well, i'm back from kinnaur. (back in shimla, that is. i go back to the u.s. on friday.) of my entire trip to india, these last six weeks have by far been the best part. and, at the risk of sounding hyperbolic, these last six weeks have quite possibly been the best six weeks of my life. really.
there's too much to write about to go into much detail, but the hilights of kinnaur included:
- learning traditional kinnauri dances and songs;
- an impromptu 4-day trip to kanam, in upper kinnaur, where i spent 2 days with a lama and his wife and son (!) chatting about selflessness, equanimity, and jesus and the catholic concept of transubstantiation in a strange combination of broken tibetan and hindi;
- trekking around the mountainside, picking wild mushrooms and almost getting stranded in a thunderstorm 2 hours from the nearest shelter;
- trying to talk to old ladies who speak no english and no hindi (the kinnauri language is completely unrelated to any other languages in the area);
- laughing until my stomach hurt literally every single day;
- and spending time with some of the kindest, most amazing people i have ever met in my life.
yesterday, saying goodbye to all of the jomos (nuns) was really, really hard. when i left varanasi, i was ready to go, ready to say goodbye, ready to go back to america. but yesterday, i was incredibly sad. one nun made me some socks, others cooked my favorite foods, and they all wrote letters or drew pictures for me. after tea, each jomo placed a garland of nuts around my neck. (this is the kinnauri equivalent to tibetan kata, or hawaiian leis.) as each nun approached me to say goodbye, they started to cry. this made me start to cry, which made them all cry even more. even "api", the 75-year old nun with whom i could only communicate via sign-language, was crying.
i took lots of pictures, and when i get back to the u.s., i'll put them all up online. i've been out of email contact since i went up to kinnaur, and i'm going to be travelling from now until i get home on friday night, but within the next couple of weeks, i'll catch up on all my emails, etc. so if you haven't heard from me in a while, i promise i'll write/call soon!
