I made it!

I've arrived safely at the monastery. We got there Thursday, late afternoon. I'm staying at the monastery in Sani, a very small town. Right now, I'm in Padum, which is the closest village with an Internet connection. It's about 9 km away, but it's still an adventure getting here.

Where to begin? I've experienced so many new and unexpected things over the past week, since I last posted. I'll try and give a brief recap.

The drive from Leh to Sani took two days. We left Leh around 9am on Wednesday, and made it to a Kargil in about 8 hours. It was a visually amazing car ride. We drove through the mountains, stopped at a monastery and saw monks chanting prayers, and went to the highest point in the Ladakh region, which was around 13,500 ft. elevation. I have a picture to prove it. The road from Leh to Kargil is the "better" road, which is a very subjective term. It was mostly paved, but there were some very rough patches. Also, it was about one and a half lanes, which made head-on traffic exciting for the passengers, wondering which driver will pull off to the side. But we made it safe and sound to Kargil. We left the next morning at 6am, for we had about a 10 hour trip ahead of us on rougher roads. It was unpaved, save a few spots when we were going through towns, but our drive handled it very well. We only had one mishap along the way. A flat tire. But our driver quickly changed it, and we were on our way.

Before leaving Leh, we decided to spend our two months in the Sani monastery. It turns out that no one had been able to tell them that we were coming, though. So when we arrived, we were not expected. It turns out that the nuns have never had a teacher come before to teach them English, and their levels vary from close to none to knowing a few words. So we have our work cut out for us. We've been able to communicate oru basic needs to the nuns, with their little English and hand gestures. We're also learning some Ladakhi. One of the nuns, who is 14, has an English and Ladakhi book, so we've been looking up phrases and having fun trying to pronounce the words.

We've had two classes so far. On Friday, we rested and tried to figure out what to do with class. Saturday was our first class, and we spent most of it trying to figure out their what they really knew. Some are quite good at writing, some need a lot of help. So, we're starting with the basics. We're going over the alphabet, learning words, and trying out phrases. Mojun brought a beggining Enligsh text so we're taking ideas from it to think of converstations to learn. Since we don't really know their language, we're teaching through meanings and symbols.

Since they've never had English teaches before, we weren't so sure how our classes would be received. But they are eager to learn, which makes it a lot less stressful. I hope that we can make some progress with them over the next two months. Actually we don't even have that much time here. We leave August 9th to head back to Leh.

Getting to Padum is a bit tricky. There is a bus that leaves once a day, but not on Sundays. Thus, I think that we'll be coming here on Mondays, but most likely every other Monday. The bus leaves around 9am, gets here around 9:30am, but the Internet cafe doesn't open until noon, and then the bus leaves around 3:30pm. So we have lots of time to sit around Padum. There's not too much to do here, it's pretty small. Today we sat in a restaurant and had tea.

I can't even begin to visually describe this place. I'm up in the mountains, surrounded on all sides. The monastery is built up a hilside above the village. From a distance, it looks as if nothing is growing on the hills. At closer inspection, one can see tiny vegetation holding onto the ground. Driving along, one is surrounded by a rocky landscape, and then all of a sudden there are green fields on either side of the road. It's spectacular. I've taken a few pictures, but I didn't bring my cord to upload them. I'll upload pictures once I return to the U.S.

I think I've written enough of a novel for now. I'll make it back in about two weeks. Until then.