After breakfast, told the ani-haru I was going to Boudha and I'd be back for lunch. It’s funny that the route to Boudha is the same route I walked many weeks ago on the way to Kopan Gompa, which is of course just around the corner from our house. At the time it seemed like quite an adventure, everything new, having to ask directions—now it’s quite ordinary.

When I got back to Kopan, Lama was standing by the front door looking nervous and expectant. “Where you go? I ask nuns, they not know, I little worry because my friend come, you not here, now good, you here, you also sit in house.”

Lama’s “friend,” I discovered only later, is Chatal Rinpoche, an important and venerable Nyingma lama. (Nyingma is one of the four Tibetan branches of Buddhism.)

We spent most of the day being very quiet—the ani-haru giggled a lot. Finally, we all huddled at the bottom of the stairs to watch Chatal Rinpoche leave. He was helped down the stairs and we just got a glimpse of him—a kind squarish face with a furry white beard streaming out. Even though, at the time, I had no idea who he was, I found myself quite moved, even shaken. We were each given a handful of cloves to eat and a red protection cord to wear around our necks.