Dear Readers,

 I apologize for being late in writing to you. Actually Nicky and I had planned to write on Saturday with Pema Pawo but I had to go to Kanying Shedrub Ling, our White Monastery in Boudha to meet some monks and to bring books.

 As I was going to Boudha with Urgen Tendar, a woman with a little child came towards me and cried saying ‘Oh Monk, Oh Monk, please help me, I have nothing, no money, please give me some money’. She looked very poor – I could see that by her clothes. I gave her 10 rupees which is just enough to have a cup of tea.

 After an hour and a half on the microbus we reached the White Monastery. Some monks were doing the Long Life Puja in the shrine hall. I met our our previous Lopen, Lodroe Rabsel and two other monks who have come to Boudha from my village Ramte, in Sankhu Sava, next to Solu Khumbu.

 At about 4pm I went to the office and collected the books that one of the doctors had borrowed, and some he was leaving behind for us and the clinic. We stayed that night at Riwoche monastery and after lunch we returned to Chapagaon.

 Now I want to write about another thing that happened a weak ago. On one of our trees by the gompa gate there were clustered a huge group of caterpillars and next to them twenty or so butterflies hanging on the branch. Some of the butterflies were coming out of their cocoons! A group of small monks , the cook, and other vistors to the monastery were watching them when Nicky and Satyamohan and a new doctor came into the gompa. They described the life cycle of the butterflies that we could see happening in front of us!

 I studied about butterflies when I was in class 5 at school and have seen them many times – but never in a group like this. It was interesting to see the beautiful butterflies coloured red, yellow, black and white – maybe the monarch butterfly. So we had the chance to know how the butterfly lays eggs on plants and trees then the caterpillars emerge from the eggshell. After one or two weeks the caterpillar sheds its skin, then the caterpillar becomes a  chrysalis  inside a cocoon. Then the cocoon splits open and an adult butterfly emerges. It cannot fly until the wings have completely opened and dried. They soon fly in the sky – after two days all the butterflies on our tree were  gone!

 Ahh! how wonderful this world is sometimes!

 Ratna Mangalam