Those of you that know me well know that I’m not a thrill-seeking guy. My thrills often come intellectually, not adrenally, and even those over the years have been muted somewhat as I’ve gotten even more conservative in my choice of academic delights. Nonetheless, this past year I’ve gone white-water rafting in the U.S. twice before coming to Nepal.
The first trip, my first time white-water rafting, was in early May in eastern Massachusetts. I signed up for the trip through the Graduate Student Council at Harvard several weeks in advance, thinking that surely by early May it will be warmer. This, sadly, was not the case. Spring in MA often comes with April showers which bring May showers. Flowers we get, but this past year spring was marred by persistant rain for something like eight weekends in a row.
Temperatures in the low 50s with a persistant drizzle is not my idea of a good time. I don’t think I’ve ever been quite so cold in my life, even with a Farmer John wetsuit, a waterproof windbreaker, and booties. Add approximately 100 middle school kids on a trip in the surrounding rafts and an extremely slow agonizing 3 hour trip, and you can imagine how my discomfort grew expontientally. However, my raftmates, all grad students from Harvard, and the guide, an older gentleman from England, made this foot-numbing trip as pleasant as possible. It is ironic that all the people in my raft were all from hot-weather climes: Israel, New Delhi, Texas, and Los Angeles. This trip was mainly class II rapids with one class IV rapid right before lunch. This was the highlight of the trip, and the rafting company took pictures of us going through this. Needless to say, after lunch, despite consuming four cups of coffee, I had no desire to get back into the raft since all we had to look forward to was piddly dinky little rapids.
My second trip was in early June with my sister and a group from her theatrical company in Knoxville. Theater people are lovely, especially those from Tennessee, if somewhat tiring with all that drama, armwaving, and excessive emoting. I love the South, especially since I have spent the past four years in the Northeast. I love the gentility, the friendliness, the “those damn Yankees” attitude which I increasingly share. Of course, these benefits mask horrific spectres such as rampant racism, profound ignorance, and poor taste in sports, such as NASCAR, baffling to me because it consists solely of a left turn for several hours. Even so, these things are endemic to American life as a whole, so you might as well enjoy pleasant weather and the occasional nip of moonshine. Even the humidity is different in the South from Boston, a soft kiss as you slowly sweat, and Knoxville felt like home to me.
I was paired off in the front of the raft with my sister, and we had a great time, especially since it wasn’t raining, and the temperature was in the balmy 80s. Add to this a nice set of Class IV rapids and this was a much more exciting trip than my first time out rafting.
I went to see cham, so-called "lama dancing" at Shechen monastery yesterday. It's to avery obstacles for the Tibetan New Year which is Tuesday. I don't know much about cham, so I've included a lot of pictures. It's involves a lot of leaping and takes hours.
Crane style. People whistled like mad when this group of four dancers came out. Why, no one I asked has any idea, even T.J. and that boy knows. I thought it was because two of the dancers have bird masks. Tibetan ritual is rock sometimes, to quote T.J.
