September 11th, 2008 8:05 p.m.

Heya to all my babies! I am missing you all so much! Just think, only 19 more days till I leave. Time is going by so quickly and so slowly at the same time. I will be home before you know it. I will miss Nepal very much!

Anna says she loves the lawlessness of Nepal. Throw your garbage wherever you want. Don’t want your food, throw it on the floor. You want to look at something someone has, you grab it. Got to spit, do it wherever.

Today was sort of the normal day for me except Anna took me to the bookstore in the old hippy part of town, which is now very much a tourist area. Very clean in comparison. Brand name stores. Didn’t really care for it in comparison, but the book store was really nice.

I picked up a couple of posters, some post cards, and some books. One book they didn’t have locally. We had to take a taxi there and back. It was 170 rupees there and 160 rupees back. So like $5 total for a taxi there and back. Wish everything was so cheap back home but the wages stay the same. It is sad to think of all that we spend at home. My airplane tickets costs more than the average Nepali makes in a year!

Tomorrow is a big day. We will be having a bunch of ani-s (nuns) coming to the monastery and we will all receive a lung for a new Chod for me. Pretty exciting!

You know the book on the Chod practice, “Feeding Your Demons”? I can’t remember the author’s name, but her son is studying over here. I haven’t really talked to him. He is pretty focused and only talks to the monks really. I found out that she lives in Colorado. I thought she lived in Seattle.

I think we are having another empowerment or blessing or some sort of cool thing the following day as well. Not sure. I usually find out minutes before hand.

All of the older monks went to protest today. They aren’t really supposed to so they wear street clothes when protesting. I guess the Nepali police are holding some people prisoners and have been beating them and not feeding them for 3 days now. They usually only beat people until they take them into custody as the UN or someone like that watches them very closely. So all of the Tibetan community went out in protest. I didn’t go as I don’t want to be caught up in that. Who knows what they would do with a foreigner.

5 of our monks are in jail. Which isn’t considered a big deal because they usually only get a slight beating and then are released the next day. I am worried about them. Especially Karma. He is 16 or 17, but he is small and looks to be about 12 years old. I was so surprised to find out how old he is. They look so young. And they look so old.

Some of these people age so quickly due to the hardships. Many of the young monks have more gray hairs than I do! Lakpa is only 27, but he looks like he is in his late 30s. Ani looks to be in her 40s but she is 30 years old.

I cannot imagine what it would be like to live without a country, with little hope, basically your only hope hinged on your child being lucky enough to get a visa and getting out of here and sending money home. So many people come to see Lama-la with their children seeking blessings for them basically for their whole family.

I am emotional today. Wish I wasn’t. Of course. I am a foreigner here. In more ways than one. I know so little of Buddhism. This is my first time out of a ‘civilized’ country. I sit and listen to people talk knowing that a good portion of the time it is about me, but I have no clue what they are saying. And most people don’t translate a whole lot for me.

Here is a stupid lesson I got today. Not that the lesson is stupid, just that I am. I was walking back to the monastery today. All of the school kids staring at me. I was thinking about how fashionable I must be to them. How cool I must be to them. You know cuz the whole world wants to be American. Just starting to strut my stuff. And then a bird pooped on me. All down my left arm. This bird must have had Mickey D’s and gotten its meal supersized too. I don’t really have a whole lot of options but to walk back to the monastery with it all over me and then clean up there. Now I had to walk back with all the old ladies laughing at me. Like very loudly laughing. *Sigh* I have some growing up to do! Thank you for the lesson! I heard it loud and clear!

I don’t have much else to say as I’m very exhausted and weepy tonight.

May you all be blessed with less messy lessons! Hehehe. Medicine Buddha!