Wordless Wednesday

on my morning walk around the stupa

stopping to smell the roses

 After a month of being in China and a long trip back home, I spent a few days relaxing in Seattle with my cousin before heading to Colorado. The weather was much better this time around with sunshine and warm temperatures.

Things I Enjoy..and Things I am Missing

Sunday July 8, 2012

Before I left Seattle, my cousin told me to let her know what foods I’m craving as I near the end of my trip. I can say for sure that I’m craving cold milk, fresh oven-baked bread and fish. The meat isn’t bad here, but they sure do eat a lot. I feel like I should have told them I was vegetarian because at home I generally eat meat only about twice a month. Here, it’s twice a day—yak and sometimes sheep.

They only serve hot drinks, and since I can’t keep up with their tea drinking, they usually give me hot water instead. I happened to meet a student this morning who invited me to his friend’s house where I was served hot water and then a heaping spoon of butter on top. Then this afternoon, I met another student while out shopping and he invited me for some tsamba. That’s the Tibetan staple food, roasted barley flour with bits of hard cheese, a lot of butter, and black tea poured over the dry stuff.

Tsamba

Food around here lasts a long time—the cheese is mostly completely dry so it just sits out without going bad. The butter has a distinct smell… some say a rancid smell… and it seems to sit out a long time too, so I’m assuming a lot of the liquid is out of it. Along with the meat, I’ve been trying to counteract my yak butter intake (which seems to be in everything) with lots of walking up mountains.

Yak Butter 

Churra is Tibetan for cheese. There is basically only one kind here-- and some of the larger pieces will nearly break your teeth if you don't let them soak for long enough. Droma is what some people call sweet potato, but they are tiny little things, and are bought dried hard like beans and then boiled. They taste a little sweet, and the consistency is a little like a potato, but they don't taste like sweet potatoes to me. They usually serve them with sugar and, of course, butter on top. Sometimes we eat them with yogurt or in a soup with rice and the hard churra.

Churra

 

 Droma, Dri, and Red Sugar

 

I had my friend Tenzin here until today who was always up for walking. I was very grateful to have him around because having lived in Lhasa and India and having worked at restaurants and coffee shops where lots of foreigners were, he had a good idea of the things I might have a hard time with here, namely the food differences and the cleanliness factor.

With no running water, I’ve never gone so long without a shower, but it’s not much of a problem since it’s not hot enough to sweat. I still wash my hair (in a wash basin) once or twice a week which I decided is as much as I can handle. I only do it on sunny days so I can sit out and let it dry. I’ve got two wash basins in my room, one for my face, and one for the rest of my body. Every few nights I fill up a giant thermos with steaming hot water. It’s amazing because the thermoses here (which everyone uses) keep things hot for over 24 hours—yes, still steaming a day later. Even 48 hours later the water is still warm. I also have a large paint bucket that I fill with cold water from the well pump in the yard—washing hair, clothes, hands, brushing teeth.

There is a washing machine, but since I have so few clothes, I usually just decide to wash them by hand. The washing machine is not like any giant American appliance. This is a portable machine: one person can carry it to the yard, fill it with water, plug it in and go. Then everything line dries. It’s really pretty simple, and then again, most things here are.

 

 Before I came, I was told there was a toilet here, but since I’ve been in China, I’ve learned to never expect something of white porcelain with running water when someone mentions “toilet”, and also never expect any paper products or even a way to clean your hands. The toilet here at home is outhouse style, two rooms with two rectangular holes each, which I have come to really appreciate when I compare it to the rest of the houses, stores, and restaurants here with nothing. It’s just outside to… anywhere… the ditch, the road, the river, the field.

 

A Day at the Races

We were out of electricity for a few days...I've been pretty busy the past few days, plus with the electricity being out, I haven't had a chance to write, but I've been doing lots-- mostly lots of walking up mountains.

 Yesterday Tenzin and I went to the horse races. Two days ago I had seen a string of ponies and went to get a closer look. We were told they were for an race the following day, so yesterday Tenzin and I hitched a ride on the back of some nomad's motorbike and went down the road a windy 6 miles to the Yellow River and racing field. We didn't know what time the race started, and we got there a  few hours early. We walked around and looked at all the ponies grazing, and were invited into a few tents for tea. The weather was perfect, and the sun strong, so we thought inside the tent would be a good break, but since Tibetans drink hot tea year-round and have stoves inside the tents, it was hotter inside than out.

When the race finally started two hours after it was planned, there were lots of people crowded against the fence near the side of the road. Everyone shouted and threw little white papers (the same kind we tossed at the top of the mountain). Racers here ride bareback, and riders are weighed beforehand. If they're too light, they have to wear a scarf filled with rocks around their waist. The ponies are short-strided compared to any Thoroughbred race I've seen, but they are FAST. It's more of an endurance race for these ponies, and they make 5 laps around the track. I'm not sure how long it actually is, but it takes about a minute per lap. There were ten horses, and one white horse that had a strong lead the entire way. Two ponies dropped out, and it looked like one rider bailed off for some reason, but then remounted and continued around. The other thing is only one person wore a helmet. The riders are all teenage boys, and I suppose it's not too far of a fall on the small horses, but they're still moving fast!

 Cooling down the ponies after the race.

 After the race, we needed a ride back to the monastery. We found a car with two seats and started back, until the driver pulled off down the hill toward some white tents about 2 miles after leaving. Apparently he wasn't going all the way to the monastery, just to home. We walked back to the main road to find another car, and saw the police stopped with a car. Namnang told me to be careful because the police might stop to question me. I had seen them earlier, but they just smiled at me. This time they did pull us over, but only to offer us a ride back to the monastery, where they were also going. I'm pretty sure everyone around here knows me now, and I always pick up on the words teacher and school when people around me are talking.

Nun's Mountain

Nun's Mountain

 A view of town

We were hiking around the hills the other day and one of the stray dogs started following us. We were out for a few hours and little by little she came closer to us. She never got close enough for us to touch her, but she was so sweet and just stayed with us the entire time. I named her Metok which means flower in Tibetan. I name all the dogs here because I see them each day. They don't belong to anyone and only get scraps to eat. Most people shoo them away or are afraid of them, but it's easy to pick out the nice ones, talk to them, and they will follow you.

 My friend Tenzin

Another view of town

 I'll sadly be leaving here in a few days to go back to Xining, but hopefully I'll have more time and more convenient internet for writing.

Yaks and Ponies

 House in the distance

Yesterday I got to ride a pony! It's the first time in years since I've been on a horse, so I was really excited. Ani asked her friend to bring his horse down, which was one I had seen on the hill grazing every day on my way to school. The horse, who I named Melvin, was very calm and easy to ride, and the saddle was the most comfortable I had ever been in. The riders here often put a carpet over their leather saddle, which makes it a really nice place to sit. In fact, people here put carpets over everything. I rode Melvin around the yard, and then Namnang's cousins each took a turn as well, and even though they don't know how to ride, they still had fun. 

 

 The past week we've had a visitor at the house. Namnang and I call her The Red Lady because she dresses in bright red everyday. She's a Chinese woman, and only speaks Chinese, and apparently wants to become a nun. She just sort of showed up. She's quite a character, very enthusiastic, and no one knows what to think of her, but she helps around the house all day long. Today was bread making day, and she wanted to do that, so she and Ani made bread all morning while Grandma and I watched the entertainment of it all. 

 

Ani at the stove

The Red Lady rolling out dough

This morning I took a walk up the nun's mountain, which is the mounain behind the nun's houses. I stop about halfway up because it's pretty steep around here, and there are no trees to break your fall. While I was sitting there, a few yaks came from the other side. I had seen them earlier with a young boy herding them, but now they were coming my way. While there were only a few, I took some photos, and then when more showed up, I got up and started down the hill. I didn't want a herd of yaks blocking my way down. As soon as I started moving, so did they. They seem pretty responsive to people. I know herders sometimes use rocks to move yaks, so picked up a few just in case any needed some persuasion to move out of the way, but luckily they all kept going in front of me and down across the river at the bottom. They are smaller than I thought they would be, but pretty animals.