Friday, October 13, 2006

love buckets and flower juice.

ok, we (30 or so people) loaded up in a little bus last weekend and headed for the hills. wow, it was so refreshing to be surrounded by trees and rigid topography. the focus of the retreat was "the 5 love languages." you know, finding your love language, learning about other people's. sure, maybe it's over-discussed a lot in america, at least if i have anything to do with it. but i think it's fun to introduce the idea to people who've never thought about it before. the premise of the love language theory is that we all have these "love tanks" that are filled only through certain means. so when our friend was translating from English to Nepali - he was stuck on the word "tank," which is not as culturally relevant here, and i suggested, you know like a "love bucket." -- the plastic bucket is used to catch the daily supply of water. it is a pivotal item in every nepali household.-- ok, so i loved the image. in the end we all drew names from a hat and our assignment is to intentionally show love to that person via their primary love language over the next month.

so, the little mountain valley was gorgeous. i went on many walks/jogs/photo-hikes. and the village people were amazing. so many people asked us into their homes. i mean they definitely all stopped what they were doing to stare, but there was still a very warm feeling in the valley. my favorite cup of tea so far was at this one little man's shop - he wouldn't accept any money, which is so backwards because they have nothing, and well so beautiful.

the last morning i went on a short hike up the hill with two girls from Karuna Ghar. we were looking for others from our group, but found no one. we got a bit lost and i was concerned that everyone else might be waiting for us down the hill. in my indecisive disaray i turned around and the girls were excitedly picking flowers. they said, "molly aunti, you squeeze the bottom of the flower and drink the juice like this." cupping the sweet red blossoms in their adorable little nepali hands. right, excellent idea, girls. how could i have almost missed the flower juice.

3 comments:

Lord Milton Pepperbottom III said...

indeed.

Anonymous said...

In a pub in Boulder, at an open mike, a washed up hippy musician sang a song. In his song was the phrase "buckets of love". I had to walk to the back room, because I didn´t want him to see my body shaking in laughter.

But I like it in your case Molly.

Anonymous said...

matt, i'm so proud of that little hippy, bearing his soul at the local pub in the face of such opposition.

so, yeah, thanks for not judging me.

but i bet if i had sung this post instead of typing it out you would have laughed at me too.