Week # 3 at Osel Ling

SUPER SUPER MARKET: Outside of Thamel where there are a couple of larger shops (and when I say large, I mean the size of a very small convenience store in the U.S.), I haven’t found any stores or stands that carry a very wide variety of products. The city streets are literally lined with shops, but one will have Fanta and Coke and candy and shampoo, another will have mobile phones, another will have shoes and pots, etc. I recently heard that a super market had just opened at the bottom of the mountain so I had to check it out and let me tell you, it is SUPER! It’s the size of a large convenience store and it’s INDOORS so there isn’t a layer of dirt and dust on everything. Like every other shop it carries a rather random assortment of things, but it’s a wonderfully large random assortment. Need a candle? Look no further. Need a box of Choco Flakes? They’ve got ‘em. What about an eraser with Hello Kitty on it? Yup. It’s a great addition to the neighborhood.

DASAIN: As I think I’ve mentioned, we are smack in the middle of this, the biggest festival in Nepal. I’ve heard it compared to a combination of Christmas and New Year’s - families and friends celebrate together, there are parties and fireworks, most shops and schools are closed, and on a few select days there are animal sacrifices. On these days, there are special Pujas here at the monastery that go on all morning (Buddhists being against the killing of any sentient being). I went down the mountain yesterday to buy some honey at the grocery store and it was impossible to avoid all the bloody dirt and animals being skinned, hacked up and otherwise prepared for the meat feast that I think goes on today. I had to remind myself not to impose my Western values on the scenes; after all, they had paid for, cared for, and slain the animals themselves. In America, we’ve insulated ourselves from the reality of the animals’ lives and the slaughter and all we see is the piping hot meat on our plate. And I admit I have many times enjoyed consuming seared animal flesh, so there you have it. At any rate, I did go to the special Puja this morning and while I’m not eating meat here (and not at all tempted to), I wonder if I’ll have the desire or stomach for it when I return.

SANGYE: The monk I’ve spent the most time with since arriving is named Sangye; he came to Nepal from Tibet when he was 18 after walking with three friends across the mountains for twenty days. As he describes this trek, “Shivering!”. (Note to self: no more complaining about the mile long walk to the Howard train station in the winter.) He’s very interested in speaking and reading English so I tutor him after lunch and during/after dinner. During lunch we read and during/after dinner we learn and practice conversations and vocabulary. At first we began with the textbook he had been given at some point in the past; unfortunately it’s chock full of children’s stories that are surprisingly problematic to read and/or explain. For example, the story of the nanny goat who goes off into the woods and tells her seven kids to watch out for the wolf, who of course comes a knocking, tricks his way into the house and then eats them all, save one. The nanny goat returns, she learns what has happened and goes out in search of the wolf. She finds him napping by a stream so she cuts open his stomach, out pop the goats, she puts in some rocks and sews him back up. Finally, the whole goat family watches as the wolf stoops to drink, is dragged into the river by the weight of the rocks in his stomach and drowns. Lovely. Parse that one to a Tibetan Buddhist monk. There are a couple of magazines in our library but their use of the English language is too sophisticated for a new learner. So we turned to the Frog and Toad series of books. These have been around for a while (I know I read them when I was young!) and are the perfect read for us - the print is large (Sangye badly needs glasses), there are illustrations to help clarify the story and they’re sweet stories - no eating, cutting, sewing or drowning of animals, thank you very much. Some of our new vocabulary words tonight included “bland”, “inspire”, “pollution” and “opportunity” (he usually drives this part of the lesson - he’ll see or hear a word, write it down, then ask me to tell him what it means). Every lesson seems to end with Sangye clicking his tongue and saying, “English language very difficult...very, very difficult.”

DIL: The other day as I was heading up the mountain, two of the Primary monks caught up with me - Karma and Ram (I’m guessing they are ages 10 and 8). They are both two of the brightest most helpful and considerate monks in the younger classes and I learned in our climb up the hill that they were brothers. Tagging along was their little brother, Deepak (probably 4 or 5 years old and not a monk), who was naming absolutely everything he saw in English for me. Later that day I met their oldest brother, Dil, who is 18 or 19 (I’m guessing) and also not a monk. He is visiting and staying at the monastery for a few days because of Dasain and as he can speak some English, I learned that their mother died of TB and now he is studying to be a doctor, “Because there is no good health practices in my village.” All of the brothers are bright and engaging and meeting Dil made me want to send him to the best damn medical school in the world. In the mean time, we sat on the lawn this afternoon and I tried to help him with some of the medical words he’s studying. Of course I have absolutely no medical background (outside of being the daughter of a doctor and I don’t think that an M.D. is passed on in the genes) but I knew enough to be able to help him flesh out penicillin and pus, hepatitis and hypothermia, and a few other choice terms.

I CRACK MYSELF UP: All of the little monks just had their heads shaved and it’s surprising how different they look, considering they didn’t have all that much hair to begin with. With no variation in hair or dress you have to study the faces very carefully to differentiate between all the children. We were in the dining hall at lunch the other day and I was talking about one monk in particular and Joules said, “Which one is he?” and of course I had to reply, “You know, the one with the bald head and the red robe.” Probably doesn’t seem funny to you, but trust me, it’s a gut-buster in a monastery.