Penultimate day

Sniff, sad to think Ama-la will be leaving us tomorow- I've gotten used to her being around, her beaming smile, her pointing to her teeth and exclaiming gleefully: 'good, good'. And today, to make a slight difference, we took her to the opticians. Dolma and Rinzin were unhappy that she'd been going round with her glasses tied round her head with a piece of string. So we decided to treat her to a full eye exam and a new pair of glasses. It was an entertaining session: Dolma and I were convinced that the glasses she had were prescription ones, only to find they weren't, and Ama-la was then tested using an eye chart for those who don't speak or read English- it's very clever- they use what looks like a large letter E and change the size and direction of it, which tells the optician all sorts of things. Ama-la ended up with a beautiful new pair of glasses, that change into sunglasses when she's out in the bright daylight, but revert back to normal quite quickly inside. She was thrilled, and on walking outside started shrieking in Tibetan, which Dolma translated as 'I can see the car tyres'! Turns out the glasses she'd been wearing all this time, were just ones that a friend had worn on a visit one day and she'd complained about the sun so had tried his on..and kept them! So she now has her own pair.

We then did some shopping, and it was very sweet hearing her calling 'Francey, Francey' when we got separated in W. H. Smiths- apparently she hadn't known my name before but had thought I was a nun (I had very very short hair back then) so just called me 'Ani' (Tibetan for nun). It was only a few days ago she learned I had a name too, so she was practicing it!

And then off to Shira's for a farewell dinner. A slightly fraught time as Tsering had planned to do all the cooking, as his gift to us. However, he'd been kept in Oxfrod by Bino (not sure why) and consequently didn't arrive until after Shira had cooked a meal at very short notice with her good friend and almost had a nervous breakdown in the process. Tsering arrived after we'd all eaten, after Ama-la had started asking if he'd be back in time to take her back to India. He was in big trouble when he finally arrived! But it was a great evening, apart from that, and the meal was brilliant- Shira is a fantastic cook and proved to be a real star! And Gonkar and his wife came too, livening up proceedings no end. It was a lovely way to end the whole event.