From Brahma to Buddha, Fall 2008

Hi Everyone,

Sandy here. I haven’t read all the other blog entries, so apologies if I repeat things that have already been said.
It’s wonderful here. Delhi is so full of energy. The traffic is crazy. Everything is very hodgepodge, and helter skelter out the wazoo.
We went shopping at FabIndia a few days ago (which Tracy describes as the Indian equivalent of the GAP). We’re all decked out in our salwar kameezes. It’s fantastic. We still stick out like sore thumbs, I know, but it feels like we’re less conspicuous, and maybe the confidence that comes with that feeling makes it slightly more true. Plus they’re super excitingly beautiful.
We flew to Ladakh yesterday. It is stunning here. Everyone was breathless when we landed (and not just because of the altitude), and smiling just to be surrounded by this atmosphere. It’s beautiful—both the place itself, and to see how much everyone’s eyes light just to be in it. It’s incredible to look out across the mountains, and while most of the environment is arid and brown and dry, Leh itself (the city we’re in) is beautiful and lush(-er), built around a river. (You could see the dramatically distinct patch of green as we flew in). The guest house has the most beautiful garden, and there are these trees, that are enormously tall and reach straight up to the sky, with white trunks that I want to call stems, and dotted with light green leaves on delicate, vertical branches that shiver like glitter when the wind blows. It seems like something a child would doodle from imagination in the margin of a notebook.
The air is brisk and crisp, and it smells like the air when we go up to New Hampshire for Thanksgiving. I guess I won’t be completely missing fall.
The people are so wonderful and smiley. There is an 11 (I think?) year old boy who works here at the guest house. He is so eager to serve us, and takes such good care of us. Yesterday during dinner I went to fill up my water bottle: he saw me from the other end of the hall, said “Oh my god,” and rushed over to take the task from my hands. He smiles endlessly, says “thank you” back after we thank him, and brings us chai to no end. (ILOVECHAIILOVECHAIILOVECHAI- it’s subtle..).
Hindi lesson of the day: Mere chai atchi lakti he (-ish? I think?). (Literally: to me chai good is).
It reminds me of back home (away from home) in A.P., which I miss like a motherflippin. I wrote a letter to my Monpa babies yesterday afternoon (Sonam read it over my shoulder—his English is great and he’s so enthusiastic—and helped me spell place names right, and write Tashi Delek in Tibetan).
There are a million windswept and sun-bleached prayer flags adorning the whole town, and a haphazard ladder made out of logs, nailed together and tied with mismatched cloth and rope, leading up to the roof from where you can see everything. The architecture is so open. I could there for hours.
Today we’re going to walk around the town some, I do believe, and in a few days will be going to Domkhar to do village homestays for a week and a bit.
I’m having a wonderful time. Hope college is going excitingly for everyone there,
Love you all lots,
and lots and lots,
<3 sandy