper, puts a dab of rice inside, and wraps it into a square. She wraps it again with a torn piece of black plastic, and wraps that again with a string. It looked like a piece of crack. She tells me to carry it with me all the time and I will get good karma, and if I change as a person, it will change for the better. After the fortune reading, I felt refreshed. To have someone you JUST MET tell you everything about you and your past is trippy. I'll admit that while she was telling me who I was as a person now, almost made me cry. Everything she told me was what I needed to hear, to help me stay motivated with this volunteer trip. That I had a reason to be here in this world and this is what I am suppose to do in my life. I pretended the incense was burning my eyes.

Annapurna Trek almost killed me

Literally. The longest I had ever hiked was one day in Yosemite. It took me 6 days to get to the Annapurna Base Camp, 4130 meters high, 10th highest mountain in the world. The main reason to get to Annapurna is the sunrise view. The basecamp is located in the middle of all the mountains on the Himilaya's. I was on the fucking Himilaya's.

1st day Caroline (Holland) and I met up with our guide Pradip, he's the most adorable Nepali guy ever, he's about 5 ft and the biggest smile ever. We took a short bus to Phedi and started our trek. It was a steep staircase uphill that took us an hour to reach Dhampus. From Dhampus there is a view point of the Annapurna mountain. Caroline and I knew that it was going to be tough. But we made a goal, that when we reach the Base Camp, we will have a beer.

Behind those clouds is the Annapurna mountain.

We trekked 6 hours that day to the village Tolka. I ran out of bottled water and bought a chlorine filter water droplets. I took 2 swigs and felt my stomach stir. I ignored it and went to bed. About an hour later during my sleep I felt there was something wrong. I walked out for fresh air and that's when my fried noodles decided to come out for fresh air too. I vomited ALL NIGHT. I ran to the bathroom (located outside of our bedroom) more than 10 times during the night, a few times I just stayed outside. The next day was hell, I couldn't move, I couldn't eat, if I did, I would throw it back out again. Found out that the chlorine filter water droplets makes some people sick, luckily there was a health clinic near Tolka, Caroline went to get me medicine. I tried to walk for 5 minutes to keep my blood circulating, but that just made my body worse. I slept the entire day and was paralyzed. I couldn't even move my arm over if I wanted to sleep on my side.

Third day, I had to start walking. I didn't want to waste another day. I couldn't believe that I climbed 7 hours in the mountains, UP HILL, that day with no nutrients (other than water) in my body. I only ate 1 apple and drank 1 bottle of flat coke. That day, confirmed that trekking to Annapurna is the most physically challenged activity I ever done in my life.

That night...Caroline got sick. She had food poisoning. We knew then not to eat anything fried. She wasn't as sick as I was the night before, but she was weak. We had to split our schedule and make our destinations each day shorter, I wish they did that for me! Anyways, it's in the past, glad I did it, not going to complain.

6th day, the day we reached Annapurna Base Camp. Probably the best feeling ever. It was snowing really hard and it took us 4.5 hours to get to. It was so cloudy that you couldn't see 20 ft ahead of you and the back of you. Everytime I thought I saw the Base Camp I would get excited, but then I realized that it's just a huge rock. But when I really did see the Base Camp Lodge, I started yelling "I think I see it!! I think I seeeeee IT!" so Caroline (20 ft back of me) would know. I started walking faster and was just too excited. I even did a little victory dance when I got to the lodge.

Base Camp

It was fucking freezing. -5 degrees. Caroline and I stayed in the dining hall with layers of blankets, our cold beers, and our books. Awaiting for tomorrow morning. We woke up at the scheduled sunrise, at 5:23 am. CLOUDY! We couldn't see a thing. We accepted the fact that it's the weather and there's nothing we can do about it, we would have to go back down without seeing the mountains, but still proud. About 10 minutes later we heard squeeling that the sky was clearing. Our guide Pradip is knocking on our door telling us to come outside and that the sun was coming out. We ran out in our flipflops, 30 in. of snow, and starting taking pictures.



It was beautiful. I never thought I would get to a place like this. To be in the center of the top ten highest mountains in the world. It was a beautiful day and we were so lucky that the sky cleared up. It took 2 days to get back down. I think it's cause we were so happy, we were practically running down the mountains. The trek is over, we got to our lodge, and I laid my torn up body down, like a pancake.

Sundance Music Festival

I was almost done with this blog entry and it didn't save when the power cut off for 10 minutes. So I'm going to make this short and sweet without cussing too much in the middle.

What a great weekend with the girls, Zara (Ireland) Caroline (Holland) and I went to The Last Resort to attend a music festival that is located on the border of Tibet and Nepal. People from all over Nepal travel for hours to attend this event. The bands are from India and Nepal, kind of folk/rock type of music. BADASS.

hanging out

The Resort is also well-known for it's Bungee Jumping, Canyon Swing, and Rafting. But FIRST...drinking. It took 3 hours to get there by bus, the girls and I rode on top of the bus because it was packed inside. When we got to the resort we immediately got our drink on before the music started. All day was eating, drinking, listening to good music, and at night it started to rain. Life is so much better when you are drunk and dancing in the rain. That is until you smoke some bad weed and throw up. Yup, that's what I did. I was walking to the bathroom and some Nepali guys were sitting on a bench smoking, they offered me a hit and I took one...no ramro (no good).

I went to sleep in our tent (yay for camping!) and Caroline came in a little after. Around 4 am I think, we heard some fighting and running NEXT to our tent. Then one of the guys was yelling hysterically "Patrick!!! Come back here so I can fuck you up!" for an hour. Yeah okay...like Patrick is going to come back after running his ass off and say "Hey man, I'm here, come fuck me up." He kept yelling and crying for so long, some other people came out of their tents and started threatening him to shut up. All night Patrick was in my dreams.

Next morning, no one was at the tent next to us. EVICTED. Too bad for them, time for Bungee Jumping and Canyon Swing! This bridge is 160 meters high and ranked the 2nd highest bridge to Bungee Jump in the world. The Canyon Swing came first, the bungee is attached to your waist and you just fall off the bridge, when the rope ends you swing across the river to see the views of the waterfalls. The jump master wouldn't let me jump whatever style I wanted because I was a first-timer, so I had to jump forward instead of a flip...fucker. Oh man, I jumped off a fucking bridge, it was AWESOME! What was not awesome is that I had to hike up that mountain back to the bridge hungover. I was so tired. Yippee, bungee was next. The jump master let me do it backwards because I had bungee jumped before, so excited. It was great however backwards wasn't as thrilling than forward style but still intense. The fall is 7 seconds long.

They filmed both jumps and put it on a DVD for me, I have to find a way to scratch it and post it online. I also got 2 free t-shirts. (yay for new shirts!)