Finding Happiness in the Himalayas: Tashidelek Losar!

For the past week and a half my family has been preparing for the Tibetan New Year; Losar (check out the link!) Our apartment only consists of two rooms (my room and the alter room/living room/parents bed room/kitchen) however every day my amala spends the day cleaning and prepping for the holiday. (What she does exactly I do not/will not ever know). But every morning at breakfast my pala will state his count down that he has going on “Ahhh Megan La, 5 days till Losar…3 days till losar” he says.

Now, the night before the day before Losar, the holiday has even begun. I came home last night and was asked to help make the “special tentook”. Basically what we did was hand pull noodles and cook them into the vegetable based broth. Then the coolest part of it all was the fortune telling. My amala wrote down seven different words on different pieces of paper, which she tore into small pieces. Then she took seven pieces of dough and put the fortunes in each ball of dough. The whole soup was cooked, including the dough balls with fortunes inside, and served into our bowls. My amala served us each one dough ball and we proceeded to drink our tentook. (In Nepal/Tibet you drink soup…you do not eat it.) Once we finished our meal we all opened our fortunes. Here is what we got: amala got mandala beads which means that you are committed. Pala got beans, which he could not stop laughing about—it means you are boring and strait edged; he thought this was a really bad one. I got katszapo, which means spicy in Tibetan. My fortune means that I talk a lot? While the fortunes did not really describe us very well they were still very fun!

Today, the day before Losar, my family is still prepping. We went on a HUGE shopping spree at the biggest super market I have ever seen. (Bigger than the Nakumatts in Nairobi). Aaaanyhow, after 2 hours of walking around the supermarket we settled on six 2 liter soda bottles, 12 liter jugs of fruit juice (all different brands), 5 bags of chips, s’more cookies (ALERT: PALM OIL!!!), SO MUCH CHOCOLATE, baked goods and ingredients for pizza (my family wants me to make pizza for Losar). Oh…we also got over $100 USD worth of alcohol. If you can’t tell my family is VERY excited for Losar.

Our...yummy...cart

Going crazy in the candy department

The celebration lasts for 15 days, but I will only be able to celebrate for 4 days because I leave to go to Bhutan on March 5^th. We will be in Bhutan for 3 weeks! I am VERY excited to go. We have been studying a lot about Bhutan and have even been fortunate (?) enough to see some Bhutanese films!

I do not know what my Internet situation will be like in Bhutan. (Fun fact: Bhutan got the first TV in 1999 and internet came shortly after that!). I will keep you updated as much as I can but don’t count on too much contact. Please send emails and such—however my Nepal phone will be out of commission…as I am in Bhutan.

OTHER THINGS I DID THIS PAST WEEK!