day of the dog.

yesterday was my favorite day in the south asian year. it's tihar (the nepali hindu festival of lights), during which a different animal (or sometimes person) is honored for each day of the holiday. yesterday was dog day. kathmandu is full of dogs (oh, i'm in nepal! i forgot to say that). these are perfect dogs--smallish, but with big-dog shapes and personalities. they're exactly the sort of dog i'd get, were i to get a dog (which i will, someday). yesterday, in celebration of tihar, the dogs of kathmandu were given tikkas--red blessings on their foreheads--and malas: garlands of marigolds, to wear around their necks. having spent the night at my coworker amrit's, the first thing we saw as we coasted, engine off, down the driveway on his new bike (an upgrade from his far-less-macho scooter, or "scootie," as he calls it), was a fat yellow dog stretching out in the sun, freshly clad in tikka and mala, and we both strated to laugh. how can you not love a holiday where street dogs dress like devout hindus? hmm. sometimes i think i'm meant to be a hindu. i spend so much time with tibetan buddhists and buddhism resonates in my life in a million tiny ways that i don't usually take the time to notice. i fight against it, but i grow within it. and still, i almost never have what i would describe as a religious experience in the buddhist world. but hinduism is another story; it transports me. it fills up my chest with this feeling like i'm about to cry. were i to be religious, i'd have to sing and dance. i'd have to jump around and wave my hands in the air, or i don't think i could let myself really GO there. the closest i ever feel to religious is through music, anyway, so i guess that makes sense. (for the record, i know hindus do more than sing and dance and jump around). the philosophies of hinduism and buddhism aren't so different--it's the expression of those beliefs that marks a greater divide. my connection to hinduism is mostly superficial; i visit temples, i attend ceremonial events on holidays. sometimes i want to go further. i've always been jealous of people who have religion; maybe it's time i got mine..?

i am full of chocolate cake. kathmandu is anything you want it to be, tourist trap very much included. yesterday i was a hungry ghost; i just couldn't get my fill. my coworker and i went shopping and both spent WAY too much money on clothes. today, it's all about food. for breakfast i had a nepali omelette stuffed with fresh herbs, inclding copious amounts of cilantro. then it was israeli food for lunch--hummus and baba ghanous and falafel and naan (a little south asian twist), with chocolate cake and chai for dessert. and i'm not done yet; i'll probably still eat dinner.

i feel like a real working woman. it's sunday evening now, and my work week begins again tomorrow, which is making me a little sad. not that i haven't been working this weekend (we spent about four hours on our budgest this morning), and not that my job happens in an office or anything terrible like that... what will i do if and when i DO have a job that happens from 9-5 at a desk? would i or could i ever enjoy it? do most people enjoy working? it's so hard to know when i don't have the experience of the thing that so much of the world thinks of as "work." i've worked a lot in my life--i can say that with confidence--but always at a restaurant, which brings with it the rush of staying up too late, flirting too much, acting in manic burts of energy when you're already exhausted, and then calling it quits--or in south asia, where my work and life are mostly inseparable. maybe some day i'll have an apartment in south asia and a job too, and i'll go to the job and then come home and still be in south asia but no longer be at work. huh. a bit hard to imagine, really.

well, it's getting dark outside so i'll stop--put my energy into digesting my cake... you know, that sort of thing.
love and love
e.

Driving Again.

I'm not much of a believer in state or national boundaries, but when you descend off the Tibetan plateau, you know you're somewhere else. Crossing from Ladakh into Himachal Pradesh, the changes that take root in an hour are enough to make your hair curl. Literally. You drop from a high altitude desert into semi-tropical foot-hills, and the people around you reflect the changes, and the animals do, too, and the architecture, and even the snacks for sale at road-side Dhaba's tell you that you're back in a world you know. And even your stomach grumbles and then threatens you in that old familiar way and you think, oh right: India.

This isn't new to me. My life in South Asia takes place in a strange circle around Tibet (and almost never in it), so I'm familiar with the Himalayas' varied forms. Himachal's mountains are my favorite. When I get here, I feel like I'm home--and not in the "I was born to love this land" sense, but in the, "Oh yeah, here I am," sense; in the "Am I getting old?" sense; in the "How the hell did this happen; I'm from rural New Hampshire and here's this other place that stirs up some of the same feelings" sense. Ladakh does none of that to me. Up there, the land is an alien or I am. Hard to say. Down here, I am so disgustingly human and everything is so lushly, thickly real, that I almost get dizzy. Or maybe that's just the red blood cells returning after their stint of high-altitude exile.

Driving down out of Ladakh (driving is really getting to me lately), I was sharing an ipod with my colleague Kristin. We were listening to early Bob Dyan. We were wondernig how a 22 year old ever wrote songs like that. My foot was up on the window ledge. Ladakh was turning into Himachal. We slowed to take a hair-pin turn, and there on the green embankment was a solid, shaggy, almost-black pony. We made eye contact. (We actually did). And I was washed, suddenly, in an understanding that I love Bob Dylan and I love Himachal Pradesh and I love ponies all in the same way. I can't tell you why I love them and I don't think it's my life purpose to love them, but it's in my body--I grew it there myself--and I can stifle it or fan it, but these are loves I can't kill or get bored of. Which is a reflief, really. I don't have to devote my life to my dad's favorite song writer or to Dharamsala or to horses. I can just love them because I do.

I need to set up a lecture for my students now. Otherwise they'll just drink cappuccinos all day, and we can't have that.
Love,
Emma

Mountain Goats.

sometimes i get worried that the older i get, and the more time i spend in india, the fewer eye-opening, heart-changing moments i have. actually, i would say that that IS the case.... but it's good to be reminded i can still have them. driving is usually what does it to me. call it voyeuristic, (and it is), but when you drive through india--through the villages whose names you're never going to know, past the road-workers whose lives look (to me) like hell, through all the mountains you won't ever walk over, you face yourself in a different way, suddenly. on the street, you're exposed; you're looking at the world and it's looking at you and you barely have enough person-power just to deal with chaos and confusion and hypocrisy that is (my) everyday life in india. but on a long bus ride, you pull your feet up and you cover yourself in a shawl and you put your chin on your knees and you're in india, but you don't have to face india, really, so you face yourself.

(this is arguably the most orientalist, use-distant-lands-as-a-backdrop-for-discovering-the-self thing that i've ever written. but i'm all spaced out on MSG, so go with me for a minute).

yesterday, on day three of a five day bus ride from zanskar (ladakh) to dharamsala, i was listening to the mountain goats (perhaps my favorite band) on my ipod, when my co-instructor amrit tapped my shoulder and pointed out the window. "Wild mountain goats," he said. i was listening to a song called "dance music," which is about a little kid who listens to his record player to escape the sounds of his step father abusing his mother. i was thinking about my parents (who are not at all abusive), and about their childhoods (which i'll only ever imagine, and not actually understand), and about mortality, and about all the people i'm going to lose in my life, and about all the people i've lost already. and then Amrit was pointing out the windows at the wild mountain goats (which it turned out were actually wild ibex, when we got closer to them), and the mountains around me were the biggest in the world, and i suddenly saw them, and i felt, simultaneously, how connected to them i am and how very not-connected to them i am. and i felt how much india is a part of me and how it has formed me and how much i rely on it as a formative feature in my life, and how much i'm never going to understand it. and i thought about my parents, and how formative they are, too, and how much about them i do understand, and also the parts i don't. the sound track didn't match the view outside at all, and i was somewhat carsick and somewhat cold and somewhat tired of everyone around me, but i felt an aching rush of sadness/happiness--that feeling we call nostalgia--but for which i'm still looking for a more perfect word.

and now here i am in manali, where i plan to go shopping for t-shirts and kitschy stuff that i will eventually wonder why i bought. but i'm going to buy it anyway.

love to all,
emma
p.s. don't worry--i haven't changed my name to shanti yet, and still have no plans to.

writing from the moon.

this place is wild. i'm in ladakh, by the way. and i've been here before--i spent the summer here in 2007--but now that i'm back, i'm just as struck by the sheer ridiculousness of the existence of ladakh on our planet. on a bus ride with my students yesterday, i listened to them try to make comparisons--to find similarities between this landscape and the national parks where their families vacation. and i understand the urge to make connections; in new situations, i do it, too. (ironically, on a trip to the sierra nevadas over the summer, i commented that it looked a little like ladakh...) but what a joke. this place is like no where else--not even like other places on the tibetan plateau, which are much greener, and therefore much more of-this-earth. to be honest, i don't think my body likes it here. high altitude eco systems leave me cracked and chapped and a little feverish. (and for whatever unexplained reason, i have a hard time peeing a altitude...? sounds impossible but it's true). but beyond all that, being here is a blessing. literally. ladakh's glaciers are melting, and it's not just possible, but probable, that in twenty years, people won't live here anymore. it's sickening to think about--and i'm not much of an environmentalist--but it's hard to avoid looking this particular issue in the face. usually the environment just feels so... abstract. but here, people have an extremely delicate relationship to land. deserts are tough places to live. deserts at 14,000 feet are even tougher. but ladakhis do it, and i've gotta say, they do it beautifully. we spent the last week doing a servie project at a nunnery and i fell in love with the nuns. if only for them, we've gotta save ladakh.

i suppose it's time for me to go eat some garlic soup. i'm in leh with one of my students who is sick while the rest of my group goes trekking. raju, the cook at our guest house, just came to the door and said to me, "madam, for dinner, garlic soup is perfect for you?" hard to say no to that. so i suppose that yes, garlic soup is perfect. for me.

love,
e
p.s. does any one read these things? am i writing to myself?

when is craigslist going to take off in boudha?

hi all,

do you live on boudhanath or dream of moving here? it's quiet(ish) with an active religious community, many neighborhood dogs (only some of them with mange), and home of the best fried tofu i've ever eaten. not convinced yet? i'm also sure your rent here would like about a 10th of what you pay right now, if not less than that. okay, now that you're on board, contact me if you're interested in sharing a two bedroom apartment with a beautiful rooftop, huge kitchen, balcony, spacious living (big enough for a yoga class) and two bathrooms. it's pretty worth it. the job prospects around here may not be stellar, but the situation in nepal can only get better from here on out... right? (don't quite me on that).

off to bhaktapur today. day 1 of work. wish me luck.
love,
e

please welcome

hi friends,

i'm saying a quick hi from boudha. i wrote a similar email to my parents yesterday, and my dad wrote back "hi from boudha? is that a place or your new name?" (he was kidding, i think). anyway, no, i haven't changed my name... YET. we'll see what this fall brings, though. maybe next time you see me i'll be insisting you call me shanti or dharma or something. but let's be honest--no, i won't. so yes, boudha is a place, and it's a place with an amazing, giant stupa (a religious statue you walk around to pray... but that doesn't do it justice. wish i could post a picture but i don't have one with me). it's one of the two main areas where tibetan exiles lives in the kathmandu valley (or are there more than two? someone correct me if i'm wrong) and it's where my dear friend amber works/lives. she just returned from a visit to the states and we flew here together. this morning the water was out (common in nepal). last night the electricity was out (even more common in nepal). her first day of work was getting off to a disorganized start (common to most places in the world). things were feeling a little stressful... but then she decided that this was nepal's way or welcoming her back, and i sort of like that. i, for one, have a stomache ache as i write this, which i'm going to decide is nepal's way of welcoming ME, back. so, as they say in this part of the world, "please welcome."

what do you think the odds are of this post disappearing before i finish it? i'm going with 75%.

oh, we had a couple of funny monk-meetings yesterday at the airport. the first was actually not that funny, and more awesome than anything else. we saw geshe dorjee damdul at the airport in delhi. he's HH dalai lama's translator, and i asked him if he'd be willing to speak to my students when we go to mcleod in october. he gave me a maybe, but that's not bad. i'm never very good at this whole lama thing (being super formal and respectful is somehow challenging for me. i'm way better at goofing around with people) so i always feel good when i make any kind of connection with a religious high-up. and he's such an amazing lecturer and teacher. the next meeting WAS actually funny... and to tell the story, i have to admit something embarrassing. which is that i'm reading "twlight," the teenage girl, pseudo-soft porn vampire book (don't worry--i'll be done with it before i meet my students). i was holding it while on the bus between the flight to nepal and the airport terminal, and a monk standing next to me asked me, in an american accent, if he could look at my book. turns out he's an incarnate lama, born in the U.S., recognized at 7, raised as a tulku in india, and a fan of twilight. he was a little bugged that twilight doesn't stay true to many of the original vampire myths, but he was willing to get past it because it really likes the chemistry between the two actors in the movie. just goes to show... we live in a highly connected, weird little world. and somehow those things all feel a little starker, a little more obvious, while i'm here. but it's probably because i've got my brain turned on. that said, it's good to be back.

alright, i have to head back to my room and meet amber as she'll be out of work soon and we only have one key. but i miss you all, and i hope you're doing well. the weather was so beautiful and fall-like right before i left. enjoy it. when i spend september in this part of the world, i always miss new england.

xo,
e.

first ever.

hi friends!

this is my first ever blog post on my first ever blog. let me honest: i wanted to start blogging earlier (as in, two years or so earlier), but i convinced myself blogs were for the slightly pretentious and/or geeky--and that i was too low tech. now i've come to terms with the fact that the internet is here to stay (and that i, like most of us, am obsessed with it), that blogging is designed for everyone, and that i have both pretentious and geeky tendencies (occasionally). also, in a conversation on the phone this morning, my grandfather informed me that he knows what a wiki is, so i decided it was now or never to get with the times. and blog.

so, hello, welcome, and tashi delek. i'll be using this as a space to write about my experiences in india and nepal, primarily in tibetan exile communities. if i get around to it, i might post some of the writing i've done during previous trips, but for now, you can expect current updates as i tour a group of teenagers around south asia, employed by a company we will from this point on refer to as 'Dragons.' my flight to Delhi is tomorrow and in typical emma tobin-style, i saved writing this for (almost) the last possible second. so be it.

oh... i wish i were starting this on a funnier or more insightful foot. but who's funny or insightful when it's the midnight before an international flight and she has yet to finish packing? some other blogger. may you find her and enjoy her blog.

i leave you with love and love and love and the hope that pre-trip insomnia doesn't set in,
xo,
e.