Have I been slacking again? Yep. I’ve been
slacking again. I haven’t written for almost five days.
Right, it all started on Wednesday. I
woke up all ready for my fifth last class only to discover a new text from
Ngodup “no class today. Puja.” Okay. So I guess I had ONE MORE free day, that
was five in total now. After a quick debate with myself and the realization
that there was STILL no water at the monastery (I hadn’t showered in so long
AND all my clothes were dirty since I hadn’t been able to wash my clothes
either, it was a nightmare) I decided to go to the VIN office where they had a
shower, good wifi so I could do some NYUAD stuff and probably a place where I could exchange 200 dollars into rupees (I
was out of rupees). I called George to ask whether it was okay for me to come
over and he said it was perfectly fine. Within 30 minutes I was on the bus to
Kathmandu.
When I arrived at the Balaju Ring Road I went for a money exchange search but found nothing, using my last 1000 rupees (which is about 40 dhs) I bought some clean clothes and then I was off to the VIN office. I arrived and ran straight for the shower. When I was done I went back downstairs and caught up with Bhupi and the rest of the staff. Then I went to the kitchen to say hi to Isuda, she greeted me in the typical huge hug and “I missed you” fashion. She is the sweetest. I told her about all my free days and she immediately offered to let me stay at her house to learn how to make cel roti that night. I was so excited and agreed immediately, I just had to find a way to get my money exchanged.
I ended up asking Bhupi whether he could
give me change for the money but he only had enough change for 100 dollars. I
ended up staying at the office for the rest of the afternoon because tons of
new volunteers had arrived! People from France (including yet another girl
named Charlotte, how? I don’t know.), the US and the UK. Then when it was about
5:00 pm I went off on the bus to Ratnapark where Isuda and I had decided to
meet up. After a super long while of walking and calling we finally found each other
and took a tuktuk (it’s a three wheeled, super sketchy vehicle which I’d been
dying to go on since I’d gotten to Nepal) to her area.
Before we went to her house we quickly
popped by her sister’s house again to say hi and goodbye for the final time,
next time I see her (by that I mean the next time I travel to Nepal and visit
them) she’ll have a baby! After that we went and walked to Isuda’s house. Now,
Isuda’s sisters house was already a bit of a shock, one room which acted as a
kitchen, dining room, living room and bedroom, but Isuda’s own house was even
more shocking. Because she is paying for her brother’s schooling she has little
money left to spend on herself and as a result she lives in a tiny, dark room
with barely any walking space at all. There are two beds in the room because
she has family and friends over who spend the night all the time. That night I’d
sleep there, she’d sleep there, her brother would sleep there and so would her
uncle, that all in the 4m by 5m space.
We got settled in and started making the
cel roti batter; rice flour, a bit of normal flour, water and sugar… that’s
all! Half way through the process the power went off so we carried on by the
candle light. Her host family’s (the family who owns the house that she rents
the room from) son who is disabled came by to show me his crafts, he goes to a
special school for the disabled where he makes little carpets and necklaces and
I ended up buying some of his creations; he was thrilled. The power came back
on after an hour and I was so so so thankful that the little fan was working
again. We started heating the oil on Isuda’s tiny stove. When the oil is
boiling hot you have to grab some of the super runny batter and make a circle,
it looks easy but it’s super super tough; I failed miserably. Her neighbor from
across the hall and her brother joined to watch me mess it up, laughing but
telling me I was doing so great for the first time… |
| A comparison. Yes, the pale fugly one on the left is mine... |
After that her neighbor made fried potato
curry and we used the cucumber pickle we had collected whilst at her sister’s
house to make a nice meal; cel roti, pickle and potato, it was delicious. After
that we all talked some more and at around 9:30 pm we went to bed; me on the
small bed, Isuda on blankets on the floor and her brother on the bigger bed
leaving a space next to him for Isuda’s uncle who was coming home later. I
actually slept really deeply and woke up at 7:00 am feeling super good. We had
left over cel roti for breakfast and after I did Isuda’s hair (trying to fester
all the girlyness I possibly could I remembered how to do a fishtail braid) and
then we left to catch the bus back to the office.
Once at the office I met a whole bunch of
new volunteers again, this time the majority of the people were from Spain! We
talked for a long while and then it was time for me to find George; he had
agreed to help me buy a football, my secret present for the monks (I needed a
man’s help with this because I have 0.00% knowledge about football). So off we
went in a microbus to one of the few shopping malls in Kathmandu. I ended up
buying a bright orange Puma ball (partly because of my Dutch pride partly
because it’d match their robes) and then we had a nice conversation and nice
food at a coffee café. Afterwards I left for Sundarijal and he left back to the
office.
I then realized I had a very obvious Puma
bag, which very obviously contained a football… I didn’t know how on Earth I
was going to hide the ball in order for it to still be a surprise. So once I
got off the bus I sat at a tea shop and did some thinking. In the end I emptied
my entire bag (towel, clothes, toiletries) right there in the tea shop, like
the classy person I am, and stuffed the ball at the bottom of the bag trying to
make the sphere look more like a rectangle by shoving clothes in there too… two
old Nepali ladies were observing me the whole time, looking at me like I was a
mad man. I left the Puma bag at the tea shop and carried my toiletries in a
plastic bag. I entered the monastery only to discover that it was Pooja, all
the monks were in the Pooja room and none them would’ve even ended up seeing me
with the Puma bag……….
I relaxed in my room until the monks were
done and then went downstairs to ask what the plans were, since they had just
finished the final Pooja of the day and their holiday had officially begun. I
don’t even know why I asked because of course the answer was football… I was
about to go watch the game again when I got a text from Charlotte that she was
on her way to Boudha. She was going to stay there for the next few days to do
more work for her thesis. I asked whether any of the monks wanted to go to
Boudha with me and two monks, both called Sonam, agreed (I call them Aryen and Smiley though)
we had planned to go there in an hour. I went back to my room to relax for a
bit when I realized that I still had the 100 dollars in my purse (which Bhupi
couldn’t exchange) and that I should probably leave it in my room instead of
taking that much money around with me. I went to grab my purse and to my horror
the 100 dollar note (which I’d stored in the zipper pouch of my purse) WAS GONE.
After a mad search around the room I realized that yep. It had been stolen. I
was slightly devastated.
I traced back the happenings since the last
time I saw it (which was when I was exchanging the other 100 dollar note with
Bhupi) and then realized it probably got stolen whilst I was at Isuda’s. I am
100% sure that it was not Isuda, she is the nicest, sincerest and most giving
person, if you met her you’d understand that she’d never even be able to do
that. I was thinking back; whilst I was at her house/room there were people
walking in and out constantly. Then I realized SHIT I was so comfortable that I
just took out my purse in front of everyone when I paid for the crafts that the
disabled son had made. The big money was hidden in the zipper but they surely saw
some 500 rupee notes, and more importantly, saw where I kept my purse! How
could I have been so naïve? These people live in terrible conditions; seeing the
purse must’ve triggered the idea of stealing. So probably whilst I was having
one of the best sleeps during my whole time in Nepal either the uncle, the
brother, the neighbor, the host mother or the disabled son must’ve gone into my
purse and found the glorious 100 dollar note. I really hope they spend the
money on something nice…
Either way I’m not going to make a big fuss
about it, I don’t want to do that to Isuda, she has been nothing but good to me
and telling her this would make her feel guilty for the rest of her life. Plus,
it’s highly unlikely that anyone in the building is going to ‘fess up to stealing
the money, so it’s better that I just let it go, accept my loss and live very
VERY cheaply for my last few days in Nepal; which probably means more nights at
the couch in the VIN office, but that’s all right.
So with that shock still fresh in my mind I
left to Boudha where I exchanged my final 100 dollar bill, the one I had saved
for emergencies. We had a drink at a restaurant and made a list of things to
get at Boudha, I was planning to do my souvenir and book shopping then so that
I wouldn’t have to worry about saving money for that anymore. I bought a little
gift for dad, a ton of incense which I’ll also be giving as gifts, in the shop
I had no clue how many to buy “how many friends do I have again?”… I’m a
terrible person. So guiltily I ended up buying a whole bunch. We went on a hunt
to find a pill crusher so I could continue to take the Tibetan medicine for my
foot back in Abu Dhabi. Then we bought a ton of candy for the goodbye party and
finally we went to Smiley’s favorite Tibetan book shop. There I bought 5 books
for about 3000 rupees… even here I’m spending most of my money on books… The
books will be how I continue learning about Buddhism whilst I’m back in Abu
Dhabi, Tulku Jigme has given me his email address so I can ask him questions
any time.
The books include; “Words of my perfect
teacher” by Patrul Rinpoche, which is actually the book that Tulku Jigme is
going through with me right now, but we won’t have time to finish it so I bought
a copy for myself. “The Tibetan book of living and dying” by Sogyal Rinpoche,
which I’m also reading right now, but I’m borrowing the copy from Tenzin and
will have to return it; hence why I bought my own. “The Tibetan book of the
dead” when I showed this one to Tenzin he said “DON’T READ THIS YET” apparently
it’s very heavy and advanced, oops. “Sutra of the wise and the foolish” which
basically consists of a ton of bible-esque metaphorical stories which are meant
to teach you something. And finally the Daily Prayer Book which Aryen
recommended, it has the prayers in Tibetan, then the English pronunciation of
the Tibetan words (so I can say them out loud, get ready Dominique (my NYUAD
roommate)) and then the meanings of the prayers. So I guess there are prayers
in Buddhism, they’re just not to a God…
About that, the more I learn about Buddhism
as a religion the more I realize how it has slowly but surely started to take
on the characteristics of any other religion. I mean at one moment I was
talking about reincarnation with one of the monks and he said “this life doesn’t
matter, all that matters is what you do in this life so you can have a good
next life”… which suddenly sounded a lot like the idea of heaven; if you’re
good in this life you’ll have it better once this life is over. Hmm. I know
that the Buddha did not want Buddhism to become a religion, all he hoped for
was for it to be a philosophy, a way of life, and that is exactly how I plan to
go about it. Yes I’ll read the prayers, but in the hopes of learning from them,
not saying them to anyone. Yes I’ll have a shrine, but only so that every
morning when I burn incense or fill the bowl with an offering I will be forced
to remember to live compassionately and as mindful as possible. Yes I have
taken refuge but I have done it in order to create diligence within myself to
continue to learn about Buddhism when I return to Abu Dhabi.
It’s interesting, the more I learn about
the slightly twisted version of Buddhism as a religion the more I see how Hinduism
has slowly mixed into it. Which is only natural since the communities are
living so close to each other. I mean I learnt about Hindu Gods during one of
my lessons, which I don’t mind at all but which I don’t think is what the
Buddha intended. I think the religious rituals are good in the way in which
they instill diligence and mindfulness and help to remind you to live according
to the Dharma. But I think at the same time it distracts from the original
message of the Buddha, which was simple; be compassionate.
Woah, that got serious real fast. Right. I
don’t know how to gently change the tone back to the story of what happened two
days ago so you’ll just have to do with this abrupt tone change, I apologize…
Okay soo after buying the books we went to the Spanish Restaurant (which by the
way is called La Casita de Boudhanath, if you’re ever at Boudha you have to
go!) where I (maybe stupidly, given my new money situation) treated the monks to
dinner. We all had spaghetti and they were super excited for the days to come
about “trying Spanish food for the first time”, when I heard them excitedly say
it for the first time I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t bring myself to tell them that spaghetti
is Italian…
Once done we got a text from Charlotte that
the bus had stopped in a traffic jam and that she would be late... Smiley was
devastated, he admitted to Aryen and I that he has a secret crush on Charlotte.
When I asked him why he said that her voice is “soooo tasty”, I asked him
whether he meant her accent was sexy (she is from the UK but is living in Ireland
so her accent is a mix of both accents) and he replied “no. Tasty”… I died. Aryen
and I spent the next few minutes making fun of him whilst he tried to find her
on facebook. Anyway, so we had another hour to kill, we played bananagrams (one
of my favorite games, look it up!) at the restaurant and the monks were
surprisingly good!!!
After a while we got bored of bananagrams so
we went back to talking and somehow we got to talking about puppies. Then Aryen
revealed that he knew a place where they had a puppy! He offered to take me
there, I was beyond excited. We walked for about 15 minutes and then there it
was, a tiny little German shepherd mix puppy. I cuddled it for way past what is
an acceptable amount of cuddle time and was in a state of bliss for the rest of
the day. Then we went back to the Spanish restaurant to meet up with Charlotte.
Once all together we chatted for a bit and then the monks invited Charlotte to
come back to the monastery, we organized that she would stay in my room and maybe
even try to get another interview for her thesis the next day. Within 15
minutes we were all in a cab (the monks said the busses were far too crowded
and offered to pay for a cab) on our way back to Sundarijal.
Once there Charlotte and I got chowmein and
then went to bed. I was sleeping on the yoga mat (granted it was covered by
pillows) and had the worst sleep of my life. We had kept the door open since
the room smelled funky and as a result there were 101 mosquitoes buzzing around.
I was right in front of the door and unwantingly ended up acting as a buffer; I
am currently covered in mosquito bites whilst Charlotte is completely clean. I
wouldn’t have wanted it the other way around though, I’m glad that I didn’t put
her through a terrible night! I would’ve never been able to forgive myself...
So those were the happenings of Wednesday, Thursday
and Friday but that is not all that has happened, I haven’t written about my
best day in Nepal so far (yesterday) but the post is already almost 3000 words
long, so I’m stopping here and saving yesterday’s account for tomorrow (that
sounded less complicated in my head).
Charlotte x
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