Dear friends,

From now on I’m not going to be updating. My experience with the ani-haru has settled into something resembling a routine, so I have little else to share about that at the moment; and other aspects of my experience here are too private, or too dependent on context to explain concisely. Also I am lazy.

I hope to keep in good touch through emails. I will be back in the States in June 2007, I think.

Boudhanath stupa in the morning is beautiful—everyone doing kora and feeding the pigeons, which take to the air in huge swathes. All around the stupa there are pockets of sudden sound as the wings beat the air. Around ten thirty I walk over to the Khenpo’s gompa.

A monk greets me. “Hello, Khenpo is busy now, you wait little bit.” We chat for a few minutes. He is young and furry, tells me he is going to Seattle soon for a few months, to study and practice at a center there. Today there are some Chinese visitors at the gompa, that’s why it’s a little busy for everyone. After a few minutes the visitors and other monks pour out of the gompa.

I chat with another monk, who shows me a string of mala. “I don’t know, maybe worth something maybe not,” he says. “Chinese visitors give to all monks.” I tell him I think they’re worth a lot of money and he should sell them. He glances up at me to make sure I am joking, then laughs. Khenpo comes up with an identical string of beads. He shoves them at me. “You take, I don’t need. I already have. Later I teach you how to use.”

Khenpo leads me up some side stairs to the roof of the gompa. “You meet monk, he is from America, same country like you.” I think he means Allan, the American monk I heard about who teaches here. “No, not Allan, this is Tibetan monk but he born in America, very good English.”

We enter some spacious rooms, brightly decorated, painted walls, not a speck of dirt anywhere. A small boy emerges. He is wearing a white robe under a yellow amarak, and thick red socks. He wears glasses and has longish dark hair. Serious expression on his young face. He sits on a cushioned bench, with a natural dignity, although his feet dangle. This is the young Rinpoche.

Khenpo and I sit on the floor and look at photo albums. Hundreds of photos of Rinpoche’s family—mostly taken in America. Rinpoche as a baby, a toddler, in American clothes and monastic robes, with his grandfather and four uncles, with his mother. Rinpoche watches me look at the photos. “That’s me as a baby,” he says softly. Whenever there is a photo of his sister, he points it out with special enthusiasm. “That’s my little sister,” he says. “It’s Halloween so she is a ladybug.”

“What do you do all day?” I ask him. “I study with my teachers,” he says. “I play sometimes.” His voice is so quiet I can barely hear him. “I get a little bored sometimes,” he admits, “because there are only four rooms here. I only stay here.” I ask him if he ever goes outside. “If I have a doctors appointment, or something like that, I go,” he says. “But mostly I stay inside.”

His family is in America. He was brought here to be educated and trained. He seems older than seven, which he tells me is his age in English (the Tibetan way of counting years is different).

Khenpo explains, “Not feeling well today.” Perhaps the little Rinpoche is not always so quiet and serious. We leave. I feel privileged to have met this tiny, solemn ‘precious one’; at the same time I want to take his hand and pull him out of his suite, let him run and play and shout like the child he is, explore all of Kathmandu.

I am at Kya-Nying Shedrup Ling, a huge white monastery in Boudha. Listening to Chokyi Gyatso, Rinpoche, give a talk. He says, “With such a small gesture, you can ‘make’ someone angry. What is the gesture to ‘make’ someone compassionate?”

Rinpoche sometimes speaks English, sometimes Tibetan with someone translating for him. At the end of the talk he says he won't be here for the next couple of weeks: I was looking forward to hearing more of his Saturday talks, but am now determined to find out more about this place, and perhaps take classes. As well as being a home to many monks, it is a school of Buddhist philosophy and Himalayan language. A friend’s sister, far away, wrote me an email telling me about it, otherwise I would never have known to come look for it.

Tomorrow the neighbor is getting married. His friends are busy erecting a bright red banner with “Welcome: Marriage” spelled out in white cotton balls on the dirt road.

Gunga is determined to get out of the gate as I am leaving for Kopan Gompa—I just manage to block her head with my knees. I grab her collar and shout at the Eghara to come take her. When the Eghara doesn’t respond, I look up to see her round face contorted in a terrible grimace, wielding an enormous staff over her head. I have no idea what she intends to do with it—beat Gunga senseless? The look on her face is pricelessly ferocious—she looks like a halfpint vengeful spirit about to protect me from packs of wolves. I shout at her again to drop the thing and grab Gunga’s collar, and all of a sudden she is her normal sweetfaced chubby self again. Afterwards whenever I remember this incident, I cannot stop giggling.

A wonderful morning reading at Kopan Gompa. How fortunate I am to live five minutes away from this incredible place. The ani-haru had insisted that it was closed except on Saturdays; this turns out to be the case only for Nepali people. The monk at the gift shop explains, “If open every day for Nepali people, than every day many shouting, not good.” I almost said, YES! Many shouting, ALL the time! You must know my nuns! (Actually I realized later that he meant the “shouting” the monks do when they have philosophy debates.)

In Kopan Gompa library, reading poems by Ryokan, an eighteenth century Japanese hermit monk. These translations do not thrill me, but the poem's heart shows through. Over and over again Ryokan talks about cold and loneliness—the 2 things I struggle with most—but he is not unhappy. He writes:

Lying in my freezing hut, unable to sleep
only the quiet roar
of water pouring over a cliff.

And:

The freezing morning rain has let up.
What should I do?
Fetch water? Chop firewood? Gather winter greens?

At Boudha, about to go into Café New Orleans to do some work on my laptop, when a sudden flash comes to me: you’d better do kora first, because you're about to meet someone who will change your life. I walk around the stupa several times, not particularly trusting my intuition, which has not proved reliable in the past, but feeling my mind calmed and appeased by the circumambulation.

Inside Café New Orleans, a chubby monk eating his breakfast and reading the paper is churlishly interrupted by a blond Scandinavian woman in her 40s, rather tiredskinned with a large nose and teeth. She starts by asking him abruptly what he does all day. His English is quite good. “I eat breakfast, lunch and dinner, and I sleep,” he tells her.

She sits down, asks him a lot of questions and answers them herself. “This illusion you're talking about, what is that? I saw an Indian walking down the street, and nobody else saw him—is that what you mean by illusion?”

The monk picks up a plate. “Is this permanent or impermanent?”

She snatches it out of his hand, lifts it above his head, says screechingly, “And what if I smash it over your head?”

“Only two possible answers,” he tells her gently but firmly. “Permanent or impermanent?” The waiter is looking rather concerned and shocked. The monk has a lovely deep laugh and turns to look at me often. I shut my laptop and manage to get a few questions in before the blond woman starts up again. He is a Khenpo, which means he holds an advanced degree in Buddhist studies (like a PhD). He calls himself a vagabond, says he travels between Nepal and India and Malaysia throughout the year. I ask if he gives public teachings, he says not for Westerners, only for other monks—then the Scandinavian woman is off again, ranting, saying things like, “You say many lives, that’s your opinion. What’s your proof?”

The Khenpo tries to talk to her about the third eye. “Brains, that’s all that means,” she insists. “Have some sense, think with your brain: that’s the third eye.” She has a habit of coquettishly tilting her chin to a shoulder, which was probably attractive twenty years ago.

“I’ll give you a third eye to see with,” he offers, “you’re talking bullshit.”

I am about to leave when suddenly the Khenpo turns to me and says, “What do you want to know about religion?” I am struck dumb for a moment—I know that I must be honest and bold, I cannot dodge this question or give a safe answer. Finally I ask the one thing to which I have never found a satisfying answer.

“This is simple, no problem,” he says. “But not today.” He is staying in a nearby gompa. He gives me his cell phone number. “My English is not so good,” he says, “but my lama has very good English. If I cannot explain this to you, he will explain.”

Today at tea, only seven ani-haru—everyone else in Boudha. With Uppal gone, things got even rowdier than usual. One ani, holding up a piece of fried dough in the shape of a woman’s labia, says slyly, “What this?” I pretend I don’t know what she means. She goes on, “Eight people here, all have.” Is it an eye, I guess, or an ear, a nose? The other ani-haru laughing hard. Yangzum Bhuti, literal as always, informs me crossly, “Is lips. For loving, for babymake.”

At English class, the ani-haru learned the word ugly, and have been calling each other ugly with great enjoyment ever since. One ani was voted the ugliest, and the others explain to me why: “Her nose big, eyes close together, she little bit no-tall. This ugly.”

But my nose is big, I remind them, and a much funnier shape than hers too. Am I ugly?

“You touristpeople. Big nose suit touristpeople. Nepali, not suit,” Palsung says tactfully. The “ugly” ani (who I've always thought strikingly attractive) flies into a rage, her eyes sparking, frowning fiercely. She stomps and shouts, “Yes, yes, I so ugly! Palsung beautiful!”

They ask me which ani I think is the most ugly. “Very hard question,” I tell them solemnly. “You are all so ugly, how can I choose?”

Poor ani Nani has plantars warts all over her feet: she picks at them all through tea, and I tell her that they’re very contagious. She seems to understand, but keeps right on picking at them with a worried look on her face. I try not to think of those same hands touching our food, the other ani-haru’s hands and faces. Several of the other ani-haru have warts on their hands and feet too. I will get them some nailpolish—nothing else works as well: a dot of polish and like magic they’re gone in a week or two.

Lama, sitting at the picnic table on the terrace, looking out over the green fields of Kopan: “Boudha, many people talking, sometime phone ringing, mind always busy. Here, quiet, see everything—” He moves his arm to encompass the view stretching out before us, the white dome of the stupa in the distance. “Mind resting. I like very much. Morning, also nice: four-thirty, five, many many birds different sounds, puja, waking up like this. Boudha only garden, then many houses around, not seeing everything. Here seeing everything.” And again he gestures to the horizon. He has been tired the past few days, but now he looks revived, and delighted with the success of today’s “picnic”—mushrooms and rice noodles, fresh greens, vegetable momos, bananas, huge ripe papayas. Since there was no puja today, everyone amused themselves in different ways. Lama and I took naps after lunch while the older ani-haru chatted and the Eghara and played in the garden, carrying each other on a yoga mat and wrestling.

Lama explains about the King of Mustang. In Muktinath, a guide had pointed to Lama’s photo and said, “Ah! The king of Mustang!” But in fact, Chimi’s uncle holds that title. She is the daughter of the King’s sister. Lama’s family is also very important and very old, and although the male line has always been based in Jhargot, they take their wives from Manang. However, Lama was the first to marry into a Mustang family. It was an arranged marriage; Chimi was 18 and Lama 31. Lama explains that although arranged marriages were the norm at that time, he doesn’t expect to choose his children’s spouses. I ask which method he thinks best. “Difficult question. Sometime, family decide, then good family but husband no-good. But sometime daughter decide husband, then he good but family no-good. So little little problems both way, is possible.”

Ani Palsung at dinner, practicing English, “I am touching Sonam’s knee….I touching, then feel happy.” I am glad to see her eating something at last. There is a strange fire burning inside her—her thin face seems tired but lit up. I think she is weary and sad, but this does not bother her: she seems to me the embodiment of compassion. At breakfast this morning she was shivering far too much, much more than the cold warranted. We are all a little rundown.

The ani-haru like the word shivering, because we found an easy way to remember it: just think of the god Shiva, and then say ring. Every once in a while an ani turns to me and asks doubtfully, “Ganesh-ring?” and I say, “No, wrong protector…”

Is it December already? What a different feel this month has in Nepal. The days have lost all meaning—I have to check to see what day it is, and this month slid into the next without my noticing much. It’s a little cold in the mornings and evenings, but the sun shines warmly during the afternoon.

Visited a new monastery, just up the hill from the house. Chatted a little with a foreman. He says the monks are coming from India, and the gompa will be finished in perhaps another year. The structure is complete, but there is still much to be done—all the painting and decorative elements. We climbed up to the top of the building—a wonderful view of Boudha and other surrounding towns.

The ani-haru very much liking the expression “so-so” and for some reason “new moon”—I don’t know how that one came up in conversation.

Some unexpected visitors today—a woman named Jessamine and two others. Jessamine is doing her PhD on Muktinath—an ethnographic study of the Hindus and Buddhists living and working there. I am eager to know more. Apparently, she was in Muktinath just a few days before I arrived, and left because the ani-haru were doing a house-to-house puja and she got the impression they had all gone home for the year. I'm not surprised anymore at things like the ani-haru not even mentioning her beforehand. How different my experience would have been if she’d been there while I was! I would have immediately had someone to speak English with, and to engage with on an intellectual level. And how glad I am that, instead, I went through that incredibly intense and painfully fruitful month of isolation, loneliness, and alienation.

Full moon night. Walking in Lama’s brother Pujong’s garden—something roaring quite near that I like to imagine is a tiger or leopard (the same one which murdered poor Gunga’s brother), but which is more likely an unhappy cow. The moon like a small sun. No stars yet. On Boudha-side, red and green fireworks shooting in the air, and lots of shouting and faint music. Dark silhouettes of banana tree and sugarcane. I see for the first time that Pujong has a birdfeeder, a tray attached to the fence with birdseed spread out.

Pujong, whose house I sleep in, is a rather unassuming man, with quite different energy from either his brother or his sister. Both Lama and Uppal have a sort of ship’s figurehead air to them. Uppal is like a mountain fire at times—I'm reminded of that dakini of Colorado, Anne Waldman. Before coming to Nepal I had only met one woman with such drive and unassailable confidence; here it seems to be the norm, at least among my ani-haru. But Uppal has even an extra something, this rockhard desire beyond confidence. She is both childlike and ageless. Lama is more subdued, his demeanor gentler and more playful. Pujong is like neither of them, although when the three of them are together I love to see them interact, each so completely themselves and comfortable.

While eating lunch, Palsung points to my chin. “This name?” she asks.

“Pimple,” I tell her a bit shyly—my skin seems to be going through puberty these days, and it’s the third time a Nepali person has commented on this. “You pimple, me no pimple,” she points out cheerfully. She repeats the word all through lunch, and it becomes another ani-haru favorite.

A line in Peter Mattiessen’s The Snow Leopard catches me: “It is difficult to adjust because I do not know who is adjusting; I am no longer that old person and not yet this new.” I try to find time to read, to write, to do my own practice: but the ani-haru work so hard at cooking and cleaning that I like to help at least for a while each day, and then the time flies. And the truth is I prefer cutting vegetables, and hoeing the garden, and hauling water, to sitting in front of a computer for hours at a time. I like this life, I like the simplicity and the rawness of it. But once I do sit down alone (escaping to the rooftop often, like today) then I fall in love with writing all over again, and long for three or four uninterrupted days, and a printer, and I want to spread things out and cut them up and rewrite them and scribble on them. I miss my friends from Naropa University in Boulder, their sharp minds: arguing cheerfully over some point of interpretation, comparing responses, speaking a language of our own, all of us knowing immediately what others are trying to convey in their writing and helping to do it better—being surprised time and again by my friends’ brilliant scribbles, glad that I'd read their work even if I didn’t know them. Missing the community. My own work here feels like a drop of oil in a jar of water—nothing else to connect to, except the few books I can get my hands on—nobody to toss a notebook at and say just read this quickly will you.

This trip is turning into more than I ever expected; at first it was very simple: go to Nepal for 6 months, teach Tibetan Buddhist nuns English—now I see that was only the vessel to get me here. The ani-haru have changed me, of course, made an impact—I'm glad they were the vessel and not something else—but Nepal is a place I would have ended up sooner or later. I'm grateful it was now; I'm grateful I have the rest of my life to explore this labyrinth.

After lunch, instead of coming to English class, suddenly the ani-haru are hacking away at the road with pickaxes and lifting rocks, and some Nepali laborers show up to pour cement. There is never any predicting what turn the day will take. I come into Boudha and buy a copy of Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard, and sit on a rooftop café reading and eating momos and watching the sun sink over the stupa’s white belly. At first not liking the book’s too serious, overly reflective tone, but now I have settled into it and can't put it down.

Evening: The Eghara are fighting over my hair. They comb it with their fingers, push bobby pins in and out, elbow each other and bellow. I submit to their pokings and roarings because I love the feel of their hands on my head.