Oy. Life has continued to be pretty cool in McLeod. My home stay has grown on me as I've bonded a bit with my host mom (though I call her Aja-la, or older sister, seeing as she's only 30), po-po-la (grandpa) and mo-mo-la (grandmother, though this one is a great grandmother), and a LOT with my lil' sis, Tsomo. Classes were all over the place last week with the uprising day and the teachings and so forth, so I really didn't have the sense of time passing at all. The day after my last entry we attended a teaching from His Holiness. We were listening to a live translation over little radio headsets in the audience outside of the monastery--pretty sweet how the translator could do that on the spot. It was a great teaching that pertained completely to our course-material. He spoke directly to some of our questions about the nature of mind, emptiness, etc. For the rest of the week we were super busy completing this mapped history project--mine was covering the journeys that Tsultrim Allione, my spiritual teacher/Lama, has undertaking in this part of the world and the major events that occurred along the way.
On Friday night I went and hung out with my host family, reading and watching TV for a while. Saturday morning I slept in to the ripe hour of 7:30, read a little more, and then embarked on a mission with Eleanor to find a yoga class. We found one that was being held down a steep hill on a rooftop by this guy whose legitimacy we definitely questioned until he went into full locust like a bad-ass. It was such a great class--great to get moving again after so much sitting, reading, and drinking sugary milk tea--definitely inspired me to get my yoga certification and get to teaching! After that I went and ran a bunch of errands before heading back home. Tsomo and I ended up performing some pretty dramatic make-overs. At one point she actually covered both of my eyelids with liquid eye-liner and proceeded to wipe it all off with a wet cotton ball which I eventually realized was actually moistened by her own spit. So after hours of being gooped, essentially licked, powdered, and re-gooped by her, and returning the favor (a bit more skillfully I might add), we took a bundle of pictures and she amused herself by dressing up in a tinker bell nightgown and having me film little videos of her speaking English. The next day we convinced her Ama-la and Po-Po-la to let her come with me to Sarah, where we were going to celebrate an early birthday for Bhuti (Chhunit was unfortunately away). As soon as we walked out the door she was buying sugar products, which she slurped and munched all day. I knew she was over-doing it, but I figured she'd learn best the hard way. We ran some errands around town and had lunch with some friends at a restaurant before we left (she devoured a strawberry milkshake and picked at a tomato pizza). Sarah was gorgeous as usual. We had some tea with a few friends and talked about the hilarity of sparkley sweaters that are proudly worn by the men here (their wives make them for them). We had some birthday cake and I taught Tsomo and Bhuti how to make hemp necklaces. Then we walked down to the river and Tsomo and I walked upstream on the rocks sticking up above the low water (ever careful to avoid the gross river-scum). We ran back to the cab and Tsomo continued to munch and slurp her goodies until McLeod, where she proceeded to throw up as soon as we got out of the cab. She perked right up afterwards, though, and I said "Ok, no more sugar then?" She nodded. We went on a mission to find beads for more necklaces, as most of mine are too small to fit on hemp cord. We went to this cool precious stone shop where the owner had a big box that I deemed the "graveyard of jewelry." We dug through it looking for cool beads with big holes.
At home her family seemed tickled that we were both so happy and that Tsomo had so many stories to tell them. We sat down and made necklaces which miraculously occupied Tsomo's hyperactive self long enough to give them even more rest after our day away. It was pretty legit.
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