Monday, March 7, 2011

A week in pictures

A week in pictures

 Thousands of sadhus gather at the Pashnupati ghats on March 2nd for Mahashivarati to celebrate the birthday of Shiva, the Hindu God of distruction
They conduct rituals including copious amounts of marijuana while Hindu boys and western onlookers wander through their makeshift camps

 Dusk at the ghats-- burning bodies thrown into a sacred river

 Meanwhile, Tibetans on the other side of town are setting up for Losar, the Tibetan New Year. Tashi Delek, year of the Femal Iron Rabbit, year 2138! This is the alter set up in my room, the shrine room, stacked high with sweets and other offerings.
 A close up of one of the stacks of goodies-- candy, biscuits, bananas, oranges, kapseh (fried dough)
 Offering bowls of the usual water, but now also nuts, dried cheese and fruit, butter sculptures, fruit...
The trash pile/public toilet on my way to school-- sketch at night
Anyone else think that "hilarious" was a strange adjective to describe cookies?
2011 in the states, 2138 in Tibet, and its currently 2067 in Nepal... man I'm confused.
Vegetable sellers...
Fruit stands... so beautiful and tempting, but dont eat the non-peelable fruit!

Kapseh and candy for breakfast. Tibetans do dessert in the morning
Chang- Tibetan wine/alcohol like substance-- most families wake up at 4 or 5 on Losar to drink a cup, I had mine at breakfast. The floating bits are dried and fried cheese. Surprisingly unoffensive.
My little sister zhang-mo broek her arm walking down the stairs! but shes still smiling :-)
Lots of momos- tibetan dumplings- for dinner on the second night of losar
Momo making
Tibetan script caligraphy class followed by chang, Tibetan music, and dancing. As my host father says "Too much chang and later dancing!"
We played cards for alomst 5 hours on the first day of Losar, when everyone stays inside with their families. i lost 30 rupies, but my host sister lost 200!

An attempt to draw the buddha eyes so prevelent around here made for a very sad looking Buddha...
I made pasta for my family on the last day of Losar-- and took this picture for my mother, as i believe we have one of Torie that looks quite similar.
Little girls in traditional Tibetan dress for Losar!
The monk procession including a photo of the Dalai Lama
 
The final destination of the procession-- chanting and prayers on the last day of Losar. The end.

And now I'm off to Bhutan for almost two months, touring around the country with my class and then set free for my independent study project-- a look at Bhutanese education and what it might have to offer the West-- for four more weeks. I dont know if I'll have internet, but I'll post if I can. If not, look for another post when I return in May! Happy trails,
Andrea

1 comment:

  1. Andi this was soooo cool!!!!!! I'm actually in a Tantric Buddhism class right now and its super interesting though I have to admit it's making me scratch my head a little bit. Can't wait to read more and see pictures from Bhutan cuz these ones were already awesome!

    ReplyDelete