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.
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