The last ten days have been the biggest mind trip I have ever experienced. In a village called Chaukati, I lived with the Thami people, low caste subsistence farmers just before the Tibetan border. My homestay family was headed by a stunning 24 year old woman named Solstani Thami. In her mud house lived her devious 7 year old son, Deberats, her 1 year old baby girl, Debika, and her younger sister, Basanti, who spent most of her nights in their goat shed up the mountain. Solstani's husband, Birbahadur, is working in Qatar, along with a few other Thami men (due to the vast unemployment in Nepal, agencies gather village men and ship them off to countries all over the gulf and south east Asia to repair elevators and work in grocery stores, where they are paid less than the natives and live in slave conditions).
Village life was initially extremely challenging. The first two days I was overwhelmed by the bats that flew through the house at night, the infinite flea bits, the dirt caked on every inch of my body, the unfamiliar and monotonous diet, the open wounds covering everyone's arms and legs, the countless flies as a result of livestock, and of course, the complete lack of communication. I had been essentially stripped of my identity - with my new Nepali name and the inability to talk about my life experience and what made me, me. It was disorienting. I even struggled to journal because I knew I would have to confront my discomfort and record the continuously new, exhausting, confusing stimuli that followed me everywhere. My family and the neighbors literally followed me to the outhouse bathroom, waited for me to finish, and then followed me to my bed, crowded around, and watched me fall asleep with the lights on for the first two nights. But soon, I reminded myself that this experience would be whatever I made it. So I decided to let go of any desire to be "comfortable" (in the Western sense of the word) and be open to the drastically different lifestyle. Who cares if bats and rats rattle through the piles of corn every night? Why should I let swollen bug bits and dirt bother me?And most of all, it shouldn't matter that we can't communicate through words, there is so much more to the human experience than language! So I found peace and insane joy in every remaining moment I had there. And as The Alchemist explains, we are constantly tested as we pursue our dreams, thus the most important quality when achieving our Personal Legend is COURAGE. The last several days were spent hiking to local temples, learning village crafts like weaving and knife making, herding goats, visiting the local school, and playing in a waterfall. Chaukati life was beautiful. As the days passed I felt more and more grateful to be experiencing a way of life so different from what I knew. Dirt, flies, etc. are all irrelevant to the Thami people because that's what they've grown up with, that's their comfort zone. And what a learning experience it was to make that a part of my comfort zone too!
It was an unbelievable blessing to live with Solstani and peer into her life. Day after day we sat around the fire pit in the 1st floor room as she prepared rice, lentils, vegetables, and nettle soup, all while disciplining Deberats and breastfeeding Debika. Solstani would attempt to teach me words in Nepali (I remember that fire is aago and garlic is losoon) and Debika would roll her bare butt around the mud floor (no diapers!) and play with the knife when it wasn't in use. Also I ate a frog!! One night Solstani brought one home for her son to play with, and after an hour of truly torturing that poor amphibian, he threw it in the fire. He soon pulled it out, peeled it apart, and we ate it! The meat was chewy, bloody, and reasonably good (I opted out of eating the burnt scaly skin). Solstani thought the whole ordeal was very funny, as she usually thought of the things I did. She's a true fire cracker lady, full of motherly love and outspoken humor.
And now we're in Kathmandu and Chaukati feels like a distant, mountainous memory. Leaving was hard, as I had somewhat expected. On the final day, Solstani dusted my forehead and cheeks with red tikka powder, placed a mala she sewed of orange and red flowers around my neck, pinned big yellow flowers in my hair, and the tears began to streak down my face. Deberats started to sob and all Solstani and I could say to each other was "maya, maya" - love, love. We squeezed each others' hands and gathered my bags. Trying to hide our tears, we said goodbye, and I watched that beautifully strong woman walk away, knowing that she, her family, and her home had changed my life and my being. Not only have I learned to let go of any yearning to feel "comfortable," but I've learned that people are just people! And the identities we spend so long constructing in the U.S. don't even really matter because we're all just humans trying to live on Earth! We just have to be willing to let go of what we know and embrace new and crazy thangs! Chaukati was a mind trip because life is all one big mind trip. Billions of people trying to thrive in their own unique ways on this tiny little planet. How wild! So we'll keep going on, doing the best we can to be happy and make this world and its people happy. Though I was sad to leave the village I had grown to love, Solstani taught me to always "bistari jaanus," walk slowly and appreciate my breath and my environment. As I take every butterfly for an omen, I knew it was time to spread my wings and fly to my next adventure.
Tomorrow we depart for a 10 day meditation retreat at Kopan Monastary, which will present it's own set of challenges. But I'm looking forward to all there is to learn!
Before I leave I want to share birthday wishes with my unbelievable friends, Jason Boxer and Eli Coplan, I'm so thankful to share birthdays with you!
Also on the trek down from the village I found a water buffalo jaw which I've since cleaned and it is so awesome!!!!
"Now I see the secret of making the best person. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the Earth."
- Walt Whitman
Village life was initially extremely challenging. The first two days I was overwhelmed by the bats that flew through the house at night, the infinite flea bits, the dirt caked on every inch of my body, the unfamiliar and monotonous diet, the open wounds covering everyone's arms and legs, the countless flies as a result of livestock, and of course, the complete lack of communication. I had been essentially stripped of my identity - with my new Nepali name and the inability to talk about my life experience and what made me, me. It was disorienting. I even struggled to journal because I knew I would have to confront my discomfort and record the continuously new, exhausting, confusing stimuli that followed me everywhere. My family and the neighbors literally followed me to the outhouse bathroom, waited for me to finish, and then followed me to my bed, crowded around, and watched me fall asleep with the lights on for the first two nights. But soon, I reminded myself that this experience would be whatever I made it. So I decided to let go of any desire to be "comfortable" (in the Western sense of the word) and be open to the drastically different lifestyle. Who cares if bats and rats rattle through the piles of corn every night? Why should I let swollen bug bits and dirt bother me?And most of all, it shouldn't matter that we can't communicate through words, there is so much more to the human experience than language! So I found peace and insane joy in every remaining moment I had there. And as The Alchemist explains, we are constantly tested as we pursue our dreams, thus the most important quality when achieving our Personal Legend is COURAGE. The last several days were spent hiking to local temples, learning village crafts like weaving and knife making, herding goats, visiting the local school, and playing in a waterfall. Chaukati life was beautiful. As the days passed I felt more and more grateful to be experiencing a way of life so different from what I knew. Dirt, flies, etc. are all irrelevant to the Thami people because that's what they've grown up with, that's their comfort zone. And what a learning experience it was to make that a part of my comfort zone too!
It was an unbelievable blessing to live with Solstani and peer into her life. Day after day we sat around the fire pit in the 1st floor room as she prepared rice, lentils, vegetables, and nettle soup, all while disciplining Deberats and breastfeeding Debika. Solstani would attempt to teach me words in Nepali (I remember that fire is aago and garlic is losoon) and Debika would roll her bare butt around the mud floor (no diapers!) and play with the knife when it wasn't in use. Also I ate a frog!! One night Solstani brought one home for her son to play with, and after an hour of truly torturing that poor amphibian, he threw it in the fire. He soon pulled it out, peeled it apart, and we ate it! The meat was chewy, bloody, and reasonably good (I opted out of eating the burnt scaly skin). Solstani thought the whole ordeal was very funny, as she usually thought of the things I did. She's a true fire cracker lady, full of motherly love and outspoken humor.
And now we're in Kathmandu and Chaukati feels like a distant, mountainous memory. Leaving was hard, as I had somewhat expected. On the final day, Solstani dusted my forehead and cheeks with red tikka powder, placed a mala she sewed of orange and red flowers around my neck, pinned big yellow flowers in my hair, and the tears began to streak down my face. Deberats started to sob and all Solstani and I could say to each other was "maya, maya" - love, love. We squeezed each others' hands and gathered my bags. Trying to hide our tears, we said goodbye, and I watched that beautifully strong woman walk away, knowing that she, her family, and her home had changed my life and my being. Not only have I learned to let go of any yearning to feel "comfortable," but I've learned that people are just people! And the identities we spend so long constructing in the U.S. don't even really matter because we're all just humans trying to live on Earth! We just have to be willing to let go of what we know and embrace new and crazy thangs! Chaukati was a mind trip because life is all one big mind trip. Billions of people trying to thrive in their own unique ways on this tiny little planet. How wild! So we'll keep going on, doing the best we can to be happy and make this world and its people happy. Though I was sad to leave the village I had grown to love, Solstani taught me to always "bistari jaanus," walk slowly and appreciate my breath and my environment. As I take every butterfly for an omen, I knew it was time to spread my wings and fly to my next adventure.
Tomorrow we depart for a 10 day meditation retreat at Kopan Monastary, which will present it's own set of challenges. But I'm looking forward to all there is to learn!
Before I leave I want to share birthday wishes with my unbelievable friends, Jason Boxer and Eli Coplan, I'm so thankful to share birthdays with you!
Also on the trek down from the village I found a water buffalo jaw which I've since cleaned and it is so awesome!!!!
"Now I see the secret of making the best person. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the Earth."
- Walt Whitman
wow again!
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