His Holiness the Dalai Lama's Bday/ Mock Elections

Picking up from where we left off yesterday... making announcements about today's mock election. Since Tibetan women are extremely modest they tend to typically down-size a majority of their tasks, i.e. announcements. Tenzin-La and I waited for our taxi to pick us up around 2pm and when I saw the taxi arrive my heart kinda dropped an inch. On the top of the taxi were 2 medium-sized speakers that were attached to a microphone system in the car. Tenzin-La smiled at the horrified reaction on my face. For 3 hours Tenzin-La and myself announced about the mock elections for the Kalon Tripa in Tibetan and English over the intercom, while the taxi driver begrudgingly drove us around every inch of Dharmasala. As mentioned before, the streets are very narrow and leave very little room for pedestrians and taxis to cohabitate; therefore as we made our announcements pedestrians would stare inside the taxi and identify who was making all the noise. Needless to say, I am now a familiar face amongst the Tibetans :) I was also asked to sign a bday banner for His Holiness' by a local grassroots organization in response to my announcements.

Today was His Holiness' 75th birthday and anyone who was anyone attended the celebration. To avoid the crowd Tenzin-La and I planned to leave the house around 7am BUT I set my alarm on U.S. time instead of Indian time (yes..its a Jazzmin thing to do) and we were an hour late...you could tell she was a bit perturbed but soon got over it. My luck turned around when I was at the right place at the right time and was escorted through the monks entrance--where it was less packed-- with TWA's president (who is kinda a BIG deal in Dharamsala). She told me to go upstairs where all the performers were and visit the temple. When I enetered the balcony where all the performers were I must have looked ridiculously lost/dumbfounded because everyone was staring. There were children, teenagers, adults, elderly, Tibetans and Indians dressed in their cultures traditional clothes. It was truly aesthetically overwhelming. After pretending to know what I was doing for a bit, I went downstairs to find a dry spot to see His Holiness speak (I forgot to mention that monsoon season has begun so it's raining and everyone is soaked). Unfortunately, I didn't bring my umbrella but a monk named Song-Nam let me share his :) He helped me squeeze past other monks to get a better view of His Holiness, since it was my first time seeing him. It was kinda supernatural to see His Holiness amongst a nation of his dedicated followers.

At the same time as His Holiness' celebration, TWA was hosting their mock election for their Kalon Tripa. They had the standard ballots, booths, and identification procedures-- just the way the actual election will proceed. At first only a few attended the election but after 2pm, Tibetans were flooding the booths-- anxious to have their opinion heard.

Tashi Dalek!