Extreme Trial and Error...

It's high time I informed you of my Tibetan language skills. I have lived in Lhasa for only two and a half months; just long enough to clean the apartment, begin to buy vegetables with ease, learn to ride a bike, memorize 160 student names, and get a slight grasp of a few Tibetan phrases and words.

My friend, Drolker, works tirelessly with me to increase my ever short supply of correctly pronounced Tibetan phrases, despite the fact that I am a horrible, and easily distracted, student.

So when I speak of my Tibetan language skills, I should really speak of my lack there of.

But then I got on the bus this afternoon.
Little did I know it, but this bus ride would be language learning in the extreme.

The bus was empty when I got on, but after a few minutes every seat was taken. Indeed the fact that there were no seats left did not stop the bus driver for stopping for a group of pilgrims which consisted of one man and about a dozen women of varying ages on their way to Sera Monastery. Each of the women was wearing a bright scarf over her hair and the long traditional dress and multi-colored apron. They, with their coral and silver jingling over the swish of skirts, packed themselves into the narrow isle of the bus as the squeaky door slammed shut and it sputtered off to the next stop.

I was the most interesting thing they'd seen all day. I am sure of this because the woman who was squished next to me never took her eyes off me as she muttered to the other women and everyone else on the bus "chigye... chigye" (foreigner... foreigner). So with her eyes burning holes in my skin I decided to try out one phrase that I was fairly sure of and choking back my pride and wracking my brain for everything Drolker had ever said to me, I turned to her and slowly asked "keran debuimbeay?" (how are you?)

Well this produced ripples of reaction all over the bus long before I got an answer from the girl I had spoken to. The student sitting behind me suddenly leaned forward and the bus helper (the girl employed to take money and open the door) shouted over the crowd to the driver what I had just said, repeatedly... just to make sure that no one missed it, the chigye had said "how are you?"

If this pilgrim girl, not to mention the rest of the bus, had been interested in me before, now they were all spellbound. She replied "debuyi" (fine) and the conversation continued as follows:

Me: "ran mingla kade sigkeeu?" (what is your name)
Girl: "Lhamdra... ran mingla?" (Lhamdra... what about your name?)
Me: "Kelly"
Lhamdra: something I didn't understand but I thought it was: what do you do?
Me: "nga gela" (I am a teacher)
Lhamdra: "lhogba... ran lho catsire?" (age... how old are you?)
Me: "nga... nee... nee shoo sum" (I'm... two... twenty-three)
Lhamdra: something else I didn't understand but pointing to the boxes of candy in my lap that I had just bought for my students.
Me: "nga gela..." point to the candy, "jeenee... lobto" (I'm a teacher, sugar... student) hey it's the best I could do.
Lhamdra: something else I didn't understand but she was using her hands like she was praying... I was really confused.

Add to my confusion that this whole time the bus helper girl has been yelling out all of my responses with glee to anyone who was interested, and they were, and these pilgrim women had been exchanging comments among each other after my every broken attempt. Not to mention the fact that I thought the student sitting behind me would end up in my lap for how far he was leaning into the conversation.

Luckily my stop was coming right up... I tugged on the sleeve of the bus helper girl and in the best Chinese I could muster (which, if you can believe it, is even sketchier than my Tibetan) said "ting yi sha, shi xiao" (stop the bus at the teacher's college). Candy in hand I jumped off the bus and with a wave and a grin called out "caleshu!!!" (good-bye) and, with what could have been either amusement or relief, at least half the bus called out "pe-oh" (good-bye).

Nga puyi junkee yu (I am learning Tibetan)... and I have a long, long way to go...