a prayer

I sleep in a spacious tent all to myself, there is also a dining tent and a small shower tent. We are preparing to have all the gear blessed by a Buddhist lama, The blessing consisted of very long chants and making lots of smoke with green branches, throwing rice and water. I saw the lama rise up in the air along with his mat, but the rest of the team missed it, having not practiced the art of staying awake through long church meetings. After we had our faces smeared with flour for good luck and were given a metal plate of crackers and something that may have once been cheese. Nima set our strings of prayer flags in the four cardinal directions.