Butter for Breakfast: a day at Bigu

A view of the gumba from where I sat each morning.

First, I started all of my days at 430 am, when a giant Narnia-style horn would be blown to wake up the nuns. The gong is sounded at 5 am for puja, and all of the nuns file into the gompa to chant and pray and play music until 7 am. I get up and go do prostrations and yoga in a little meditation room and shrine across from the gompa, but I go and join the puja where I meditate and just listen to the beautiful chanting and music (they have two different kinds of trumpets and three different size drums, one larger than I am!) which even includes harmonies. There is always a cup of Tibetan tea served during puja; this is Tibetan butter tea, which literally tastes like butter and salt melted in a teacup… I think there is a little bit of tea though, because there is a brown tint in the bottom of the cup once I’ve managed to down the majority of it… it didn’t work for me in the beginning (I had to pretend it was soup), but now I’m quite fond of it.

The room where I did yoga and prostrations. Pretty sweet.

Patty with the giant drum for scale.

From 8 to 10 am there are classes; I teach English to the younger children with an Englishman named Rob. We also have classes in the afternoon, when Sam and I teach geography or spend time with Dawa (the Tibetan doctor) to practice English. I try to read about Buddhism or yoga and ayurveda in my free time, but there is little between interacting with the girls and the women, and planning lessons.

Rob-sir teaching English to nunkies.

The food is delicious, at 7 am, 11 am, and 5pm, plus tea “three times a day” (which actually means about 29 times a day). Spicy thukpa (Tibetan noodles that are kind of like dumplings), thick roti (almost like a pancake), and an amazing dal that to me tastes like really chive-y potato soup. Yum! Usually in the evenings we’d sit around the kitchen fire and sing Christmas sons. Like I mentioned before, the water comes from a stream--a huge, gushing stream--and there are no settlements above us, so it’s good to drink. Even more yum! Bigu is the perfect placement, and I’m sad I was only there two weeks, but it’s great that I had this awesome experience (every day!) and I hope to go back the next time I’m in Nepal.

Patty, Sam, and Rob around the kitchen stove fires while we sang Christmas songs.