The Man in the Moon

Leh, Ladakh.

We were staying in a beautiful guesthouse in a small village called Changspa just outside of Leh. It was just off the road, encircled by apricot trees and a beautiful garden. Adam and I would creep around the garden inspecting the new vegetables, and decided that we would make a dinner for our friends that night. We got permission to share the kitchen with the Ladakhi family that owned the guesthouse, and set off to the market to bargain endlessly for whatever vegetables we couldn't find in the garden.

Adam was our chef, and I kept him company in the kitchen and translated as the Ladakhi family prepared their own dinner. The family kept me laught with a running commentary through the evening: on my clothes (What are you wearing? Don't you have a chuba to keep you warm?), my marital status (you really should marry a nice Tibetan man), and our dinner plans (what the hell is custard? & don't you people eat rice?). While I was stirring the pumpkin-mango soup, Momo-la (grandmother) burst into the kitchen shouting something about the Dalai Lama. Ladakhi is a Tibetan dialect, but many of the words are unfamiliar to me, and often I could not understand more than the gist of someone's conversation if they were not committed to feigning a Lhasa dialect to communicate with me. I had no idea where Momo-la wanted to take me, and while she was pulling me out the door, Adam was left standing over the pot yelling "What about the Dalai Lama? Is he here? Outside?" I told him to follow us, and ran along to catch up with Momo-la.

She ran around to the side of the house, climbed up a huge mound of earth like a mountain goat and proceeded to yank me up there with her. We stood under the light of a gorgeous full moon, and she said to me, "Look - you can see the face of His Holiness in the moon. Can you see it?" This time I understood her. And with that, she pressed her wizened hands into prayer position over her heart, and began to recite the long-life supplication for the Dalai Lama. I looked up and realized that people in the neighboring house were leaning out there windows and standing on their roofs, all doing the same.

Adam came running out, anxious and expecting His Holiness to be standing in our garden patch, there in the middle of nowhere. I explained to him what was happening, and we stood quietly together and laughed under the Himalayan stars.