hello awesome awesome peeps!

today i am departing from this cute mountain Himalayan town that I have called home for the past three weeks. This town called McLeod Ganj is where the tibetan government in exile is located. I have so been enjoying this area! Clean air, beautiful mountain views (when not storming), plenty to do, and the people are so lovely. I think I have fallen in love with the Tibetan culture. In general the people are friendly, good natured, full of eye contact and smiles, and they love their children. so awesome to see the men participating so actively in the care of the children.

I've been mostly hiking, attending buddhist philosophy courses, and volunteering at many of the different non-profits which run English conversation classes. The students are so dedicated and grateful it is very humbling. One Tibetan I have been working with is named Tenzin and his story really touched my heart. Tenzin is a 26 year old Tibetan who escaped from Chinese occupied Tibet three years ago after earning a degree in Geology at a Chinese University. He escaped by foot via the Himalayas on a 22 day trek and landed in Nepal from which then he made his way to Mcleod Ganj in India. He told me that in his village in Tibet, they are not allowed to speak Tibetan, only Chinese. And they are also not allowed to have any pictures of the Dalai Lama or doing any type of public prayer. He told me how Tibetans are unable to get jobs since Chinese companies have many prejudices against the Tibetans and that people go "missing" everyday often to appear years later after being beaten and tortured in chinese prison camps. He said it was difficult for him arriving in Mcleod Ganj because he only knew how to speak his native nomadic village language and Chinese even though he is Tibetan. So he spent one year learning tibetan and now he is learning English. his dream is to sneak back into Tibet, see his family, and teach Tibetan and English underground to his village to help the Tibetan cause. Wow! Hard core!

I have leaned much about the whole Chinese/Tibetan situation. I am confident that if the Tibetans didn't have such an amazing leader with great foresight they would for sure be an annihilated race and country. The Dalai Lama rocks! But i'm not gonna get any more political on you. Just know that is is a worthy cause to invest some time into, just being informed would be beneficial or go and rent the Martin Scorsese movie "Kundun". And if you are interested you can ask me, I'll talk your ear off about it and then maybe we can do a bake sale, car wash or a pep rally! :)

Ok, so a good monkey story... here we go. So I watched this thief of a monkey steal an orange from an old man! The old man, cane and all hobbled over to a bench, sat down slowly, placed his orange on the bench to his right, the old man reached left for somethign in his bag and in that second a monkey came swooping through and stole his orange! But the monkey didn't run away with it. He stayed right in front of the old man and plopped his bottom down sitting upright and began to peel the orange with is mouth while holding it in his two hands. And then, to my surprise, the monkey started to eat the orange slice by slice. I thought he would just munch right into it but he was so civilized. He ate the orange while looking at the old man and tormenting him. Such a bad monkey. the man just watched the monkey the whole time, probably thinking "you bastard" while also thinking "this is fascinating". Well, at least that is what i was thinking watching this all go down.

After observing so many monkeys, I think I now have a really good impersonation of how they groom and pick fleas off each other. Free show upon request :)

So in general most recent highlights include eating amazing tibetan food, hiking in the middle of forest around 9pm to find an all night puja put on by some buddhist monks in this amazing gompa with hundreds of small gold buddha statues throughout the room, and coming across tibetan prayer flags blowing in the wind when hiking. i love them!!!. Some not so great highlights are power outages about 8 to 10 times per day, waiting in line at the post office for 80 minutes to mail a package with people cutting in line and watching inefficiency at its finest, and now having to leave Mcloed Ganj on a 13 hours bus ride through the HImalayan foothills... i might puke.

My next adventure is a ten day silent retreat known as vipassana. www.dhamma.org This one is serious silence :) no eye contact, no pens, no books to read, no prayer beads etc. the structure is pretty rigorous with starting the day at 4:30 am, ending at 9 pm, and i think generally meditating about 12 hours a day. Also, meals are limited. I think dinner is chai and a piece of fruit. i'm scared but thrilled at the same time. really excited :) i'm crazy- If i hit my psychotic break on this one I put a will under my bed. Phil, my brother, can have all my high heels and makeup. ha!

So, I'll be out of the mainstream connection for about the next 11 days. but if you want to communicate send me some brain waves caue i won't be so distracted that i'll get your message :)

much indian love!

-sari barbie