Selections from my journal-
9/14
Right now I'm at the monastery temple sitting on the upper floor with a very temperate wind blowing across my face and back as a monk to my right prostrates in front of a stand of butter lamps, with the main temple behind it. Below us monks are practicing one on one debate - a melee of Tibetan language and sudden claps as they make their point. Before the gong summoned them I sat in prayer in the temple as man mumbled mantras and monks cleared earlier offerings. Before I spent the night at the hotel with Annie and took a shower this morning and broke out the JIF - so I feel really good right now. Last night we celebrated ryan's bday with a little party - it was a ready made excuse to get out of the homestay family's house. Last night I was there for dinner and toko a taxi up - which ranks on the scariest things I've ever done a) because it's so steep b) because the drivers here are crazy c) because it was night and d) because the roads were wet from a lot of rain. Obviously I'm still alive but...
I tried the ginger wine, which was surprisingly good, and I ordered a long island iced tea that everyone agreed was the worst one they had ever had - it was bitterly strong. My homestay seems fairly middle class for Tibetans in exile. They have two small rooms about the size of one of our hotel rooms with three beds, a kitchen, tv and shrine. Their bathroom is communal and let's just say it's not a toilet - and no shower of course. I thought they didn't like me until last night when they actually let me watch them cook and I played with Tentsering and Tenzin-la a bit. (the kids) The potato momo and soup we had were amazing. We watched hindi TV which is about the worst TV I've ever seen - it even beats american reality TV, though not by much.
[later that night]
Abigail and I walked down the circumambulation path on our way home, which was filled with om mani padme hung mantras in tibetan and prayer flags between the forest and the fog. At the hotel earlier I listened to Emma playing on the guitar, and she is awesome!

9/15
Two crazy moments, one was last night walking back home, At the top of the stairs was this psycho dog that stared and started growling at me. I froze for a long time and it kept barking and growling. Finally I dared it and went forward, despite my face being level with its own. I realized it was more scared of me than I was of it and it backed away. Still it was a little unnerving. The other was this morning when at least 5 of us were hanging out in the hotel room and this monkey jumped onto the open window and started throwing books of the pile near him - people started flipping out and screaming - I was momentarily in shock but as I was the closest , and quickest to act, I pulled out a little taekwondo kick to scare it off, which made it leave, whereupon I promptly slammed the window shut. We saw cry of the snow lion today, which I would recommend to anyone if you can get it in the states; it reminded me of why I was here and learning about Tibet. It stunned me with its brutal honesty and I was dazed afterwards.

9/18
Things have been going crazy. Yesterday Ngari Rinpoche, the Dalai Lama's younger brother, spoke to us - it was amazing- he made the most complex buddhist topics simple. We had sections and I rocked it out with Kelly and Lizzie-la. The previous night we spent planning at the exile brother's cafe - my new favorite place because of the food, atmosphere and music, not to mention it's owned by my language teacher, Nyima-la. It was fun thinking critically about a subject that interests me so much, while listening to jazz in the candle lit room that reminded me more of Evanston than Dharamsala. Anyway after sections friday we walked to lunch and this indian boy, who's been beggin me all the time, asked me for the dregs of my apple juice - and it sparked something inside me - I was taught that everyone (mostly people in the US) just want money, for drugs etc. but this kid really just wanted food - so after lunch I told him I'd buy him whatever he wanted, which was only some dried milk for about $3. Even if he resold it, I still feel like I helped him. Unfortunately the happiest moment since I've been here (planning the previous night) also made me feel bad because I forgot to tell my family that I would not be home for dinner - which is a cardinal sin both at home and here. Unfortunately, the only working number they have is the popola's (grandfather's) who knows no english and hence kept thinking I had the wrong number. I called phuntsok and he gave them the message, which makes phuntsok doubly awesome, because he already was my personal savior. My practicum, working at the center for human rights and democracy designing a flier for their office should be cool, the director is incredibly competent woman and I have a tangible goal - to redesign the flier and fix their computers. There was another really bad thing that happened today. Breanna and I decided to go to lunch today and read. We did have good intentions though we ended up talking the whole time. We left the cafe in search of a model car for Tenzin-la and after much disappointment, stumbled on a bunch of plastic animals that instantly reminded me of the plastic animals I used to play with. In hindsight it was a much better gift because all the neighbor kids could play with them as well, and both girls and boys like them. They had so much fun and it was interesting to see so many parallels between the way the played with them and the way I did. People's mental patterns aren't that different. My amala also seems to be obsessed with prices, she insisted on knowing how much they cost, despite my reassurance that it didn't matter. So anyway, afterwards Breanna and I headed down the mountain towards Men Tsee Khang where we had our lecture. Little did we know that what started as a little thunder would turn into the biggest torrential downpour ever. We stopped on the path home to savor Breanna's palmegranate and my chocolate while it rained lightly. Sometime after we started walking again the heavens opened. MY GOD - it ended up soaking EVERYTHING- my books and everything in my pack (including my cell phone) and my clothes. At first we attempted to share my umbrella but it was fairly ineffective and I ended up sacrificing my dryness for her and my pack's sake (she was sick). The other day I also saw a taxi that had driven off the road and over the cliff, fortunately, it had wedged between a tree and the side of the mountain, otherwise it would have fallen literally thousands of feet down to the valley. This pretty much ended any fantasy I had that people here don't have wrecks. I don't take a taxi down the mountain anymore. Anyway with the rain it just freaked me out more that the cars passing by could slide off the road. The road really was just a river of muddy water. I was freezing by the time we got there and then we couldn't find which building everyone was in. So I stopped by my house, thank god my amala's sister was there, so I changed my shirt and got my raincoat. We went back to the main drive and phuntsok, now my savior and demi god, spotted us and came running to show us the way. We ended up being 20 minutes late, when they emphasized that being late at all is a grave insult to Tibetans. awesome. I thought manu (one of the directors) was going to kill us. Despite my new clothes, I was still soaking and cold, shivering uncontrollably. On top of it all, the speaker was this really boring guy talking about Tibetan medicine, which didn't really seem that interesting in comparison to our journey. When I went back I gave the kids the animals, and they loved them. By a miracle all my electronics survived, including my cell phone. The rain finally stopped and when I completely changed, I felt alright. I finally felt better about going to the homestay than going back to the hotel.

9/19
This morning Ryan found 406 had been ravaged my monkeys - apparently whoever came back yesterday left those windows open, and they came and found the juice in the room and spilled it everywhere. Sufficit to say, the hotel people weren't happy.

I have some more cool pictures I will add soon