It's been a quick minute since I posted last, I was traveling all last week.
I had to mentally prepare myself for this post. It's going to be a long one.....hope you're ready.
So last week I was on the road doing some cool stuff and some lame stuff as well. I've decided I'm going to separate this post into those two categories: COOL and LAME. I'll start with the lame.
THE LAME:
1. The Mobilizing Rural Communities Conference: Wednesday and Thursday us FoodCorps gals went to Great Fall for this conference. I'm not a big fan of sitting indoors all day so I already wasn't really looking forward to it. The conference itself was super boring. Myself and some my FoodCorps buddies couldn't muster up the patience to sit through some of the talks, so we played a little hooky. No big. Overall the conference gets a big, fat "L" for lame.
2. The Orphanage: Okay so I wasn't at a real orphanage, but close. While in Great Falls we went to the Mobilizing Rural Communities Conference Wednesday and Thursday. After that we had a FoodCorps training part of Thursday and Friday. So in total we staying in Great Falls for three days. During those days we stayed in a place called the Ursuline Center, which I believe is a Catholic boarding school. All nine of us got to sleep in one room "Annie" style. Check it out:
To make matter worse, there were pictures of Jesus glaring down at us all over the walls. Nothing against the guy, just kind of creepy.
THE COOL:
1. Missoula: I know I already posted quickly on this topic, but I just want to reiterate how much I love Missoula. Here are some pics:
(Yeah I really like this place)
2. The Peace Festival at the Garden of 1,000 Buddhas: Over September 11th weekend all VISTAs were required to do a service project of their choice. My friend Jared invited me to volunteer at this Peace Festival with him and some other VISTAs since he knew how much I was into Buddhism. We drove up north to Arlee on Friday where the garden is located. Saturday was the festival. I got put in charge of helping a Tibetan nun cook a bunch of Tibetan food for the festival. Which worked out great for me because I love cooking. Here are some of the things we cooked:
Mo-Mo's traditional Tibetan dumplings.
Veggies with a bunch of Tibetan spices.
Dal, a yellow lentil soup.
Helping out at the Peace Festival was great, but let me also give you a little background on the Garden of 1,00 Buddhas where the festival was at. The garden was started by a Tibetan lama who had a premonition that this place was holy ground. He came to Montana and started this garden. The garden includes a sculpture of Yum Chenmo, a female manifestation of the perfect of wisdom. Here's a picture of Yum Chenmo:
The reason the garden is call the Garden of 1,00 Buddhas is because the garden will not be complete until 1,000 ceramic Buddha statues are completed. Currently there are around 800. They are hanging out in the "Buddha Barn" right now.
Once 1,000 Buddhas are completed, the Dalai Lama is going to come to Montana to bless the Buddhas and the garden! I really hope I'm around for that!
Just for fun here's a picture of me being a little Buddha and one of me doing some trampoline jumping in front of the monks' house.
3. Cats: With Leroy gone I miss having a cat around. Luckily this week I had the chance to hangout with two cool kitties. Shimmy was the house cat at the Garden of 1,000 Buddhas. The other cat I hung out with was Twiggy. Twiggy was the cat at an organic lentil farmer's house I spent the night at. Twiggy had only one eye like Leroy! She lost it getting in a fight with a raccoon.
Shimmy
Twiggy
So those were the highlights and low lights of my week on the road. Overall I had a good time and I got to see and do things I've never done before. Definitely a lot of memorable moments.
Back to work tomorrow for me.
Love,
Becky
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