Approaching the End

We are very fast approaching the end of our stay in Dharamsala and it feels sad. Yesterday we bought our tickets for the bus back to Delhi on Sunday. My last day of work will be Friday--me and Tenam took leave on Saturday so that we can all go to Bir. They have work here on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays. My work is going quite well and I am just proofreading and adding bits to my report. I've enjoyed it.

Looking back on my blog, I realize that I left out something that has been great during our time here, which is that Dickyi has been kind of involved with someone during our stay here--a very good friend of her brother's who is a doctor in Dharamsala. Anyways, I won't say too much more because I don't want to embarrass anyone, except that I think everyone involved was glad that it happened. But that kind of thing makes it even harder to leave.

Yesterday I ate lunch in the office, like I do everyday, and they had this dish that looked like green beans and tomatoes and onions. I took a little and ate what I thought were a couple beans. Turns out they were very hot chillies. I eat lunch quickly and then I go to the cafe in Ghangyi (I think that's the right spelling) to hang out with Tenam and sometimes Dickyi. Tenam's friend was there. He works in parliament full-time and he was cracking everyone up. He just had really funny mannerisms. I am seriously amused by certain mannerisms here. The other day we were hanging out with SFT people, and the head of SFT here, Chou Ying (sp), who is such a cool person, turned to me and said "You know, music is a particular passion of mine", dead serious. It really wasn't that kind of conversation and it was just really funny because it seemed like he was taking himself so incredibly seriously. Also I'm pretty sure that music is a particular passion of everyone's. Chou Ying has a Canadian girlfriend who is going to U of T also next year. She's nice and we're going to see both of them at SFT camp when we get back to NY.

Me and Tenam made plans to go to Dharamcode (sp)with Dickyi yesterday, which is apparently very beautiful, but it started raining at around 4:40 and just kind of kept going, on and off. Dickyi, who had spent the day with someone who had come up especially from Bir to see her ahem just missed the rain when she came to pick me up from work and it wasn't raining when we walked home. The walk back is long and steep and kind of like mountain climbing and Dickyi was tired, but we had a lot to talk about so it was fun. When we got up to McLeod we shopped around a little bit and then went home. Last night, we made dinner for the family. It was almost a disaster and the power went off a few times, but it turned out well in the end. After dinner, we met up with Tenam and Japan and Tenkyi at Mcllo, which is like the cool restaurant to hang out in here. It was raining while we were inside, but it was like as soon as we stepped out, the sky cleared. Crazy. The bad thing about Mcllo is that it is kind of sketchy because it is where Tibetan guys go to try to pick up injees, or foreigners. I had Gulab Jamun which is so very good there because they heat it up.

Everyone here assumes that if you are foreign, you are a slut. Apparently lots of foreign girls come here and have affairs with Tibetan guys. It's fine for Dickyi because she is Tibetan, but everyone knows I am injee so I have to be paranoid about what people think and it's a bit annoying because Dickyi said people think things immediately if you even talk to a guy. I have to turn down perfectly good bike rides to and from work from Tenam because I don't want people to think that we are more than just friends. I've ridden his bike other times, not to and from work, though, and it is really really fun. I've never ridden anyone else's bike except for Japan's last night, but Dickyi is addicted to bike rides and rides on anyone's bike (jk, but not really), but it is OK for her because she is Tibetan. Anyways, there's a reason I was talking about bike rides and it is this: last night, after mcllo, japan and dickyi wanted to go swimming so we decided we would go to bhagsunad, the pool. japan and tenam both had their bikes but tenam had to go back and get something so japan gave me and dickyi a ride back to the house to pick up dickyi's swim stuff. No sooner had we turned the corner from Mcllo than we were stopped by indian police officers. Japan, like all Tibetans in Dharamsala, is fluent in Hindi so we watched him talk his way out of a ticket for having three people on a bike. He was dropping names, he was really working it. The police officers not only let us go, but said that we could all ride on the bike. Apparently the restaurant that Japan's family owns, which is like one of the top restaurants in Mcllo, is landlorded by this very powerful Indian guy so all Japan had to do was keep dropping his name and talking about how they were very good friends.

We all went to the pool and D and J went swimming, which was crazy because the water was way too cold. Afterwards they were of course freezing, so we tried to find somewhere that was still open to have tea. We went to one place, but it was closed. We went to another place and I am telling you I could not believe my eyes. It was an outside cafe jam packed with rasta foreigners beating drums in a circle and dancing like tribal African dances. WTF. This Israeli looking guy was outside, welcoming us, telling us to have a seat and relax. Me and Dickyi just burst out laughing--it was too funny. I don't know where these people come from and how they think it is ok to be so ridiculous in a public place. I also don't know how this place hasn't been burnt down by the neglected, lit ends of joints. So we left and went to this other place that was also for rasta foreigners but not as much. I avoided eating anything there as it was probably laced with hash. I was so sleepy by this point because it was 1 and I was falling asleep at the table. We left soon after and I almost fell asleep on the bike ride back, except that it was such a beautiful night and I was kind of scared that someone would come up behind me from the pitch blackness. Shiver.

One interesting thing happened last night. As we were leaving the cafe, Dickyi and Tenam and Japan were talking animatedly about something to do with Indians and Tibetans. I couldn't understand, but when me and Dickyi got back, I asked her about it. She said that Japan was talking about how Indians are so rude here, and how at his restaurant, Tibetans always say "Thank-you" when you give them their food and Indians never do. Dickyi pointed out that Tibetans only do that to other Tibetans and not to Indians. Tenam said that Indians don't say thank-you to other Indians either. This dynamic between Tibetans and Indians is very weird here. Tenam says that although Tibetans have more money in general (in Dharamsala at least), Indians have the legal advantage because they are passport carrying citizens. It is hard for Tibetans to get an Indian passport here because of the race factor. The best place to get one is Shillong or Dharjeeling, which is where Japan got his. This is because these areas are in the Northeast, so people look asian, and also because many of the natives there have Tibetan names because they are Buddhist. Japan says that he has a very hard time with his Indian passport because of his looks. People give him trouble. Japan seems really affected by racism by Indians towards Tibetans while being racist against Indians himself. Mysteres et boules de gomme.

Anyways, it looks like the monsoon season has started early here and that is what everyone is saying. That makes it a little bit easier to leave.