In my previous post, I was saying that I am the youngest one here in Deer Park, but now I can see more and more “of my peers” coming.
There is Maggie, a girl from US which studied Musicology (can play violin and piano). We are both in the same classes: Tibetan language and Thai Chi. Before coming here she stayed 2 months in Kopan Monastery in Nepal, so we mainly talk about her experience there and of course – Moldova (as it’s a mystery for everyone around here) With Maggie i talked about wine festival we have each year.
There is Aaron, and I don’t know what he actually is. He looks Indian has a completely American accent (was always asking me” How’s it going?” with the purest American accent possible) and has a Portuguese passport. Well, later I found out that he actually has 3 passports: Indian, Canadian and Portuguese. His mother is half Jewish Portuguese half Indian from Goa, so the whole story about passports started to make sense. What a lucky person, can travel most of the world without visa, and he travels a lot.
Last year he did a land trip from Great Britain to Syria, so we mainly talk about our travels and of course about my small country Moldova, about soviet cartoons, school uniforms and my experience in a post-soviet country.
There is Kay. He is from Germany, but has a French accent (at least I hear it). We first saw each other at internet cafe, and i thought he is French, and he thought i am French too. (How good was too hear that "French" sounds better than "Russian"). For 2 years he is in Indian studying Tibetan language. Kay always wears a cap and says that I am a “Russian spy”. We mostly talk about Second World War, Hitler, Stalin, vodka and of course - KGB.
There is Marta. She is from US, and volunteering here at Deer Park. She coordinates a landscape project of designing the garden from Deer park. You can always see her carrying or arranging some stones around the trees. We mostly talk about clothes and what we have been doing todays. And I have to mention this – we never talked about Moldova.
There is Robyn. She is a middle age women, and I mentioned about her in my Tibetan class. Well, she does not come to the beginner class anymore and goes to the intermediate class, which is after lunch. We mostly talk about her stay in Bir. She and her partner plan to open a Homeopathic clinic in Bir, but of course we talked about Moldova too.
Everything started after Jyoti (a business lady from Mumbai) taught me the Mrittiun Jaya Mantra, and then I went to take dinner with: Maggie, Aaron, Kay, Marta and Robyn.
As eating Tibetan food and drinking Indian apple non-alcoholic beer (which tastes like sparkling apple juice) we watched the TV news about Dalai Lama visit to United States.
And because, while talking about my soviet union experience, i mentioned that “Chip and Dale” where one of the foreign cartoons that we got in the post-soviet countries, Aaron invited the all of us to watch “The Rescuers” cartoon, which apparently was the inspiration for Chip and Dale.
So far, the most adventurous experience during this trip i assume I experienced on this weekend. As usually it happened unplanned.
I fely down in a mountain river from 2 meters high stone, and reached to a monastry in the middle of the night. About this adventure - will write in my next post.
