Just the fact that I had the chance to live in a Buddhist monastery on top of a mountain in Nepal is such a rare and fascinating experience, but then when you throw in the friendships and memories I made with the nuns and the students and teachers at the Sherpa school, the vast amount of knowledge and respect I gained for Buddhism and their customs, and the indescribable beauty I was surrounded by every day you really can't compare it to anything else.
My time and experiences at the Bigu Monastery can never be reenacted in words. Although I can tell stories and give accounts of things that happened, the feelings that I felt and the growth I experienced I will never be able to accurately put down in words. Although I was there to offer my own knowledge love and support- I, as always, was the one who received the most of all of those categories.
Since it would probably take me days to tell you all of the great stories from my time there - I'll do just a couple.
First I want to inform you of the wish I have for you all. In Buddhism they have a white silk scarf called a Kata that you give to someone as a gift of love honor and respect. Me and Hilary both went and got one of these from monastery in order to write some prayers on them so that Ester (another volunteer who was still there when we got there and left a few days after we came) could take them with her to her hike up to an older Stupa on the very tippy top of the mountain where they were tied onto the top along with the prayer flags. I just wanted you all to know the prayers that are written for you, waving through the air on the top of a Mountain. this is what I wrote:
on one side - "Joy and peace to all my family and friends. May they all follow their hearts to happiness."
on the other side - "Love and safety to everyone at Nepal Orphans Home - especially to the children yet to come."
On to the stories:
Mom you will enjoy this (hehe). After many request and reassurances to the nun in charge of cooking that I really and sincerley wanted to help with the cooking, I got my first chance. Everywhere I've been in Nepal guest are treated so kindly and are so pampered by their host that it was hard for her to let me help. Although I was only given small jobs I considered it great progress and I had an absolute blast doing it. I was able to help kneed a massive bowl of flour and water into a dough that was used to make T momos (which is by far my favorite nepali food) And the best thing was that the cook entrusted me with a cleaver. Told you you'd be happy mom haha. I felt like a little kid playing with my mothers makeup for the first time. Strange analogy I know, but it was true. I had never used a cleaver before and knew everyone back home would be terrified by the site. Although I was only using it to chop tomatoes it was still a lot of fun. This trust and never ending belief in the capabilities of those at the monestary was striking to me. I was not the only one using a cleaver, every nun from the ages of 8 on up were completely entrusted with them without a second thought. At first I found this a little frightening but once I realized the scope of it I was touched. No one was ever doubted or treated any differently than anyone else no matter what the situation was. Children were given as much respect and trust as elders while at the same time being completely allowed to be kids. Watching the interactions between the nuns - of differing ages or of the same ages - was always moving. They cared so much for each other in every way. I was so grateful just to witness it, and unspeakably grateful when the same love respect and trust was continuously shown to me.... not just by entrusting me with a cleaver.
Both the nuns and the children in the Sherpa school had this never ending excitement, energy, and eagerness about them when it came to learning- both about English and about me - that is was almost overwhelming at times, but I wouldn't have had it any other way. instead of just repeating words are answering questions it always seemed to be a determined game of who could yell the words or answers the loudest, which never ceased to be hysterical and could put a smile on anyone's face. Most of the children were always so anxious to show off what they had learned and could be caught using English every once in awhile, usually in the most adorable of ways. Even though teaching posed many difficulties - especially with the nuns who were grouped together with so many different ages and skill levels - it was so rewarding to watch how excited they would get upon learning a new word, or putting the months in order correctly, or explaining something to you in English outside of class and realizing that you actually understand what they are talking about. It was wonderful.
The Monastery had two dogs that me and Hilary so fondly named Cujo 1 and Cujo 2. Most of you know that I'm not always the biggest fan of dogs, especially huge scary ones. Well these dogs were ginormous and you can tell by the names we gave them that they weren't the nicest dogs ever. They would be tied up all day and then let out as guard dogs at night. However since the bathrooms were a good distance off from our room, through a field full of leeches, we had to deal with these mongrels every night while getting ready for bed. After several mild heart attacks from the dogs running up behind us and barking at us, or sneaking up completely unnoticed and managing to stay in the pure blackness so that we could only suddenly see their eyes and then deciding to start growling and barking I definitely grew a major dislike for them. The worst part however was the fact that when it was raining (which it always was at night) the dogs immediately dropped there guard dog duties to lounge on the porch in front of our room instead, taking advantage of the roof to keep them dry. Normaly this would perfectly ok, but not only did they spend that entire time glaring, growling, and barking in at me through the window which my bed was right next to, but they also completely destroyed the wall. Clawing away at it so that every morning there would be huge chunks of wall scattered all over the porch. By the time we left the monastery there was maybe an inch or two of wall actually left in the area underneath the window that my bed was on the other side of. It was so bad that grandfather (an old man who did a bunch of random chores and odd jobs around the monastery) had to put up a gate which was literally a door cut in half. We were very excited when we saw him putting it up, but without fail a little bit after getting into bed there were dogs yet again growling barking howling and scratching away throughout the night. At first we thought that they were hitting the gate until it came unlocked and they could get through, but it didn't take us long to realize that they were actually able to simply jump right over it. This may not sound impressive but picture this: Our room was on the second floor, with stairs coming up the side of the building and ending in a very small platform where it turned into the porch and you walked on that to get to the door of our room. This platform of sorts, along with the stairs, were maybe 2 feet wide out from the side of the building with no railing or fencing or any structure of any sort on the other side. So I could see how they get over the gate to get under the porch but i am still completely baffled as to how they ever got back over it again without flying over the stairs and crashing to the ground. I never witnessed this act of mysterious ability and I have yet to wrap my mind around how it is possible. The difficulty of this feat however meant that the dogs took much longer to leave our porch when and if it ever did stop raining at night. This meant that they were there all night every night. Barking. Growling. Not just any growl, like the growl that they beef up in movies to make the dog seem like a man eating, rabies infested monster that will attack anything in its path. This was extremely unfortunate and the cause of many sleepless nights - not actually becuase of the noise, we could get used to that pretty quickly but becuase we were so afraid to leave our room when they were out there that me and Hilary both spent a couple miserable nights where we had woken up, bladders about to burst, and too terrified to face the dogs in order to get to the bathrooms. The dogs really couldn't have been that bad you may say, but let me tell you I would still decide every time to lay awake in pain and agony until the morning when the dogs left or were taken back to be tied up than face those massive dogs. Once Brian, the new volunteer coordinator, came (he and lexi, the other new volunteer coordinator, are going around to all the placements to check them out and get a feel for what they are all about in order to better do their jobs. Him and Tashi stayed the last couple days and then hiked back with us) and heard about our plight, he didn't understand why we just didn't get a bed pan. Now while this was a more feasible option then actually making it to the real toilets - still not very ideal. Plus what would we use for bed pan? Ultimately that idea would never happen, mostly because we already stunk and were dirty enough because there are no showers at the monastery and me and Hilary had been using wet wipes every few days to give ourselves at least a little peace of mind that maybe we were getting a little clean from them and adding having to try and do business in a little pan in our room in the dark most likely would have put us over the edge. Dirt and sweat and leech residue and dried blood from the leeches and more dirt I can handle... not so much of what would be the result of a bed pan. Anyways, the dogs won their battle and held their ground, leaving us to quiver in fear and lay awake, awaiting the sun to rise when we would finaly be able to make a mad dash to the toilets. The positive side to this was that I would have to go so badly by this time that I wasn't even phased by the leeches I would pick up on the way, I was too happy at being freed from the dogs to let a few leeches ruin that.
I taught the teenage nuns Red light, Green light one day because we were starting a new lesson in their book that had to do with policeman and traffic and things like that. You can never quite expect how much joy a simple game like this can bring to children. Simply put, they loved it. It was hysterical though because they couldn't quite grasp the concept of a race and would continue to run back and forth, from the school house to me, until there was only one girl left who was declared the winner. It was always so great for me, watching the nuns, who were anywhere from 9-21 running around and playing and laughing just like anyone else. Due to the fact that they are nuns and given so much responsibility like I mentioned before, it was easy to forget every now and then that underneath it all they are simply children. Of course teaching them this lead to constant requests of it, and since they had so much fun with that game it lead to me teaching them wheel barrow races, the three legged race and simon says as well. Of all of these Red light Green light was the favorite, but whenever we would play one (which was pretty much everyday) the amount of laughter and smiles I would see could always warm me like nothing else. Don't worry these games never took the place of any learning - it actually improved it. Since the nuns had about 20 minutes after their English class until there Tibetan class, we would use that time to play the games. During class we were able to get through more, with more participation, becuase they were always so eager to get to the part where we could play a game. Also they knew that if they were not behaving or slacking off at all there wouldn't be any game at all. The power of a little fun and laughter is just as much, if not more powerful, in a Buddhist monastery in Nepal, than anywhere else in the world.
This was also true of the children at the Sherpa school who became so in love with the Hokey pokey that they would ask if it was time to do it yet between every activity and could, at any moment, be caught singing it to themselves while writing things down or working on activities in the book. It was truly adorable. Plus it was luckily completely relevant as almost the entire time we were there we were working on body parts with them, so when we were doing the hokey pokey (which yes did happen at least once a day) we made sure they were saying everything correctly and were correctly putting in the right of left of whichever body part it was. It was wonderful for me even, as I had mostly forgotten how much I use to love the exact same song and games and it was really special for me to be able to pass on things that I had cherished as a child, to children on the other side of the world.
I suppose that is enough stories for now because I could literally go on for days and no one wants to read that. I will tell you that the way back down to Kathmandu was nothing like the way up - thank God. We took a different way - the shorter but steeper way. Although this way did take us through a large area that was so affectionately dubbed "leechville" it was still infinitely better in every way. We were all actually happy and enjoying ourselves - singing songs and playing games - the entire way. Ussually just stopping to take pictures instead of stopping becuase we feel like we can't go another step. The scenery was breathtaking - Dense and lush jungle vegetation, a thick fog the entire time that constantly gave the illusion that we were floating in the clouds, we saw (and were grunted and growled at by) wild monkeys, went across random open fields of beautiful yellow wild flowers, crossed and saw many many rivers and waterfalls, and were just surrounded by beautiful green mountains and nothingness. It was truly wonderful. Plus this time it only took us two days instead of three, there were no landslides to cross, we had slept and eaten, and it was a perfect mild temperature with the sun usually too far behind all the fog. The way home only came with two glitches. The first being the night between leaving bigu and arriving in Kathmandu. We stopped at a small Sherpa families home around 7:30 to get dinner and have a place to sleep for the night. The family was wonderful, with three little boys, and were as gracious and kind as I have come to expect from Nepali people - strangers or not. They made us a wonderful dinner (rice and veggies of course) and gave me and Hilary small beds while Brian and Tashi slept on the floor with the children. The problem was that although I was one given a bed - I would have opted for the floor any day. The entire night I was being encircled by and played around by rats and mice. Now these are to be expected here and I have seen plenty of them everywhere and have grown pretty accustomed to them (there were plenty of rats and mice living in the kitchen at the monastery as well as our room and other rooms). But ussually they mind their own business, never getting to close to you. Not these ones. They were literally running circles around me. All night. I was too terrified to sleep. Even if they had kept their distance enough for me to sleep it wouldn't have been possible anyway. I was also getting rained on the entire night. There was a very decent sized leak in the thatched roof directly above my head (among other places) which also would not have bothered me except for the fact that I really couldn't move my head more than a few inches any which way for fear of the rats and mice, and those few inches never made any difference as to how wet I was getting, just as to where on my head the rain was falling. Although I'm exceptionally grateful for the place to stay and would never have complained - I was just unlucky in where I was placed - it was definitely not ideal sleeping situation. The second mishap for our way back to Kathmandu actually happened when we were done hiking and hot gotten into the town at the base of the mountain. This is where we were suppose to get a bus to take us the 5 hours to Kathmandu. We were excited coming down as we could see that there were many buses in town and were thinking that we wouldn't have any troubles. Instead of going to the bus station right away to check times we decided to rest and sat down in a little restaurant for some absolutely wonderful and refreshing cold water (the last 2 hours or so of the hike down, were just as hot as it was on out way up!) After that much appreciated break, we headed down the road to the bus park. Once got there we made quite the discovery. Haven been completely isolated from anything but Bigu for the past 3 weeks (and 4 days for Brian and Tashi) we were quite surprised to find out that, out of all the days, that day was a bus strike. Not a single bus would be going anywhere. Now tourists are not suppose to be affected by such strikes as the country needs the tourism to survive and doesn't want to inconvenience us. But innevitably it still happens. If there had been a large group us it would have been possible to persuade a bus to take us to Kathmandu, but there were only 4 of us and there is no way that that was going to happen. But this wasn't just a bus strike, it was an all motor vehicle/ any form of transport strike. People are not even allowed to drive their own cars anywhere - apparently if they do they are taking the risk of getting their car rolled and torched by people who are angry at them for not following the strike. This mean no bus, no taxis, no cars. And we had just hiked all that way! Finally we were able to work things out, we found a man who owned a jeep and was willing to take us to Kathmandu (after fastening a very large tourist only sign in his window so that people would know). Although it came with a hefty cost (he would not be able to come back from Kathmandu unless he found other tourists to bring back to his city) we were able to work things out and actually got to Kathmandu in what probably was record time because we were the only vehicle on the roads.
All in all, Bigu was a wonderful place full of love, kindness, culture, and beauty. I honestly could go on and on about it for days, but I won't do that to you. If you would like to hear more stories though just ask - I've got plenty. My time there offered me more growth in such a short period of time than I even thought possible. I was heartbroken to leave and want so badly to return.
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