Night Stop in Kathmandu

Night stop Ktm, originally uploaded by bendinggrass.

I find it almost impossible to upload photographs, which I feel like I have said over and over again, possibly boring my few readers, SO if you don't see photographs, it's not that I haven't been taking them, it just takes about a full day to upload ONE, and for those of you who know me know I don't have patience for that. Now THAT was a run on sentence :)

Nepal overall seem to be in a bit of chaos right now and although it's new for me to be in such chaos, others go about their daily lives with nothing more than a nod of the head. I just overheard a woman vaguely mention that three bombs went off last night just down the street from where she lives. I am not exactly sure why, although I am sure I could figure it out. I guess that isn't concerning and to be honest it didn't quite phase me either BUT, I think it probably should have. I am on sensory overload, which could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you view it and have JUST begun to grasp the reality that I am presently living in Kathmandu at a VERY interesting and crazy time.

Petrol is just nearly COMPLETELY exhausted and the few vehicles that roam the streets do so because of some of it illegally sliding through the black market selling at an alarming rate. There is a prediction all will be gone by the 28th, just tomorrow, and who even knows if we will be able to get from Kathmandu to Beni and even further up to Jomsom or even further, what the state will be when we finally do re emerge from the mountains. Petrol usually provides a thick fog that hangs over the city and the lack of it has allowed us to experience clear skies and equally clean air for the last few days, something I have eagerly excepted. The other night on our way back from Thamel, a usually quick taxi ride, we saw the most astounding line up of vehicles and motor bikes, all taking their place to acquire some black market fuel. Word on the street is that most people wait close to 18 hours. Our driver spoke broken English swearing off the price increase and the diminishing fuel in his own vehicle that threatened to run out and suggest a late night walk the rest of our way home. Many other cars sat in the middle of the streets, petrol expired and causeing last minute dodging as to not collide.

Yesterday, after a long day of Dolpa planning, the three of us, myself and two friends, enjoyed a cold beer on the third floor balcony of our guest house that overlooks Boudha, seemingly worlds away from the streets below. For the first time since I arrived, I felt myself breath. That kind of breath is always accompanied by a deep sigh, followed by an act of surrender, and a further act of acceptance. " I am right where I should be." my very insides said as I aimlessly got lost in the blinding, white glow that individually wrapped itself around each exploding cloud. It was the first sunset I had seen for a painfully long time and the heat from it evaporated all thoughts and concerns about our approaching trip, that threatened to take me out of my meditative state.

Christina and I spent an exhausting although exciting, five hours with Sunil, our translator and permit "go to" guy; Tsering Passang, our Tibetan translator and Dolpa guru (his hometown is Tinjegaon Dolpa) and Gumpa Sherpa, our English and Nepali translator. Although I only heard two English words come out of his mouth, he proves to be an incredible addition to our team with his HUGE smile and genuine kindness. If you take precaution I will let you in on our itinerary, minus photographs of the map (slow connection... SIGH)

A TRIP TO DOLPA (which everyone else in the world pronounces AND spells as "Dolpo" )

June 1st: Kathmandu - Gemi (bus)
June 2nd: Gemi - Tataponi (bus)
June 3rd: Tataponi - Ghasa - Jomsom (jeep/ trek)
June 4th- 9th: Jomsom - Charka (trek)
June 10th: Charka (deliver shoes)
June 11th -12th: Charka- Tinegaon (trek)
June 12th - 15th: Stay in Tinegaon and deliver shoes
June 15th -18th: Tinegaon - Shimengoan - Tinegaon (trek/rest)
June 19th- 21st: Tinegoan - Toyu (trek/ rest)
June 22nd - 23rd: Chhumagaon (stay at Monestary)
June 23rd - 26th: Chhumagaon - Ringmo Lake (trek)
June 26th - 29th: Ringmo Lake (rest)
June 29th - July 2nd: Ringmo Lake - Kageni
July 3rd : Kageni - Dunai (trek)
July 4th- 5th Dunai - Ktm (flight/ bus)

ALL SUBJECT TO CHANGE and I say that with a HUGE smile as it will most definitely change.

I am off. Too many cookies, masala tea, and computer heat. If I don't post before I go, be sure to check back at the beginning of July to see hear some INCREDIBLE stories!

ma jut.tah li.nu Dolpo

little girl and her grandmother, or so i guess

Ma jut.tah li.nu Dolpo literally translates to "I shoes to take Dolpo" which I proudly taught myself this morning. This is what I will tell people when I am asked why I am here in Nepal. I haven't had the chance to use it yet, although I did manage to ask for some green tea this morning in Nepali. A HUGE accomplishment for me.

i am not going to capitalize anything, as the shift key is nearly impossible to hold down. AND i was told no more uploading of photographs so unfortunately this photograph here is the only one you get to see. FOR NOW.

yesterday morning my intentions were clear. get up and write a post up on my blog. i have been skipping around this task for the past few days. a question that keeps popping up in my head, and there are quite a few these days, is, "how do i write this experience, in words, to those back home" the day before that, i took out Christina's computer and hacked away, fingers moving ever so fast, but glitches have it, i couldn't transfer the material over onto a disk, and so there i was, with a pen in hand, slowly writing it down.

and NOW, sitting in front of a slow computer trying helpless to get a post up before i have a meeting with my dolpo guides assistant, Sunil.


as i completed my walk around the Boudhanath stupa i noticed all the monks from a nearby monastery take a seat in front of the stupa. ( boudha is where i am staying at the moment, and nath, i have been told, means street) they chanted away as hundreds of candles were lit. a foreigner leaned into an elder monk, i presumed asked to take a photograph, and without a hint of hesitation, this photographer stuck his camera in the face of the monk and began shooting away. i slowly crept back behind the crowd of monks and put down my camera. thoughts of unworthiness settled in and all of a sudden i rethought my my duties of sponsorship. i don't have it in me. i don't have that kind of confidence and arrogance to stick my camera in someones face, into a people i don't understand, into a religion i have only begun to grasp, where a language and culture are my main barriers.


"my lens doesn't do justice of the intimacy that i need to capture" i constantly remind myself. i am NOT the photographer i thought i was or still hope i could maybe be. to capture an emotion or mood is to NOT stick a camera in a face, as the moment is then lost and the emotion is soon suppressed. my zoom is small and in order to really capture a persons face i need to step it up. a photograph can say a thousand words and yet nothing at all. a true photographer can capture all of the human senses in just one shot. the rest of us just as well put our third eye down. i struggle with the ability to humbly take a portrait. why? because sometimes i feel like it would be going into the slums of nyc and putting my lens in the face of a homeless person and then just walking away. even if the photograph comes with a few rupee bills, what? money for your pain? or is the pain my own to and the ego to think that they ARE in pain?

while i was sitting on these steps contemplating my situation, two very young girls came up to me and started motioning for the camera. i took some random photographs and pressed replay for them to see. i then motioned to see if i could take a photograph of them and they easily smiled and posed for the shot. a few moments later, their grandmother came over and sat down next to them. she then motioned for me to take their photograph. she asked in nepali, or tibetan, i am still unclear of which and smiled with incredible gratitude. she told her eldest granddaughter to sit still and took the smallest child and placed her on her lap., then told her friend to come and sit as well. there were no forced smiles, although i did occasionally get some genuine grins from the youngest. the "grandmother", reminded me of my own grandmother, bossing all the grandchildren around. it's quite the same here in that respect and i absolutely love it.



"su. dar" " rahm.ro" she said, meaning beautiful and good in nepali.



i am completely take by the people here. they are so very kind and are so beautiful that i lack the words to express just how kind and just how beautiful. to have been asked to take their photograph was just short of incredible, and actually really good luck, because i need to show that i am working on some level :)



tourists, come, eat, look, shop, put their arms around old monks while friends take their photograph. which by the way DID happen and i was so appalled all i could do was stare. i am not a tourist. i am in no rush to wiz in and out of this place. for now, kathmandu is home to me and home is a place with friends. i device of a new plan. i will sit and become situated with these people, finding out their names, families, and stories. i will communicate in their language and allow them to feel comfortable with me. i will become their friend. taking someones photograph is very personal and i have not yet mastered it but, if the opportunity arises, like the little girls and women on the stoop, then i will gratefully take their photograph. BUT only if time allows.

this is all for now. nameste.

Saged Intentions

I stare aimlessly at my computer screen wondering how to direct this post. I am failing over and over again and just end up rambling on like I am now. Last night I sat down with three of my best girlfriends, bending over my computer screen with a glass of wine close by, doing the exact same thing, roaming through JPEG files on my lap top and clicking away at website domains to pull up some info on Nepal and Kashmir for them to see. "Where IS Nepal??" they asked. And that's just fine, because a few years ago I would have asked the same question. It was pretty incredible to see them tracing their fingers over India, Pakistan, Bhutan and Nepal. "OH, THAT'S where Tibet is!" Kate yelled. THAT is priceless for all the right reasons.

It's been quite hard to explain to my family and friends, back on the East Coast, just exactly where it is that I will be heading to and WHY. The other night I sat in the hot seat, my uncle, sister and brother in law beaming red eyes at me demanding answers to the endless questions that bounced back and forth across the table at which we dined. Actually, I didn't dine at all, for lack of appetite and language to communicate with. It's hard to explain what it is that I am doing and why I am doing it. I lead a very different life and speak, metaphorically speaking, an entirely different language then the rest of my family. How do I explain, after years of formal education, that I am going to go trek some shoes into regions of the World they have never even heard of OR why I am about to place myself in sticky political situation in Kashmir to get some answers to some questions I have: How can I help supply hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris, with clean water using solar energy. They think I am crazy. I think nothing of it.

A lot has happened these past couple of weeks. Logistics have drastically changed. Airlines have backed out on their word for luggage allowance, shoes have been miss routed, and when things seem to just get absolutely impossible, I reevaluate the situation and realize a disaster isn't a disaster at all but a blessing. Quite often we wrap ourselves around an idea, or a goal to achieve and THEN, we plan out exactly how it's going to happen. I laugh out loud at that because that plan almost always fails, due to expectation or just plain foolishness, to think that WE can plan all the beautiful details. We may chose to have an experience, but the journey that takes us there is not ours to control. Choosing whether that experience or journey is positive or negative IS ours to control, but to try and control the journey will just leave us feeling drained and disappointed.

So I guess this has turned into a post about expectation, control and surrender.

The other day I was on the beach with a friend, a soul sister of sorts, and we often get together once a year and do a "sage intention" ritual. The ritual is to consciously contemplate the things that have gone on this past year and to recognize there are things we will need to let go of in order to grow. Kind of like cleaning out the closet but different. We let go of ex boyfriends, negative and old thought patterns, bad habits, etc. Things we would like to let in would be things like love, abundance, peace, laughter and such. We individually think about our specific intentions and write it down on separate pieces of paper. We then speak it out loud to each other, validating it some how, and wrap them together, tuck in some sage and burn it. Sound hippie enough to you? I think so.

A big process of the journey is to surrender to it; have a goal in mind and then surrender. It's almost like writing a "Christmas list" and handing it over to the universe, God, guru, or temple of worship, and say, "Here. This is what I want. Figure it out. Make it happen. I'll be open to receiving it." My Christmas List has just a few things including shoes, safe travels, lightness and laughter. The shoes won't get to their final destination without safe travels and lightness wouldn't happen without laughter.

Over the years our list of intentions grow smaller and smaller, more concise and less specific. BUT to have an idea of what we want and what we don't want allows us to focus our energy on making the things we want happen, and the ones we don't, well, we don't focus on those and they just end up turning into the wind. We are growing beings, ever evolving, and constantly changing our minds and our thoughts. It's important to be ok with that. To not judge it but to accept it and surrender to it.

I surrender to the fact that I am difficult to understand; in my families eyes. I surrender to the fact that this journey is NOTHING how I imagine it will be. I surrender to the fact that my life, as beautiful as it is, will have it's own agenda, rainy days and closed doors. But it's in those times that I will have to get out my map, trace my fingers along some lines, and create a new plan, one that will most diffidently stay liquid.

I am going to leave you all with a glimpse of my intentions.

Lose fear.
Welcome in possibility.

Let go of Loss.
Let in abundance.

Release used up tears.
Gather in laughter.

Create the grandest expression of yourself.
Inspire other's to do the same.