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…”