A Night in a Nunnery

by Isabel Huacuja

Salil jokes that in Ladakh there are two choices for treks: the Raj-style trek, with a guide and cook and twenty peons to prepare your choice of Indian, Chinese, or Continental breakfast, or the do-it-all-yourself style with no guide and no peon. There is no budget-travel choice.We opt for the second alternative, out of necessity more than fancy.We are newcomers to trekking, and decide on what the locals call the "sham" trek. We tag along with a British man more skilled at this business than us.On the first day we get lost. A Ladakhi woman directs us across an invisible path in the mountains. Her face is covered in wrinkles; she is toothless, but seems more energetic than us youngsters. She jumps and swings her arms, while describing the way to Rizong Monastery in excruciatingly fast Ladakhi. She asks me in pidgin Hindi and sign language if I am married to both men. I am stunned, even though I know that polyandry is common in Ladakh. "Shaddi, Ne," I say and avoid further discussion. We wiggle our heads, thank her, and search for the invisible path. We are still lost. We see another sign of life in the perpetual desert: a man walking, carrying a sack. I run to him and scream, "Rizong Monastery," at the top of my lungs, as though my English becomes more comprehensible when I raise my voice. In immaculate
English, he recites directions to the monastery. Salil scribbles them on our useless map. Mark, our British travel partner, nods.

We trek along the newly found path. Tired, but not too drained to
admire the landscape. We are still in awe of the desert's desolate splendor. We are hypnotized by the majestic beauty of the mountains and by the silence that rings in our ears. I distribute our snack: Ladakhi barley chapatis. Salil hates barley chapatis and declines.Mark and I eat them enthusiastically. The firangi (non-Indian) palate is not so picky when it comes to chapatis. The mountain passes are killing our
legs and the sun is burning our scalps, but we move on, inspired by the motionless grandeur that surrounds us.

We reach Rizong Monastery, sweating like boxers in a match. A group of Japanese tourists exit a sumo; they are dressed in shorts and hats and look as fresh as pealed cucumbers. We stare, making no attempt to hide our self-righteousness. Like all monasteries in Ladakh, Rizong is beautiful, well worth the trip. The sun shines through its tiny windows, and its mud walls blend into the setting and seem to be an intrinsic component of the mountain.

A thousand little boys with shaved heads and dusty, burgundy robeslounge around. Some sit on the rocks, some on chairs, and some stand. They seem at peace, perfectly content doing nothing. They stare at us shamelessly, and we stare back. We sit outside the monastery and help ourselves to the last of our barley chapatis. Salil relents and eats the unappetizing bread. Keeping our distance from the fresh-looking tourists, we explore the monastery. The three of us walk up and down the alleys and rest on a ledge. We stare at our maps and prepare for the walk ahead. We have three hours of sunlight and a long way to the
next guesthouse.

Again we get lost. The map is useless, or maybe we are useless. We know the way back, but not the way onward. We realize that we are not going to make it to the next guesthouse before sunset. Tent-less and afraid of darkness, we head back to the monastery. Mark,the serious trekker, is upset and kicks dirt. Salil and I pretend notto notice.

As we feared, an older monk tells us that no woman can stay in the monastery. He tells us that there is a nunnery at the bottom of the hill and that I can stay there. "How long a walk?" we ask. "Five minutes"

We walk five minutes and see nothing. We walk ten. Still nothing.
"Indian time," Salil says. We walk twenty-five and nothing. Our bags are heavy and our muscles ache. "We missed the nunnery," I say. We walk back and ask for directions. "Just down the road," the monk repeats. We walk forty minutes and find a sign that reads "Julie Chen Nunnery." Luscious trees and shrubs surround us; we hear the sweet hymn of a spring. An oasis in the desert, the place seems out of a children's book. I walk in and the men wait outside.

A sweet smile greets me. "Juley. Can I help you?" she inquires. She is young, maybe twenty, and her eyes are beaming. In broken,
nervous English, and using far too many words, I explain that I need a place to spend the night. "You can stay here, and your friends can stay as well," she says.

"They are men," I say. "That is OK," she says, hiding a giggle and wiggling her shaved head. Salil and Mark walk in. They are tense and uncomfortable. The Buddhist nuns are performing their night pooja, and the nun with the friendly smile offers us tea and asks if we would like momos for dinner. "Anything is good," we respond. Salil and Mark ease up.

The nuns return from pooja and prepare dinner. The smiling nun, who we later learn is the head nun, asks us to join them in the kitchen. To be polite, we take off our shoes. Our feet stink. Nobody says a word;they bare the smell silently. A Western woman with a short haircut sits with them and ogles us.

I explain our situation. "Oh is he the guide?" she asks, pointing to Salil. He is upset, snaps a no, and asks, "What are you doing here?"
"I teach them English, Italian, and German. I am from Switzerland," she replies. The nuns, young girls, tell Salil in Hindi that they don't learn much and that she comes only sporadically. The woman doesn't understand. She asks Salil if he knows about Buddhism. "Very little," he says. "Do you want me to teach you?" she asks.

One of those lost Westerners that come to find themselves in India, I think, but say nothing. I know that I am being too judgmental. I help the nuns make momos and do a terrible job; my momos look limp and shapeless. The nuns are amused by my incompetence.

The head nun serves us dinner. "Are the girls not eating?" we ask. The Swiss woman tells us that the nuns will eat their dinner, dal and rice, after we have finished. In their robes and shaved heads, they watch us eat. We feel terrible and eat little, in spite of our hunger. Mark is less critical than me and chats with the Swiss woman. Salil talks to the girls. I watch their reactions and I am astonished at how comfortable they seem talking to him, much different than I imagined nuns to be. There are fourteen in the older group, and even more in the younger one. Two are Himachali and the rest are Ladakhi, but speak flawless Hindi. It is hard to tell their age, but aside from
the head nun with the pretty smile, who looks twenty, all appear to be in their teens. Some early teens, some late. They laugh and
smile; their ebullience is contagious, and I forget that I am tired.

The oldest directs us to our sleeping quarters: the classroom. The boys slip into their sleeping bags and comment on how odd it feels to spend the night at a nunnery. "Funny that you could not
sleep at the monastery, but we both can stay here," Salil says. I
venture out in the middle of the night and see that the nuns are still toiling away; they scrub the floors, and wash dishes. I notice that aside from the Swiss woman that comes and goes, and the head nun, there are no older leaders.

At five am, I hear them. They have finished their pooja and have begun their duties. Two nuns make chapatis. Three wash clothing; they beat and beat and beat. Four sweep. One shaves another's head. One of the Himachali girls sees me and offers me tea; I am embarrassed to be caught snooping. "Oh no. No I am OK," I say. She grabs my arm and walks me to the fire. "Keep warm," she tells me and returns to her sweeping.

How different this looks from the monastery, where the boys stand
around leisurely, I think. Later, I learn that the nunnery's land
belongs to the monastery and that the nuns give a large portion of their harvest to the monks. I also learn that the nuns make clothing for the monks, and that the nuns never visit the monastery, but the monks often come down to the nunnery.

When my traveling companions wake up, they serve us all tea and
breakfast. "Have you eaten?" Mark asks the nuns. "After you," the
head nun responds. Again, we feel terrible eating in front of them and eat sparingly. They refuse payment, so we leave an envelope with a donation and a thank you note. We say juley to the nuns and walk out of the nunnery in a daze, not knowing what to make of our experience.

Mark breaks the silence and says, "That is what traveling is about. New experiences. New adventures. The unexpected." Salil and I smile in agreement. With renewed energy, the three of us resume our trek.