I Was Flying in My Dreams Last Night

Really. It was a funny dream. I was out on a road with some old frisbee friends; not the older ones, but the younger ones. The ones that would generally respect and listen to me (whether such things were due or not!). The road was encapsulated by forests. Some were driving, but I distinctly remember running. I would run and then it was as if the earth would descend below me, but I would remain in the air. It was frightening, at first, to be soaring; to not have supports below me. Eventually, though, I began to enjoy it.

That's kind of what it's like to be here. There is very little to stand on. The most obvious example would be language. I have a very preliminary understand of Chinese; enough to survive, but certainly not enough to converse. Attempting to communicate in the most simple forms is somewhat intimidating. And then there is Tibetan. When living in Charlottesville I could impress my friends with my ability to talk to the vendors downtown. I could ask them how they're doing, the weather is nice today, isn't it? and have you met the new visiting Tibetan in town yet? If we hit any difficult points in the conversation, I could always descend back into English. I do not have such luxuries here.

Yesterday I started working. My task was to find a Tibetan Lama with whom we are collaborating. Apparently somewhere along the line he was not paid the price which we had promised him, so it was my job to find him and settle the miscalculation. I had no idea where he lived, so I called him and gave the phone to the taxi driver with whom I could barely communicate. This proved to be a key tactic. We drove quite a long way and I found myself in a corner of the city which I, of course, had never seen before. I walked into the alleys of the apartment complex, speaking on the phone and seeking my Lama. I heard a bit of an echo in his responses and, looking up to a garage-like vendor, I found a man wearing a golden shirt and a long saffron robe. He motioned for me to follow, and I did.

We walked down the concrete jungle, passing many cocked Chinese eyes, the tall blue-eyed American and trailing the robed highlander; both with freshly shaven heads. I'm sure it was quite the sight. I was excited to come to his home and, apparently, place of work. He introduced me to his colleague, another monk wearing all saffron and toting a string of white prayer beads. I eventually learned that his way of speaking Tibetan was much more entrenched in the Eastern dialect and he knew very little Chinese. It made me feel like speaking to the primary Lama was much easier. And so, after sipping some black tea, we got down to business. I was shown to the workshop inhabited by six or seven young Tibetan women, inputting the Tibetan Kangyur simultaneously. Before I entered I had heard joyous conversation, giggles, and Chinese pop music. When I entered, however, all I could hear was the constant clacking of keyboards; the sound of transforming some of the oldest Tibetan texts into a new, digitized form. It looked like hard, but wonderful, work. I think that I made the young women a little edgy in the work, so we left, joked around in the Lama's room a little more, and I went on my way.