Meet Steve Daniels
Tso Pema has turned into something of a mob scene. In addition to the regular increase in population that comes with Losar celebrations, a huge influx of pilgrims arrived today to attend a special four-day teaching offered by a high-ranking rimpoche. Even at 6:30 in the morning, the kora path around the lake is packed with practitioners walking practically shoulder to shoulder. Losar visiting protocol has had us totally discombobulated. Apparently folks just walk right in if our gate isn’t actually locked. One morning at about 7:30 Lena got up to find five nuns and a goat who had followed them in in our veranda, wandering around curiously and wondering where we were! Well, the goat wasn’t really looking for anybody in particular. It happily found our bucket of vegetable leavings (to be fed to local cows) and was helping itself to some breakfast. But I digress.
Between the house move and the Losar visits, Joy, Lena, and I have barely been able to tell which day it is, let alone what’s happening in town. The huge temporary population means that every spare bed or bit of floor space that a sleeping bag can land on is occupied. Lena was actually chasing around town to find bedding for some guests due to arrive at our house. Meantime, I was spending time in phone shopping hell, seeking a replacement for Joy’s phone, which is still totally cooperative as a phone, but refuses to be a modem and create Internet connections. Both of us decided late in the afternoon that we had had enough errands for a little while, and stopped into Vijay’s Chopstic Restaurant for coffee. (Real coffee. made in a French press, no less.) It occurred to me to find out more about the teachings that were happening. Since everything in Rewalsar is literally a stone’s throw away, it was a real short walk over to the Drikung Kargyu Gonpa to find out the teaching schedule. As it happened, they’d run out of copies of the English translation of the schedule, so I hung out for a few minutes, getting a verbal rundown of the next four day’s events.
A large Black man entered the room. Now understand, India is just chock fulla dark-skinned people, some quite sizable. However, Westerners have a distinctive look to them, and this was the first African-American I’d seen in something like eight months. So you can imagine my shock when he turned to me, and said: “You’re Nyondo.”
“Yes,” I allowed cautiously, while wondering if any bits of my tawdry checkered past had caught up with me, half way around the planet.
“I’m Steve Daniels.”
This seemed like a safe statement to agree with, so I did so. “Okay,” I said just as cautiously.
“I read your blog!” he said cheerfully.
“You’re a blog reader?” I admit, that was a stupid thing to say. I was just in too much shock from actually encountering an actual reader of my blog who wasn’t Joy or Lena. I tried to fix things with a more prosaic, “Welcome to Tso Pema.”
After a bit of chat Steve confided in me that there was something he’d been meaning to do for a while, and was glad he’d run into me because he would have a chance to do it. Before the chills had a chance to run the full distance down my spine, he’d pulled out his wallet, and made an on-the-spot donation to the Medical Emergency Fund Joy had set up.
Behold the power of the Internets, y’all.
This fund, originally started to supply a crippled woman with a wheelchair, also supplies other medical necessities to folks in Rewalsar who are in need of medications or medical treatments, but can’t afford them. A lot of you have already met Sonnam Yutron, via Joy’s blog. Well, if you’ve ever wondered what some of the fund’s sponsors are actually like, meet Steve Daniels. I’m not sure I can adequately communicate how Joy and I are alternately awed and
ecstatic by people’s generosity in giving to this fund. So far, we’ve not only manifested Sonnam’s wheelchair, but supplied others with much needed medications, dental treatments and so on.
I forgot this part while Steve and I were in the same room, so excuse it please: Steve, you are cordially invited up to tea at the new, improved Casa de MommyWizards in Rewalsar. All you need to do is tell the bus driver or rickshaw wallah you need to get to Lena’s house, in Vikashnagar. (The yellow X.) There’ll be kapsas waiting for you!
