(sorry for all the long posts and pictures at once, but internet is more limited here. I hope you like the pictures)
Tashi Delek Losar! (Happy new years)
Last weekend was Losar, which is the Tibetan new year. It’s like new years in the US, but possibly crazier. Losar itself last three days (officially anyway, sometimes it can just keep going I’m told), but festivities start a few days before. The rules are pretty strict on the campus here (no drinking, no boys in the girls’ dorm and vice versa, no dancing unless it’s tradition dance, you get the idea), but all rules are overlooked during Losar. It was so strange to see the change on the campus. It became much more like the kind of college campus that I’m used to.
On friday night, we started by having a special kind of thukpa (I don’t think that’s close to being spelled correctly), which is a Tibetan noodle soup. This kind was special though, because it has a specific set of ingredients, and in the dumplings there are folded up pieces of paper that have things written on them. They’re kind of just like silly fortunes. They range from very lucky ones to ones that say charcoal (that one means about the same as getting charcoal at Christmas). Mine said Tashi Delek, which is supposed to be auspicious. They then set off some fireworks and the fun for the weekend began.
On saturday, we hung around campus for the day.
On sunday, Losar itself began. We all got up early in the morning to put on our new chubas (a rather difficult task, but fortunately Pelkhi, Marissa’s roommate, helped Julia and me because both of our roommate were gone for the holiday). We then went to prayers in the temple. After prayers, some of the students here did a tradition dance, which was really cool, then we had breakfast, which consisted of rice (yummy) and a special Losar porridge (not so yummy), made with chung, Tibetan beer. As you can see, they take the three days a year where drinking is not only allowed but encouraged very seriously.
For the rest of the day, people went around campus and visited other people’s rooms. I visited for a bit, but I hadn’t finished an assignment that was due the next day, so I spent a lot of the day doing that. I did take a break for a little bit to go to a bonfire that they were setting up though. While I was there, one of my slightly drunk teachers invited Karen, Amber, Ani-la, Marissa, and me to learn how to do some of the Tibetan dances that they do around the bonfire. So we went to a room with some of the students here, and they tried to teach us some of the steps. I don’t think we managed to really learn anything more than one basic step, but it was really fun anyway.
The next day was more fun, because I didn’t have schoolwork to worry about. In the morning, the group went up to McLeod Gang to have an audience with a Rinpoche (correction on what I said about rinpoches in the last post: rinpoches can’t always control their own rebirth, but they are recognized as rebirths of Dharma teachers or scholars from previous lives). He was very friendly, and the things he said were really interesting. One thing that I remember him saying was in response to a question about what he found difficult about following the Dharma. He said that two difficult things are understanding emptiness and practicing the idea of others before self, but he said that one way to make that easier is to always remember how kind other people have been to you, which I thought was just a really cool thing to say, and something that hopefully I can remember. We came back after that and had the rest of the day free. That night I was finally able to go out with everyone else. We went to a dance party in one of the boy’s rooms, which was fun but strange too. For the rest of the time that we’d been here, the boys have all been shy for the most part and quite respectful, but at the party, the boys who were there were acting like stereotypical college boys at a college party, which isn’t actually strange, it was just different after getting used to how it had been before. I know some of the students on the program were unhappy with these changes, but (and this might just be because I didn’t have any really bad experiences) I thought it was kind of nice to be able to see the students here as just like the students I know at home, and I was able to meet a lot of people I hadn’t met before. Also, I danced with a Tibetan pop singer (you know you’re jealous).
Tuesday was the last official day of Losar. We got up early again for morning prayers (I think it may have been a puja, but I’m not really sure). That day a lot of the students went on a trip to Tilopa’s cave and to see a performance given in honor of the Karmapa. I just stayed around campus to relax though. I helped put up some prayer flags which was fun.
The rest of the week was pretty much just class as normal, and now it’s the weekend (yay), and I should be working on my paper, but clearly I’m writing this instead. Also, I’m still working on getting pictures put up. Monday we move up to McLeod Gang, where we’ll be staying for the next two months. Also, His Holiness’s public teachings start soon (eep), which is actually why we’re moving, because they’re in McLeod, and we’re going to go see them.
Also, this week’s project (since we have to finish this before we move) has been to try to treat the mange on the dogs around campus. We bought some mange spray, which the puppies didn’t enjoy (we’ve only managed to treat the puppies, we can’t actually get close enough to the dogs). Then we tried lotion, which I think may work better, but it’s still kind of gross, because it requires rubbing lotion all over scab-covered puppies, but it doesn’t freak them out as much, so hopefully this works, since we only have a few more days here.
It’s been a while since Losar, but I still haven’t had a chance to post what I wrote about it, so I guess I’ll just keep going with this post. On monday, we moved up to McLeod Ganj/ Upper Dharamsala (I’m not quite sure why it has two names, but I always switch back and forth in what I call it, so just know that they’re the same thing). I think we’re still sort of settling in, but I think it’ll be nice to be here. It was really sad leaving Sarah though. I regret not making more of an effort to connect with my roommate, but she comes up to Dharamsala on the weekends, so I’m hoping that maybe I’ll see here again, and we’re all planning on going back to Sarah to visit anyway. She was an amazing roommate, and I feel bad that she had to put up with me. Also, it was really sad to leave Ani-la (the nun who I ate lunch with). I think I’m pretty lucky that I had the opportunity to sit at that table at lunch. After lunch on the last day, she invited me to hang out in her room, and she gave me a candy bar and I gave her a California keychain that I had bought at the airport. I’ve exchanged email addresses with both my roommate and Ani-la, so hopefully I can keep in touch at least a little. Also, I think some of the Sarah students are coming up to Dharamsala for the public teachings anyway, so that’s cool. Speaking of the public teachings…they start so soon. It’s really exciting. Today we went to register. Yesterday and earlier today it was pouring. This morning we all set out to go the Dalai Lama’s department of security or something like that. Just up the hill from the Om (the hotel we’re staying at), I realized that while I had my passport number, I hadn’t actually remembered my passport, so I ran back to the hotel, hoping that I would be able to catch up with everyone. A good plan right? It would have working out well, except there’s a fork in the road, and for some reason I thought everyone had gone one way when they really all went the other. So when I came back with my passport I went on the uphill path, which by that point in the morning since it had rained and hailed all night, was actually more like a small stream (okay, I’m exaggerating a little, but it did take my shoes only about ten seconds to be soaked all the way through). I ran up the hill and asked anyone I passed if they had seen a group of American students. When it finally became clear to me that no one actually had, I started asking if anyone knew where to register for the public teachings. I must have been a pretty pathetic sight indeed, since by that point my shoes and skirt were all soaked through, my jacket was pretty wet too, my Tibetan is limited to the alphabet and some simple phrases, and my Hindi is limited just to hello and thank you, but eventually a very kind man overheard me asking a taxi driver if he knew where to register, and he came out in the rain to point me in the right direction. It always makes me so happy when someone goes out of his or her way to help me when I’m feeling especially pathetic and unhappy. Anyway, he pointed me in the right direction, and with more help from more kind strangers, I finally made it to where I needed to be, and now I have a super cool pass that will get me into the teachings (I’m excited, have I mentioned that yet?).
The rain has been letting up now though, and it had actually stopped raining by the time the sun set. It really cleared out the air though, and from the Om, we could see the most amazing view. I didn’t take any pictures, but I know other people did, so I’ll attempt to steal some of those to show you just how amazing this view is, and this isn’t just the view from the roof or something. It’s the view from our windows (all our rooms face outward, so the view out the windows or the doors is of the Kangra valley (I think), and it’s just amazing).
Also, one other wonderful thing for the day…I just got back from dinner, and I had dinner and Nick’s, which serves a lot of western food, and for dessert, we had a brownie that was maybe the yummiest thing I’ve ever eaten. Actually, I’ve really liked the food here, especially now that we’re in Upper Dharamsala. I really liked most of the food at Sarah, but here we’re just given meal stipends, so there are a lot of options. We’ve been just eating at the Om a lot because of the rain, but since it let up tonight, we went out. I guess that’s all for now, since I should be actually doing work or something, and I’ve already bored you with tales of my yummy dinner. I really am working on posting pictures though. I managed to upload about half the ones I wanted to post before we left Sarah, but now that we’re here, I can’t just plug my own computer into the internet, so I’ll have to borrow someone’s jump drive to get the rest of the pictures, but the connection is faster here, so I think that’ll work.
