Night one of Losar ( the Tibetan New Year) was very peaceful and made me realize how materialistic our holidays are. We started the night by some of my family’s friends coming over and I played with the kids just like I do Christmas Eve at home. I helped my ama-la and aunt prepare the room I’m staying ready for the big bowl of tukpa ( Tibetan soup) we moved everything out of the middle of the room… I’ve actually been keeping my room very clean here so it actually wasn’t my stuff. Then we put this giant table cloth on the floor and my ama-la pointed at one of the corners of the table cloth and told me to sit. So I sat there and they handed me a bowl of soup and I waited for the rest of the family and friends to join me. We sat in a big circle. You could tell they were all very excited for what was about to happen but I had absolutely no idea what was going on. After my new born baby brother was put in his own little bed in line with the rest of us in the circle, out came the big pot of tukpa. Tukpa is a soup that has nine ingredients in it I guess 9 is a number that they have to follow, but the reason was lost in the English translation… Aka my Tibetan is terrible… Anyways I had my own bowl of tukpa (vegetarian) which was really nice that they go out of their way to make me separate meals just like I’m at home in the states:) but mine had peas, carrots, yak cheese ( very very hard chicken like cheese) beans, and some things I couldn’t recognize and dumplings:)
Next night was school and I didn’t do anything special minus the breakfast we all ate together. It was white rice, yellow reasons, cashews and I believe that’s it. The rice was very sweet, then I was introduced to Tibetan salt tea which was kinda gross in my opinion. It’s basically drinking a melted stick of butter with lots of salt added to it. It looks like a melted stick of butter, so I took a sip and gaged a bit in my mouth but I finished my tea slowly. My family laughed at me and said I didn’t have to drink it but I felt bad because I waste a lot of food here.
The next day I walked around the stupa, looked for some Losar festivals but much was hidden aka I didn’t find it. My amala and family stayed home all day I guess is a normal tradition for the first day of the new year to be safe. Then During my exploring I stumbled across some friends and we walked around went to a Mexican restaurant in Boudha had some churros and realized we go to the same school and are basically the same person, so that was cool, but anyways I went with her to her house and I met her pala. He is a very religious person and he prays all day and that’s basically his job. So he told us many stories but I was distracted by the Chung- Tibetan wine that I also did not like so my friends dad drank it and I had tea. But my friend on her third class and her pala on his we don’t really know, they were definitely on a different level… So once it was getting about 5 pm we ventured out to a cemetery that my friends pala likes to go pray at. He guided us on the long way, which we climbed what felt like 300 flights of stairs and then down by this very dirty river where we explored a cave where a yogi, my friends palas dad knows. The yogi was very nice and the cave was very small. He had a tiny electric cooking think a small bed like thing and that was it there was hardly enough room for us to sit in but we squeezed. The yogi explained to us that a female goddess lived her for many years and so she guided him to this cave when he came from India to Nepal and now he has been living there for 5 years. His goal is 8 so I’m interested to see if he makes that. Then we walked over farther into the cemetery which didn’t look like a cemetery to us in the US at all. We watched this Hindu religious ceremony and then walked over to where they are doing the body cremations. The cremations looked like huge bonfires so from afar you didn’t really feel the heaviness of burning bodies… Until I saw an actual body being carried to the fire pit area. While this was going on my friends pala was praying and we sat and watched the cremations until he could take us home.
Then the next day my friends and I went to Tamal near Kathmandu and did some shopping then I met my family and we celebrated Losar with their friends. So we ended up eating this delicious meal with beans and mushrooms and watched the Losar celebrations on tv which rarely turns on. Once that finished we slept at their friends home and left in the morning after we all ate breakfast together… With our hands which was really hard to do for me so eventually they handed me a fork. And on that morning we all got dressed up aka everyone else and they wore their chupas( fancy Tibetan dress) and then we watched this festival all day of Tibetan dance and a little theater. So that basically was my Losar and now I have lots of homework to do so I guess that’s all for now, today we will be off to India and hot weather yay!!!!