Tuesday, March 18, 2008

You know, you all complain too much. Check out this job. These people in Nepal, mostly women and children, are crushing rocks. You take a huge rock and keep chip chip chipping away at it until it is the size you want. In the US we have big machines that do this work. I am not sure but I don't think this pays very well either. I don't know about you but I find this mind boggling.

Monday, March 17, 2008

The owner of this school was about my age with 2 college age kids. We sort of bonded being single women of a certain age. I got the impression from her that a business woman was unusual but not rare. Her husband left her and the kids to go to Australia, and she hadn't heard from him in a number of years. She also gave me the impression that this was common in Nepal. I liked her quite a bit but after all my time in Asia, I wasn't certain of her motives. Did she feel a kinship with me because we were similar or because I could be a source of revenue for her? It makes me sad to even think that way but I had a number of disappointing experiences that lead me to be more cautious. I had great admiration for her. Her business seemed good. Her kids were awesome. Nice kids. She took in a country kid but again I am not sure of her motives. Was she helping him, or was he free labor? She said she was going to send him to school but wasn't at the moment.

Sunday, March 16, 2008

I wanted to have a separate entry about my teacher. He was 26 years old. He was tiny. He made me look stocky. Married with 2 kids. He made 6000 Nepali Rupees per month which is about $100. Not a great sum but, I am pretty certain, a living wage. Just to give you an example, I was paying $2 a night for a hotel, which would be $60 month. So his rent must be $25 at the most. In India, I could get a sack of vegetables for $1. I am not saying he is rich but not poor by any means. Initially, I talked to him about classes but he deferred me to the owner of the store, who is entirely another story, perhaps another entry. From the very first class, he told me how much he made and how some Swedish woman came to his house and was shocked how he lived. She sent him $500, which would be like sending an American $8,000. It is quite a chunk of money. By the point at which I met him, I had already been in Asia over a year and so was not shocked by the standard of living. So, honestly, his story fell on deaf ears. Later on he pulled out a cellphone which had all the bells and whistles including recorded video and audio. I suspect that is where the Swedish woman's money went. At first, he never mentioned a wife and kids, which always freaks me out when you find out later. He was not a happy young guy. He didn't like having the responsibility of a wife and kids. He said he got married to please his parents. I am always reluctant to relate these stories because I don't want people to get the only a negative impression. Based on people's reaction to this blog, perhaps these are the only stories I am relating.

Saturday, March 15, 2008

One day while walking around the tourist shopping district in Kathmandu, I looked at Thanka paintings, specifically the mandalas. They were so wonderful. I wanted to learn how to make them so I asked the shopkeeper and he ignored the question. The next day I walked by a thanka painting school, which later, I learned were a bit dime a dozen. But with my new−this−has−to−be−fate attitude, I went right in. I wanted to take just a couple of days because honestly, I new I would suck at it and I really am not that interested in it. I ended up paying for $50 for 10 days but getting frustrated and bored and not returning after 4 or 5 days. At this school, the teacher really didn't know anything about mandala painting. They did mostly paintings of Tara, a Buddhist goddess. The paint is similar to gauche, flat, matte, water soluble. The process of doing it was tedious because depth was created by layering. I am not into tedious. It's not just ADD with me either. I attribute this hatred for tediousness from my childhood. No, not my abusive mother. I was sick a lot as a kid, with high fevers and would have dreams. These dreams were repetitive. Like some huge ball of something, hair maybe, sitting on my chest that I would keep adding to and trying to push off or something. It wasn't not a happy dream but a frustrating one. Back to the mandala painting, which is a lot like paint by numbers, my little teacher kept fixing it for me when I would leave. I kept trying to explain that I was just interested in learning and did not care about the final outcome although truth be known I would've been a better student had I been any good at it.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

I think there were places to meditate in Bodhgeya there but after a day or two, I still hadn't hooked into it. A met a couple of young-ish American women who invited me to Nepal. I thought sure why not. I wasn't loving Bodgeya. Was this fate knocking at my door? It took us days to travel to Kathmandu. Not an easy trip. We took many trains, buses, and taxis. But once there I really enjoyed it. At first it was blissful. I ate western foods. Had a cheap hotel. Mighty nice but then for some reason the hawkers came out and they were tough. It was there that I was introduced to glue sniffing street kids. They are frightening crazy animal like bunch. One night I was walking down the street in a funk, eating a bit of bakery and a street boy lunged at it. I pushed him. I pushed him. I was mortified at my own behavior. What was I turning into? But then a couple of blocks later I realized that shove did not even faze that kid and I did no harm. Just for the record, he didn't fall.