An instant noodle day

Instant noodle day: noun:

The type of day where you wake up exhausted and tempted to never leave your bed or pajamas, force yourself to go teach even though you are hollow on the inside, and return four hours later in the emotional state where the only thing that you have the energy to eat, or that even seems right to eat, is a bowl of instant noodles.

That was today.

However, somehow, in the very midst of my instant noodle day, steak dinner and three scoop ice cream cone day started to nestle its way in.

Steak dinner and three scoop ice cream cone day: noun:

The type of day where you see a teacher in the office who you've made it your goal of the semester to get invited over to his home to eat dinner with him and his family (an ambitious goal seeing as how this teacher is "always busy" and painfully shy) and have the following conversation in your semi-exhausted, emotional fragile, instant noodle day mood:
me: so what did you do this weekend?
him: nothing, I at home
me: oh did you cook noodles?
him: no I am very busy
me: I heard you make really good noodles
him: who tell you this?
me: this other teacher, you cook noodles for her but not for me...
him: I will check my time, maybe you can come to my home and I will make you noodles.
SUCCESS! How to reach a goal in two weeks? Let the Almighty take over...

The type of day where you force yourself out of the house after a lunch of instant noodles to just go and buy something for the sake of getting out of the house and in the midst of forcing yourself not to let your head hang so low as you walk you notice your student shuffling toward you who has a history of emotional instability in class, and she happens to be looking glum, so you take the time to sit with her on a nearby pipe and find out that her emotional instability is well founded, her situation is tragic and typical of all your students. In the course of a thirty minute conversation, that probably should have taken only ten but adding time for language barriers, you are able to assure her that she is valued and set up a time to get together to make dumplings. The Lover of our souls has a tendency to use dumplings to speak grace into people's lives...

The type of day where you are reminded that steak and three scoop ice cream cones have absolutely nothing on the wedding feast of the lamb...

The type of day where instant noodles aren't even considered real food.

That was today.

Home sweet home was never in reference to a place...

Maybe it was the baking powder I found in some tiny, extremely cluttered little shop and in my joy bought for a mere six kuai.

Because something, imperceptible at times, has changed around here for me.

No longer do my shoulders sag from a glance around my sparsely decorated and usually acutely smelly apartment: I found a stationary store and made a day of decorating the walls with a few pictures and verses I find encouraging, and a timely box of scented candles sent by a saint in America has given those horrifying smells a massive setback. My apartment has become a place that is warm, well lit, with plants... a place I can make biscuits.

No longer is my breathless request before entering the classroom one for courage to make it through the period: instead it is one marked by specific mentions of students whom I have spent time with and gotten to know and come to see and love in a way that can only come from Him who sees and loves first, one filled with affirmation and praise to the One who is Holy.

No longer do I cringe and need to force myself to put on my brave face before stepping into a store or market: I know how to get what I need, I am not daunted by the fact that the stares never cease, or that the whole street will be talking about my purchases within moments, or that I am sure to look like an idiot no matter what I do or don't do. What is more, I find that in my most frequented stores I always get a friendly smile, some Chinese chatter, and usually a hug and a discount to go along with that.

No longer am I dismayed by being the circus freak of campus, to be stared at and possibly shouted at but otherwise gingerly avoided: I have been invited into various teachers' homes whom I would have been delighted to have a mere second glance from, I have seen their pictures, I receive their text messages and phone calls to come and visit or go out to eat or play a game of badminton, I greet them (in one of three languages) cheerfully in the office, on the street, in the halls, on campus, and find myself filled with an increasing sense of community.

Maybe it was the baking powder, or maybe it was the fact that for the first time since arrival in Asia I am finally taking Him seriously... isn't it true that you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of His household... why did I ever let myself believe that this was contingent upon being in a place where you can know and be known with ease?

I may very well be a stranger here, and a strange one at that, but one thing is certain... I am a citizen also.

And the overwhelming relief, comfort, and gratitude that wells up inside my soul at that thought cannot possibly be the result of warm biscuits in the toaster oven, however edifying those may be.

If you give a Kelly an invite...

If you give a Kelly an invite, she's gonna take you up on it.

When she takes you up on it, she'll probably get some of your other classmates to go to lunch too.

When she's in the cafeteria with you, she'll probably eat anything you order and consume massive amounts of sweet tea.

When she's finished eating, she'll want to greet all of her other students who are present in the cafeteria.

She'll start to chat with them. She might get carried away and chat with anyone else who happens to say 'hello' or be present in the cafeteria.

When she's done, she'll probably want to rest.

So you'll have to invite her back to your dorm room. She'll go in and make herself comfortable and she'll probably ask you to show her some pictures.

So you'll end up showing her pictures of your childhood and offering her handfuls of walnuts and dried yak cheese.

When she notices her pockets getting stuffed with that hardened yak cheese, she'll look at her watch and realize that it's time for her to go.

So you'll show her to the door, and some other students will welcome her into their dorm rooms and play songs for her on their keyboards and offer her more dried up things and hard cheese.

When she realizes that she might be there all day and end up with more dried things than her pockets or stomach can handle, she will insist that it's really time for her to go.

So you'll show her to the door and as she's leaving you'll remember to invite her to do something else on another day.

And if you give a Kelly an invite...

she's gonna take you up on it.

Hold the train and let me tell you about Losar!

Woah people.

What on earth was I doing going on with my life (which recently has been crammed with stuff, cool, His, and otherwise, happening) and not even stopping to tell you about the Losar festivities?

Cause missing Losar would be a huge loss, particularly to a blog.

The Basics:

• Losar is how they say "New Year" in Tibetan. As in Losar Tashi Deleg! (Good fortune in the new year!)
  
• It's a fifteen day celebration in which families get together, consume outrageous amounts of food and alcohol, and wear their new clothing.
  
• Much of the traditions which take place during Losar are from Bon religious practices meant to appease the gods in hopes for a good year ahead.
• The seond day of Losar begins the period of visitation where familes will rotate around different realitives houses and guests are invited.
  

The Real Deal (part 1):

• The second day of Losar a teammate and I go to visit the family of a guy who became friends with us after meeting us in the street one day.
• Present at this house: Three uncles, at least three aunts, seven neices, a mom, a few random neighborhood folks, and us two white people.
  
• For lunch: sweet tea, butter tea, chang (Tibetan beer, politely declined), raw meat, dried meat, fried bread, two kinds of meat dumplings, pickeled vegetables, and sweets.
  
• Activities of note: Pictures with everyone in the family multiple times, dress up in their spare Tibetan clothes and more pictures, long conversations about a mysterious lama, learn how to make sweet tea, learn how to play 'sho', refuse chang and cigarettes multiple times, leave exhausted four hours later.
  

The Real Deal (part 2):

• The fourth day of Losar we go to meet this same guy, we are taken to a different relatives home in a different part of the city.
  
• Present at this house: all the same folks as before, plus an additional four or five Chinese businessmen/collegues.
  
• For lunch: sweet tea, hot water, sodas, chang (politely declined), raw meat, dried meat, boiled meat, some meat dipping spice, fried bread, chicken feet, pickeled meat, rice, huge variety of vegetable dishes.
• Activies of note: playing games with some of the younger cousins, discussing remedies for hangovers with drunk uncles, more pictures with more family, getting to hold a four month old baby and hum 'Jesus loves me' over him, refuse chang and cigarettes multiple times, leave exhausted three and a half hours later.

Losar was fun. Really. Highly reccommended. Tashi deleg everyone!

Many are the plans in a man's heart...

But His decree will prevail.

Friday:
I was bummed because I had no plans of my own.
He was elated, and took the time to draw me up the mountain behind our school to see from above the eagles circling the city that indeed He is enthroned above the circle of the earth, and be reminded that indeed its inhabitants are like grasshoppers.

Saturday:
I was frustrated with a cell phone conveniently running out of money.
He was ecstatic, and sent four primary school age Muslim children trundling after me, straining my Chinese language abilities to the breaking point and offering me their melting popsicles from their grubby, outstretched hands. All to assure me that unless you are changed and become like children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven...

I was grimly trapped in a restaurant because of a sudden, ferocious sandstorm.
He was free, and felt compelled to use that moment to grant me the opportunity to encourage one another and build each other up, as well as meet an unbelieving colleague.

I was late coming home after some failed attempts to find an open Nepali store.
He was right on time, and I got to spend the evening with my two closest co-teachers catching up on our long winter breaks apart and understanding more and more that no one lights a lamp and puts it under a basket...

Monday:
I was delayed after class and rushing to a lunch appointment.
He was calm, allowing events to pile up in such a way that I could meet my new neighbor, exchange a few words, and beg Him for another chance to make the most of the time because the days are evil.

I was forced out of a dinner and subsequently late for a meeting.
He was totally satisfied, having sent a group of students knocking at my door bearing plastic bags of assorted bread products, dried yak meat and cheese, nuts, fruits, and an obviously hand-patted sack of yak butter. I was full too, knowing that my food is to do the will of Him who sent me.

I was disappointed from a long-awaited, twice-interrupted phone call from a friend.
He was joyful, and arranged for a small gathering at my apartment during which I had the chance to meet two volunteer teachers at this school and marvel again and again that His decree will, in fact, prevail.

Many are the plans in my own heart... but really, His are better by far.

Part 1: "I'm gonna go visit the yak." - Qinghai

Tomorrow morning at 11am when the first train of many pulls away from the platform I guess I'll find out... sigh. Learning to trust is so difficult.

My mind swirled with these thoughts as I boarded the 25 hour long train ride taking us to Xining. I have mentioned that I love trains so I won't go into this particular ride, besides it was only one part of three which would take us to our first destination: village.

A three hour bus ride into desolation, and a forty-five minute taxi ride over the most pot-holed, about to drop off a sheer cliff face, winding dirt road you can imagine left us at the gate of our abode for the next week. Picture mud walls, mud streets, everything the same milky tea color of brown, and the most mind numbing view of sparse open mountainside you can dream of. And while you're at it, think cold... that that clear piercing cold that you can't shake off and you can't anticipate.

For one week we had a routine: wake up in the late morning to one of the brothers stoking the room's stove with yak dung, mosey into the family's room to eat our fill of freshly made bread, and drink our fill of milky, salty, stick tea. Do one (or more) of the following: ride motorcycles down that ridiculous dirt road that brought us to the village, herd the (singular) yak, make some pitiful attempts to gain respect of other villagers at archery, attempt to and succeed at riding wild donkeys and family yaks, wander around the village and chase pheasants, hang out with the brothers, play with local children, eat pig's tail, raw meat, blood sausage, glass noodles, or momos, watch an NBA game with the old Amdo mother, pester sister in law by insisting on helping with household chores, roast peas on the stove before calling it an early night.

For one week we didn't change a single lick of clothing. We didn't have any kind of access to plumbing (unless you count the really deep hole outside occasionally blocked by the family's (singular though formidable) yak. We didn't even once bother to look at our watches because it didn't take us long to realize that time stands still in a place like this.

However, we did get to be a part of an overwhelmingly hospitable and hilarious family. We were stuffed to the brim with all kinds of delicious, though predictable, food. We had the most amazing view of the stars at night. We had freedom to do or not do whatever we liked.

And how do I begin to describe to you what it felt like to have this Amdo Tibetan family (with no English skills aside from one member) teach us patiently to make momos and square noodles? Or how thrilling it can be to move from a guest of honor to someone who is asked to help feed the animals or allowed to dry the dishes? Or the singularity of having my hair brushed and braided by two brothers who have never attempted the feat before, and that with a foreigner? Or how, in the midst of langugae and culture barriers to the extreme, moments of sincere understanding can make one rise from the round piece of wood being used as a stool to give a hug to an unsuspecting sister in law?

I am indebted to this family and my time here far more than I can describe or understand. One week which felt like a heartbeat (albeit a progressively filthier one) and then a forty-five minute taxi ride, three hour bus ride, and twelve hour train ride to the next stop...

and so ends... or so began... my journeys.

Part 1: Qinghai in pics