Home

I am home.

Well, not home right now. I am in Bloomington, Illinois to attend a teacher hiring fair at Illinois State University, looking for good candidates to teach at Whitfield.

I arrived home Saturday, the 25th after a challenging trip home. From Paharganj I rode in a cab out to the airport through gray-blue hazy evening air, dense traffic and the suffocating smells of Delhi street life: burning trash, frying pakoras, animal dung, incense, bus exhaust, dust, cooking fires, and closely packed people.

The airport was packed, and after going through the layers of security and airline check in, I wandered around just looking for a place to sit. I listened to my MP3 player and read for a couple hours and then just after midnight we boarded the 777 for Chicago. Every seat was full.

Two hours into our 16 hour flight, American Airlines served me a nice case of food poisoning, so the trip home was less comfortable than the one to India, but I managed.

O'Hare airport felt like Xanadu, with its broad, gleaming concourses, storefronts bursting with luxury goods and every manner of clean, safe, familiar food. I changed clothes, washed and shaved in a restroom and then boarded a small plane for the 45 minute flight home to St. Louis.

Saturday was an odd day since I arrived home at about 9am. I had been awake for about 36 hours, but wanted to get back on my sleep schedule so I stayed up until bedtime.

It was good to see friends at school yesterday.

I've been adding photos back into my blog entries, and it is taking a while to resize and place them, but I think they help capture another tiny slice of what I experienced.

I have a lot of thoughts about my trip now that I have had some time to think about and react to what I experienced. I will need to do another post soon...

Paharganj

Yesterday a man named Hanesh, a Pahari from Naddi village, drove me from Dharamsala down the mountain, through the Shivalik Hills of Himachal Pradesh, past Kangra Fort, across the Nagar Dam and the Beas River, through Punjab and across the high plain of Haryana to Delhi. We drove for eleven hours, stopping for a banana and milk tea near Kangra, lunch of roti, daal and mutter paneer under a bamboo shelter at a roadside dhaba in Punjab, and then tea at a truck stop in Haryana. We came into Delhi on the north side of the city, passing a landfill at least as large as the one on Staten Island. The stench was so powerful that for about three or four miles I could hardly breathe, even with the car window closed. Black kites soared in lazy circles over the heaps of Delhi's refuse, while small bands of Dalit women and children combed the surface for anything remotely redeemable.

As we entered Delhi, a chaotic city of close to 16 million (I am told), I was overwhelmed yet again by its density, its noise, its squalor and its blue-gray caustic air. We wound our way into the narrow streets of Paharganj to find a hotel I had located on the Internet, one that would reserve a room with a credit card. The streets were so narrow and crowded it took us another hour just to go a few blocks, and then finally with the help of some locals we located Hotel Chand Palace off a little alleyway. I was very near giving up and heading fo the YMCA to see if they had a room, since this area was hit by terrorist bomb blasts in November, but I stuck it out and checked in, just to be indoors and safe. For twenty-five dollars a night I get running hot water, a toilet and shower, a bed, a tv, room service, a pigeon living in my bathroom window (no glass, just louvres), construction just above my room, the smell of the alleyway, and a ceiling fan to spread it around. I have stayed in worse, however, and I am glad to have the company of the tv, which provided me with British soccer last night, a terrific FA cup game between Manchester City and Aston Villa.

I slept in a long time this morning and then watched another soccer game between Tottenham and Wigan. I had lunch in my room, and now I am around the corner in another, more expensive hotel that has 9 compters in its basement that are linked to the Internet. I am paying fifty cents an hour to use one. It is 88 degrees and dusty outside today. Down here in this basement next to stacks of building materials under a flourescent light and a ceiling fan it is likely around ninety degrees. The Indian men around me are watching cricket online, IM-ing and looking up cars and sports scores.

I just need to hang around today and sleep here one more night, then tomorrow afternoon I will head to the airport for my night flight to Chicago. I am half-tempted to grab an autorickshaw and see more of the city, but honestly I am running out of energy and enthusiasm for Delhi. This is a difficult place to be after the relative peace and calm of Dharamsala. I will just bide my time, most likely, reading books about Buddhism and Tibet and watching soccer, listening to the honking horns, shouting street vendors, pigeons, drummers and chanters, the bangs of the hammer upstairs and the chatter of the hotel houseboys echoing in the staircase.

I am ready to be home.

Goodbye, Dasa

This will be my last post from Dharamsala. I spent the day on preparations for the next phase of my journey, changing the last of my money to pay the hotel bill, my driver and incidentals between here and IGI airport on Friday night. I bought a couple little gifts for Rinchen Tsomo and Tashi Dolma, and then had lunch at their place. We ate fried rice with white mushrooms, red carrots, and spicy masala with red chilis. Ngawang and I colored in her Dora the Explorer coloring book, and she showed off her improvements as a rope-skipper, and then we took a long walk to the next town over, Bhagsunag, which is home to a temple to Shiva and a sacred waterfall. The weather was beautiful today, and we saw red-billed parakeets, lots of kites, vultures and eagles, and some more warblers I will have to look up in my bird book.

We walked along the narrow one lane road that winds around the mountain behind Dharamsala. Far below the Kangra valley was greener than ever, and the Shivalik hills in the distance were layers of gauzy blue. We passed Tibetan monks and nuns, Gaddi women, Punjabi tourists and local school kids with smart blue uniforms and square satchels strapped to their backs. Once we passed through Bhagsu we arrived at the river valley below the falls, which cuts through a steep granite scrub-covered gorge. A local dog adopted us and walked by my heels all the way to the falls and back along the narrow ledge path. Once we'd climbed to the falls, Ngawang played in the water for a while and then Tsomo asked me to take picturs of the two of them that she could take to Tibet in a month or so to show her mother. When we got back to Tsomo's, we had some khapse and milk tea, and then said our goodbyes. Tsomo gave me a Tibetan grammar book, and then Tsomo and Ngawang each placed a white katag around my neck and touched their foreheads to mine in the traditional Tibetan manner, and then wished me a safe trip. I walked back to my hotel and began the task of packing everything carefully for the trip home. I had, and still have, mixed up feelings about leaving.

There is every chance I will never see this town, Tsomo, Ngawang and Dolma again. I wish there were some way I could just make sure that they will be okay, that they will be safe and happy and healthy, but of course I can't. I will just go back to the other side of this planet and continue my life, just as they will continue theirs. The first and biggest truth is that we do not control the world around us. That makes me sad, but making the best of what is offers the only hope of happiness, and so that is what I will do--make the best of what is. I will have a long plane ride in a couple days to start to figure out how to do that in this case. I wish making other people's lives okay was easier.

I just came from eating a grilled spinach-cheese sandwich at the Moon Peak coffee house, where I met Lobsang, a young Tibetan man who wanted to talk about rock music with me while I ate. Lobsang spent two years in a Nepali prison for immigration violations, or at least that was his story. He showed me his prison tattoos and we talked about a lot of things together. Nice guy. Big fan of Coldplay, Free and a band called Rainbow. It is almost 8pm here, so I will head back to my room to get some sleep.

Tomorrow I will let go of Dharamsala, but I doubt that it will ever let go of me.

Beautiful Birds, Billhooks and Burning Fur

My day began with some excitement. This morning there was a big demosntration in the main square in front of the bus stand, the nerve center of McLeodganj, Upper Dharamsala.

The demonstration was in support of the Dalai Lama's pronouncement that it is unaccepatble for Tibetans to continue using endangered animal skins in their traditional costumes and ceremonies. A big crowd gathered and a pile of animal skins was collected from Tibetans who wanted to show they would do as the Dalai Lama asked and renounce the practice. Tibetan flags were unfurled and people squeezed together in a huge tight ring. Women and men and children of all ages crowded onto balconies of the surrounding buildings, they climbed onto boxes and even the buses and jeeps around the square just to see. More cries and applause went up each time someone came forward with an otter skin, a patch of leopard skin or a bit of tiger skin, all prized possessions and status symbols until the Dalai Lama's speech this past month. After about twenty minutes of this, petrol was poured onto the skins and they were set ablaze the flames rising high over everyone's heads. The people cheered and speeches were made. An hour later, the ashes were swept away and business was back to normal.

The demonstration was held today because on Monday, the day after market day, most businesses are closed. After the demonstration I went to my favorite restaurant in town for a masala tea and a pancake with honey. My next task was to hike to Ngawang's boarding school across the valley from town. I followed a small semi-paved one-lane road into the forest past the taxi stand and was soon far from the odors, crowds and noise of Upper Dharamsala. I was surrounded by a thick forest of dheodar pine trees and Himalayan oak and rhododendron. The steep, rocky slopes above and below me on either side of the road were carpeted in pine needles. If I walked slowly and quietly, I knew I could spot soem wildlife, adn sure enough before long I happened on a troupe of rhesus macacques, including some tiny baby monkeys learning from their parents how to forage for food. A little farther on about a half dozen yellow-billed blue magpies rustled through the trees, and then I came across some Gaddi women gathering fresh shoots from the trees for their livestock. Two women gathered branches as they fell to the ground as a third woman about twenty-five feet up in a tree severed the new growth with a billhook. She had no ropes and no safety net, of course, but she looked very comfortable and accostomed to the task..

I came to the piece of road below the Upper TCV school that Ngawang attends, and then had to climb a very steep, rocky, narrow path several hundred yards straight up to the ridge where the school is nestled far from the road. Then school was closed for the holidays but I managed to snap a few photos, and then carefuly picked my way back down to the road. Along the way I saw a few more Gaddi women herding big goats, maybe pashminas, along another mountain path. One of them carried a billhook, too. I saw a lot of birds on my mountain walk, including russet sparrows, great titmice, a white-tailed nuthatch, a rare Tytler's leaf warbler, an orange-flanked bush robin, several Himalayan bulbuls, common mynas, ravens, large-billed crows, black kites, a few Himalayan griffons, a steppe eagle and a rufous-bellied niltava. Not a bad birding trip for one day. I owe it to Jan Wilem den Besten's Birds of Kangra that I was able to identify all those species.

This evening I had dinner at Tsomo's again, and Ngawang and I colored in a coloring book, thumb-wrestled and played patty-cake while Tashi Dolma and Rinchen Tsomo made a special veg thenthuk with red carrots, Chinese celery tops, potatos, red onion, garlic, tomatoes and dried black wood mushrooms from China. I had brought a lollipop for Ngawang and some cooking oil for Tsomo. We talked about how much things cost in the USA, and how much people make each month at different jobs, and then we made plans for a walk to Bhagsu falls for group photos tomorrow.

Tomorrow is my last day here, and I will be very sad to leave my friends. I am not looking forward to Delhi, nor the eleven+ hour car ride to get there, but I know that I will be very happy to see clean sheets, safe water and Mrs. Hays and her home cooking again once I reach St. Louis.

Last night was kind of quiet. I wonder whether tonight will be peaceful, too.

Bhangra, Bags and Balep Korkun

I am off to a late start today. A very noisy family moved in to the rooms adjoining mine at the hotel and last night I lay awake for a long while listening to a crying baby, bhangra music and loud conversation in Hindi until around midnight, then just as things began to quiet down, the dogs who live in the little square below my window in front of the Dalai Lama's temple heard something in the woods below Temple Road, so they set up a barking delegation to scare away whatever it was. My reading and conversation with locals indicate that they may have had cause for alarm, as there are Himalayan black bears, snow leopards and of course the always mischievous macaques nearby in the forests, but I suspect they were barking at the other dogs that were barking across the valley. While I am grateful for their vigilance, they may have indulged in a little overkill, so I ended up sleeping in. I took a long slow time with my morning routine (heat the water, wash, pick out some dry clothes from the hand-washed collection hanging in my window, drink some water, watch some BBC news).

Once I was up, I headed downstairs to chat with the desk manager, an Indian man who always looks at me like whatever I do is crazy. I confirmed with him that I would be leaving early Wednesday morning, and double checked that it would be okay to pay my 7200 rupee hotel bill with a credit card, which I had OK'd well in advance via email. Oh no, he patiently explained, we take only cash. Ahhh, India. Of course, I said. No problem.

So I ambled up the hill to the Moon Peak coffee house for a bit of comfort, a very expensive 40-rupee cappucino, which tasted great after the river of black tea I have drunk in the past week. I practiced writing the Tibetan alphabet, and now here I am in the Awasthi Cyber Cafe (misnomer-no cafe, just computers).

Yesterday was a good day. I went shopping for items to take back home to sell to benefit Inside Dharma, my prison project. Rinchen Tsomo could not accompany me as she had hoped. She was down the valley signing in with the Indian government to extend her temporary visa another year, which sounded like took hours and hours of frustrating waiting. Since she was not home, Tashi Dolma and little Ngawang accompanied me and helped me bargain. I bought a few beautiful thangkas from a shop where I watched them being made, and some handmade Tibetan handbags and a few prayer flags from a shop whose profits help the Tibetan Children's Village, which is where Ngawang goes to school. Ngawang held my hand the whole way, sucking on a lollipop I'd brought her and playing hide and seek with me from behind store shelves and hanging thangkas. We parted ways mid-afternoon with the agreement that I would return to Tsomo's for supper at 6pm.

On my way down the hill I passed a small shop where workmen were doing some plastering, and the music they were listening to on their cd player was really catchy. I asked a young man nearby if he could tell me the artist, and he invited me into his shop. He offered me chai and introduced himself as Kumar, from Kashmir. He dug out his own collection of tapes and cd's to share titles with me, telling me what I'd heard was Ustad Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. I told him I'd heard Ali Khan's music before, but never the kind coming from the shop across the street. We chatted about music for a while, and then he introduced me to a friend who made leather goods in the Kashmiri tradition. I bought two really beautiful hand-stiched leather bags that I hope will bring a good price back home to benefit the prison project.

I went back to my hotel room to chill out, and I could see a troop of langurs in the trees across the road. After watchign them for a while, I watched a little more BBC. It is interesting to me how much of an emphasis the BBC South Asia service places on energy issues. Every time I watch the news there is at least one report about energy issues and what needs to be done in China and India. The report I watched yesterday featured a Western expert and a woman who works for an energy-related NGO in South Asia. The BBC reporter said that by 2020 China will have 140 million automobiles, eclipsing the number in the US, and that by 2020 India's consumption of the world's energy would leap from 3% to 10%. China relies heavily on its cheap coal right now, but they realize that emissions are wrecking their environment. China is now in a partnership with the European Union to implement "clean coal" practices, and China's goal is to have 15% of its energy coming from renewable sources by 2015, and India has a similar goal of 10% by 2012.

This is too little, too slowly, said the woman from the NGO.

The Western expert said that Asian nations should look to dam building for hydroelectric power and nuclear energy as solutions. He bragged that the US is leading the way in the development of renewable energy sources, spending $10 billion in 2001 for research, and that the US is the single biggest donor to UN efforts to push renewable energy.

The woman from the NGO (I wish I could remember which one) said that all that is good and well, but the US is not even cleaning up its own emissions at a viable rate, it has not slowed its climbing energy consumption (the US is the biggest consumer but only comprises a small percentage of the world's population!) and it is not participating in key agreements like the Kyoto Protocols. Besides, she said, nuclear and hydroelectric sources are not without huge costs, including land loss and hazardous waste.

Every day the news carries examples of efforts at innovation, including hydrogen cars in Japan and Brazil's successful transformation of sugar cane into cheap and renewable automobile fuel.

Speaking of energy, the electricity here in Dharamsala goes out sometimes several times a day without warning and for various lengths of time. It sure makes each day an adventure, especially after sundown.

On my way to Tsomo's for dinner last night, I stopped to take a couple pictures and a passing Tibetan nun looked over my shoulder at the image on my digital camera screen. She giggled and giggled, and motioned for me to take her picture, so I did. She looked again at the image I had captured, and giggled some more, then walked on toward her destination.

When I arrived at Tsomo's, Tashi Dolma made me a very interesting Tibetan dish. She baked some balep korkun, or Tibetan bread, from scratch in a pan on the gas burner. When the bread was done (it was in the form of 8" disks), she scooped out the top of mine and dropped a glob of peanut butter in the middle and then scraped some chhurpi, or Tibetan cheese, from a steel cannister from the unrefrigerated cabinet below the burner. The cheese had a pungent, aged flavor, a little like old goat cheese, and it was hard and yellow and crumbly from the granulated sugar mixed into it. She smooshed the cheese and peanut butter and warm bread around with a spoon and then handed me the spoon to eat it. The cheese was hard to take on its own, but mixed with peanut butter and bread it was not bad. Tashi Dolma explained that peanut butter was a recent addition to the dish, but otherwise it was very traditional. Tsomo steamed some broccoli and greens to eat on the side. We had a lot of fun talking, teaching each other words and such until late, and we talked about Tsomo's dream of going to America with her daughter to live. She pleaded with me to help her find a way, and that part of the conversation was hard, but she seemed content when I told her I would see what I could do via my contacts in the Tibetan Buddhist community in the US.

As I walked home I encountered a bunch of young guys playing cricket in the street. I laughed when one of them saw me coming and yelled "game off!" as I walked through. Once I'd passed them, I turned and shouted "game on!" and it was his turn to laugh.

Yesterday was a good day.

The Elusive Truth About Tibet

Yesterday morning I was having my daily first cup of tea next door to my hotel at the Tenyang Coffee House, and I was practicing writing my Tibetan alphabet when a woman named Ann from Tasmania introduced herself. We chatted for a while and I mentioned some of my interests (including global issues, on behalf of the seniors) and she told me there was someone I had to meet. She walked me up a steep path around the corner to an apartment house whose balconies look south over the Kangra Valley and introduced me to JanWillem den Besten, a Dutch man who has lived in this area for more than ten years and who is deeply involved in Tibetan political issues. He was in a meeting, but he agreed to meet me later. As Ann and I walked back down the hill toward the coffee house, she mentioned that Jan was also a very reputable ornithologist who two years ago published the most authoritative guide book to date on the birds of the Kangra Valley and Dheodar Mountains. Since Mrs. Hays and I are birders, I could not wait to meet him!

In the mean time, I went to Rinchen Tsomo's, where I played with litle Ngawang, who is obsessed with my digital camera and insisted on taking several pictures. We also had some epic thumb-wrestling bouts. Then Tsomo gave me another Tibetan lesson. I can tell she is impatient with my slow progress, but I promised her I would try to work harder at it.

We had a small lunch consisting of tsampa and stir-fried greens from the market. Tsampa is something that people in Tibet eat every day, according to Tsomo, and she said that the Dalai Lama recommends it. Tsampa is made by taking a fistful of barley flour, a little black tea, and maybe a pinch of butter and sugar and then pressing it into little balls of dough. It is eaten with your fingers. I can see how very poor people could probably stay alive a long time by eating tsampa.

Over lunch, Tsomo told me that she would like to be able to travel back to Tibet to see her mother before she dies. Ngawang will be in boarding school here, which will give Tsomo the travel time, but she was worried she would not get a passport from the government. If she can get a passport, she will be able to take a four day bus journey to her village of Kamba in Dege, Tibet. She said that if she cannot get a passport she will cross the Himalayas on foot, like she did when she was fourteen. She dreads that possibility, and I have seen pictures of her frostbite wounds when she arrived barely alive in Nepal. I cannot believe she would even consider repeating such an experience, but Tsomo, like every other Tibetan I have met so far, would do anything for her family. She does not know it yet, but Mrs. Hays and I are going to give her the money for the passport, and cross our fingers that the goverment approves her application.

At 5pm I met with Jan at the Moon Peak Coffee House, the only other coffee house in Dharamsala, and the only place that serves actual coffee. We sat outside and watched the traffic on Buddha Temple Road as we talked. Jan is in charge of the local field office of an organization called Tibet Watch, which is assisted by the Free Tibet Campaign based in the UK, and whose mission it is to collect information about conditions in Tibet. Jan speaks Tibetan, and he was interrupted several times during our conversation by his cell phone. An urgent press release was being prepared by his office regarding a recent statement by the Dalai Lama and its effect on the people of Tibet.

The issue, which is the main topic of conversations in the Tibetan community here, surrounds the use of animal skins in traditional Tibetan ceremonies. Yesterday during his annual Kalachakra teachings in southern India, the Dalai Lama issued a plea to the Tibetan poeple to stop using the skins of otter, leopard, tiger and other endangered animals in their traditiional ceremonies and clothing. It seems that for centuries a very few Tibetan nobles would incorporate small patches from skins of these animals in their ceremonial clothing. In recent years, however, more people in Tibet have been able to afford these skins, and so the populations of these animals is shrinking terribly. The Dalai Lama issued his statement decrying the use of these skins, and the fascinating thing to observe is the thunderous effect of his voice among Tibetans both in India and at home. According to several sources, including Jan's many contacts, thousands of animal skins are being gathered to be burned to show that the practice has ended and that there must no longer be a trade in these skins in Tibet. In fact, there will be a demosntration here monday in the main square where anyone possessing such skins is invited to burn them to show their committment to the Dalai Lama's request to help save the remaining animals. Apparently, the Dalai Lama has the power to change fashion with one speech. Or at least that seems to be happening. We will see.

Of course the Chinese goverment is now between a rock and a hard place. If they go along with this change, they will be seen as complying with the request of an official traitor and enemy of the state, but if they continue to encourage using these endangered animals' skins, they will be contradicting their own conservation policies. This just shows, I think, the interconnectedness of every political issue (with economics, religion, tradition, freedom of expression, conservation of resources, etc.).

Jan said that the biggest issues for people in Tibet today are political freedom, education, and the right to participate in setting economic and social policy. While the number of political detainees has gone down since the early '90's from several thousand to several hundred, it is not because the Chinese are relaxing restictions. In fact, according to sources in Tibet, Jan said, the opposite is true. Society has become more Orwellian, and people are ratted out before they can even begin to express banned viewpoints. It is a very tightly controlled police state.

In some ways, however, we have been misled by exaggerations, Jan said. This surprised me, especially after I;d read so many web pages like this one about the environment in Tibet. Jan claims that the environment is not being destroyed as quickly and universally as is thought in the West, nor is education in the Tibetan language forbidden. Tibetan culture is surviving, he says....to a point. Apparently a Tibetan child can learn Tibetan in school through middle school, but once high school begins, a choice must be made. If you want to continue your education, you must do so in Chinese, and since Tibetan children typically do not start Chinese until later than the Han Chinese population, who grow up speaking it, they cannot compete in the rigorous Chinese exam system that leads to college admission.

Most Tibetans, therefore, leave school instead of continuing. Most go back to work on the family farm, herd yaks or sheep, or work in low-skill industry. This gives the Chinese what they want, a Tibetan underclass. Some, like the friends I have made here, escape to Bhutan, Nepal or India in hopes of learning English, exercising more political freedom and obtaining greater prosperity. Even if they do learn English, however, there are not many job opportunities for them, and in fact they begin to lose their Tibetan language and culture under all the Western influence of media and pop culture, which is omnipresent here in Dharamsala. In fact, Jan admits he prefers to hire tranlators directly from Tibet vs. refugees here, whose Tibetan is weak since they stopped studying in grade school and are no longer immersed in their own culture but live instead on a hybrid Indo-Tibetan-Western island here on this mountain.

I asked Jan if there was anything someone living in St. Louis, Missouri could do to support the Tibetan people in their struggle, and he said that for now the best thing to do would be to visit Free Tibet and then to keep an eye out in coming months for his own organization's website, which will be called Tibet Watch.

After my interview with Jan, we talked about birds for a little bit and then he was off to another interview, still answering his cell phone every fifteen minutes to coordinate a press release to the Reuters news agency. I took a walk to sort through all the information we discussed.

As I walked through the twilight down a narrow street that leads to Bhagsu Road, I bumped into one of Tsomo's friends, a thangka painter and a monk named Kalsang Dorje. He had an armload of potatos from the market and insisted that I follow him home and eat supper with him. I consented and he led me down a steep footpath into the very ramshackle jungle of hillside hovels on the backside of Dharmasala, a shantytown of very poor Gaddi tribespeople, Tibetan refugees, Kashmiri traders and Paharis from the valley below. We wound our way along the trash-strewn path, stepping over rivulets of raw sewage, passing dimly lit huts, concrete block houses and sheet metal sheds, most with only one bare light bulb, barefoot children, dirty mattresses on the floor and single gas burners for cooking visible through a thin curtain that covered their open doorways. We walked for twenty minutes and then arrived at Dorje's own little concrete shelter, a single room that was part of a row of single rooms with concrete floors, like a storage locker. In fact, his place was the size of a small storage locker, and he had two roomates in order to be able to afford to live there.

Dorje squatted in the space between two sleeping pallets and set to work chopping potatos, scallions, tomatoes, eggplant, garlic cloves and spinach on an overturned wooden box. He boiled rice on his single gas burner, opening his door to the night to keep us from succumbing to the fumes. Soon his roomates arrived, Jinpa Gyatso and Karma Wangchuk. Gyatso spoke very good English so he and I did most of the talking, but he would translate for Dorje and Wangchuk as well. We had a long evening of fascinating conversation which I will not ty to repeat here, but I was struck by how much Gyatso's story echoed everything Jan ahd told me. Back home, the police watched his every move, bribing family members to rat out fellow family members, listening through walls and accusing Tibetans of every imaginable crime. He came over the Himalayas on foot, walking for a month and at one point going without food for three days until he stumbled across some European mountaineers who shared some bicuits with him. He came here to study English and other subjects forbidden to him by the Chinese government in Tibet. He came to listen to the Dalai Lama and maybe to shake his hand. He wants to be a translator, and he wants to help teach others about Tibetan culture and religion.

As the hour turned late, I learned that Dorje would return to the Tsering monastery farther down the valley the next day. He had chosen to invite me over for his last supper among his friends before he left secular life for a long while to continue his thangka studies. I thaked him profusely for his hospitality and for the delicious meal (it really was!) of stir fried eggplant and hot chilis, fried potato and scallion, and egg drop soup with tomatoes and spinach. He and Gyatso walked with me up the treacheous unlit path back to Bhagsu Road, at some points grabbing my hand to make sure I did not fall. They wanted to walk me all the way back to my hotel, another quarter mile, but I told them I was okay and I thanked them and walked "home" on the dark deserted streets, with only the barking of dogs and the squeak of my rucksack buckle to break the silence.

It is hard not to feel something very powerful when peope who have almost nothing offer to share all that they have with you. I will never forget Dorje and Gyatso and Wangchuk and their hospitality.

What do I know about sharing? What do I know about generosity?

Volcanoes, Cats and Candy

I just received a new batch of questions from the sixth grade, so here goes:


Have any of your friends experienced an earthquake? We are also studying volcanoes. We have sort of determined that your longitude might be 75 degrees East and latitude 30 degrees North. Are we close? We have been using longitude and latitude to find volcanoes throughout the world, so are there any close to where you are?

Earthquakes are a real danger here, and the conditions that made the earthquake in Pakistan so devastating exist in Dharamsala. The hillsides are unstable, especially in deforestd areas where erosion is a problem, most buildings are not built to withstand an earthquake because it is too expensive to do so, and since we are quite high up in the mountains and only accessible by a couple mountain roads, a sizeable eathquake would cause a lot of suffering. In fact, in 1905, an earthquake measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale hit here in Dharamsala (Latitude 32.10N, Longitude 76.40E). Around 19,800 people were killed here and in the valley below (with thousands more injured), making it the most deadly earthquake in modern Indian history. There is an effort to establish an earthquake prediction center here in Dharamsala. When the recent Pakistani earthquake occured, I emailed Rinchen Tsomo and she said that even though they felt it, it was not very strong here. I am unaware of any volcanoes in the area...

Sophie wants to know if dogs and cats just roam freely and if there are a lot of them.

My experience has been that wherever there are people, there are dogs hanging around nearby. I have seen very few dogs that are pets. Most roam freely and fend for themselves, and they can look really raggedy and sad. Some people do keep dogs as pets, though, and the other day I saw a nice old Tibetan woman feeding a bunch of local dogs from her doorstep. I have seen no cats anywhere, probably on account of all the hungry dogs!

Chris (who has lived in Singapore) wants to know if you have eaten any food with curry in it.

Well, Chris, that's kind of a trick question. "Curry" is a term that the British gave to Indian dishes, but it is not a term that means very much to Indian cooks, as near as I can tell. Intead, they describe dishes in terms of what is in them, and if they use a particular blend of spices, they name it after a region or just call it "masala" which I think literally just means "a mix". Different cooks use different blends, sometimes with as many as forty spices in one dish! I have eaten plenty of Indian food, including baingan bartha, daal makhani, aloo chaat, saag paneer and chaana daal. I challenge you to look those up on the Internet, or to go to a local Indian restaurant and order them. They are delicious!

Aron wants to know if done any activities other than visiting friends and learning the Tibetan alphabet?

Yes, Aron. Yesterday for example I took a morning walk on a forest path around the perimeter of the Dalai Lama's temple. I was not alone. It is an ancient custom in Buddhism, Hinduism and other very old religions to pay respect to a place by circumambulating it, or walking around it, usually in a clockwise fashion, and usually in a very reverent, meditative way. I was accompanied by many Tibetans who walked with their malas and prayer wheels (like the ones I showed you in class), reciting Tibet's national prayer, om mani peme hum, which translates loosely as "what a precious gift", referring to the gift of Buddhism. The path wound through tall pine trees and offered fantastic views of the surrounding mountains and many interesting birds. Just walking around here is an adventure, since the plants and animals are so different. Yesterday I met some very interesting people, whom I will talk about in my next post.


Jake wants to know if there is any candy there.

Sure, Jake, there is plenty of candy here. In fact, even though I am far from a big city, I can get a Twix, a Hershey bar, a bag of Lay's potato chips (masala flavor or "American style" which is sour cream and onion) a Diet Coke, or more exotic snacks like Kerala peanuts, fried chickpeas, mint soda, or, if I am hanging out with Tibetans, dried yak cheese on a string or some black sugar-cured dried turnip chunks.

Johnny wants to know if you have had any tea yet that has yak milk in it?

I have had tea made with yak butter, black tea leaves and salt, which is a typical offering to show hospitality in a Tibetan household. It is an acquired taste...that I have not full acquired yet, but I am polite so I drink it down and lick my lips and say "Tu je che!" which means thank you.

Thanks for the questions, everybody. Good luck finding my latitude and longitude on a map, and good luck with your volcano studies! If you see any near me, please warn me.

Hello Sixth Grade!

Hello Mrs. Tempelmeier, Ms. Linihan, and all of my good friends in the sixth grade! I received your email, and I would like to respond to your questions. I will answer them in order.

Since there has been so much rain, is there any flooding?

Great question. India has slightly different seasons from what I am used to. In most of the country the year is generally divided into wet (monsoon) and dry seasons. The rain that is occuring almost every afternoon here has less to do with the monsoon, which is in a different part of the year, and more to do with the changing temperatutres as the air from the plains below hits the mountains. So far it has rained three days in a row at the same time of day, for onyl about an hour each time. This is not enough to cause serious flooding, but water runoff is a big issue here. When it rains a lot there are rock and mud slides, which can destroy homes and roads. When I arrived here I could see that they are still repairing some mountain roads from the last monsoons.

Another big water issue here is water scarcity. Since winter was on the warm side and there was less snow this year, there will be less water running down from the melting snow higher up in the mountains, so there will be less water for the people to drink. I do not know if global warming has caused there to be less snow in recent years. I will let smarter people debate that one...

Also, do you see signs of flowers or other greenery?

Another good one. Yes, the terraces that people have carved into the hilllsides are turning bright green with barley, wheat and rice stalks. Wild mountain rhododendrons are coming into bloom, with bright red flowers.

Johnny Acker wants to know if the taxi drivers drive wildly.

Well...yes, but not on purpose. While a ride in a taxi seems like a wild adventure to me, it is actually a display of skill and concentration on the part of the driver. I cannot believe how hard the man who drove me here from Delhi had to work. He had to watch out for camels, donkeys, dogs, cows, pedestrians, other taxis, buses, trucks, motorcycles, goats and sheep, all of them moving at differnet speeds and in different directions. So I think taxi drivers deserve a lot of credit, even if the way they drive may appear a little wild by our standards.

Sophie wants to know if the roads are like the ones in Greece—narrow with people walking in front of cars.

Yes, Sophie, they are. There are not any sidewalks, shoulders or crosswalks where I am right now, so the street is a place to be cautious. I would love to compare stories with you about Greece and India when I get back. Sounds like you have had some adventures, too!

What has been your most favorite thing to eat?

That's a tough one. I have eaten many interesting dishes so far. One of my favorites, though, is tenthuk, which is Tibetan soup with noodles and vegetables with some Chinese chilis thrown in to give it a little fire. My freinds Rinchen Tsomo and Tashi Dolma made me some homemade tenthuk the other day that was very tasty. Yesterday they taught me to make

momos, and today they are going to teach me to make Tibetan bread.

Will you get to meet with the Dalai Lama?

No, I am afraid not. Even though I am staying right across from the Tsulag Khang, his home gompa (monastery), he is not in Dharamsala right now. He travels all over the world trying to spread the word about the plight of the Tibetan People. He will return soon, however, for Losar. Two years ago I was here for Losar, and I got to meet the Dalai Lama then. He shook my hand and gave me a little golden Buddha as a gift. I will show you the picture when I get home if you remind me. I am very lucky, Many Tibetans have risked there lives traveling over the mountains from Tibet to get here just to meet the Dalai Lama. When he returns here to give new year's teachings, thousands of people will come here to hear him teach.

Thanks for the questions, sixth grade! You ask good ones, and I hope my answers are helpful. See you soon.

Momos and black tea

I am having to send this post via email instead of
entering the weblog site itself. Another afternoon
storm has trapped me in an Internet shop running Red
Hat Linux (big western howdy to Mr.Inman!), and I do
not seem to be able to run the Blogger.com java from
here, so the formatting of this post will be a shot in
the dark.

I just spent the afternoon learning from Rinchen Tsomo
and her friends how to make momos, a Tibetan
traditional steamed dumpling. I was lousy at making
them, which led to some good laughs. Then I had a
Tibetan alphabet and language lesson. The hospitality
I have been shown has been remarkable. I am offered
tea the moment I arrive at Rinchen's and my cup never
even drops to half full. I am going to float away on
all the black tea I have consumed, and then today they
tried to stuff me with more momos than a man can
possibly eat in three sittings, let alone one. In
return I have become a bit of an English tutor to
whomever I meet at Rinchen's. We are having fun.

I took the opportunity to ask one of Rinchen Tsomo's
friends about why he came to India. Tsewang is a
twenty-something student who wants to be a history
teacher so that he can "teach others about the true
history of Tibet because the Chinese tell lies." He is
the only member of his family here in Dharamsala, and
he said he came here "because of freedom of ideas, and
to meet the Dalai Lama." He also wants to learn
English so that he can teach history to a broader
audience. Tsewang's English is a little rough around
the edges...okay, it's no great shakes, and it took us
a while to understand each other, but he insisted that
he would like to answer questions that our seniors
might have about conditions in Tibet, and the history
of the Tibetan people. I will send Mrs. Hays his email
address and she can share it with you. Tomorrow
morning I hope to visit some agencies that might have
some more good info for your current studies,
seniors...

Are there any eighth graders reading this? I would
love to hear from you at larryhays2@yahoo.com, and
that goes for sixth graders, too. I will do my best to
respond in a timely fashion.

The rain is subsiding, so I am going to go find a
quiet spot where I can study my Tibetan alphabet...

Mindfulness

Thank you to all who have emailed. Reading notes from home helps me keep some perspective. I got a great email from my dad today reminding me to be vigilant, even if I begin to feel comfortable walking these steep, dirty streets. What a great topic, and an excuse to write a top ten list, which I have not done in a while:

Top 10 Mindful Practices for the Road

10. Mind the water. If you are in a place with plentiful, clean water, be grateful. If you are not, exercise caution. This means brushing teeth with bottled water, avoiding nicks while shaving (or just not shaving), keeping your mouth closed during a shower, not eating fresh fruits or veggies under any circumstances unless you peeled them yourself, not eating any food with fruits or veggies unless it has been cooked at a high temperature (e.g. soup) to kill parasites and bacteria, never drinking anything with ice in it, and never swimming in, washing in or drinking from even the safest looking local water source, including "clean" mountain streams. I once camped in Montana with some friends, and one of them drank from a mountain stream against our advice since she thought such fresh runoff from snowmelt just had to be pure. She was doubled up in her tent with cryptosyridium for several days after that.

9. Mind the food. Same rules apply, and in a place like this, eating any kind of meat is asking for it. Most shops that sell meat to restaurants display their wares by hanging the carcasses in the shop window (if they have a window, and most are street stalls that do not) where the meat is visited all day by flies. Refrigeration is an expensive luxury.

8. Mind the monkeys, cows, and dogs. Monkeys are fun to watch, but they can be dangerous. I spotted some langurs in the forest below Temple Road this morning. They'd robbed a vegetable stand and were eating the spoils. There are also big troops of macacques that sneak into town and cause all kinds of trouble. Even big cities have trouble, as you can see in this article about monkeys in Delhi. Cows and bulls are not a big deal unless they step on your foot or get ticked off and gore you. They seem to be very laid back if you don't harass them. Dogs in undeveloped countries are most often not pets the way we think of them, with collars and tags and shots. Instead they live in packs in the streets and can carry rabies and lots of other diseases. T

7. Mind the traffic. The biggest street menace is traffic. I've spent so much time walking around and almost getting run over (no sidewalks, streetlights, lane markers or stop signs here) that by now I can tell whether the vehicle behind me is a Bajaj motorscooter, an Enfield motorcycle, a Tata Sumo mini-SUV or a goverment jeep. The good thing is, drivers warn everybody they are coming by honking their horns-- a lot! I have learned to take honking very seriously. At night, I mind a driffferent kind of traffic--robbers. I stay in at night unless I am in a group. I have seen people being robbed in my travels to Spain, France, India and other places . Better safe than sorry.

6. Mind your manners. I find that a smile and a please or thank you makes every transaction more pleasant and makes people more willing to help out when they can. I am surprised at how many Western travelers are curt, impatient or rude. Maybe they are not feeling well because they had some tap water and tandoori chicken and then got stepped on by a cow after the monkeys robbed them, but an important concept to know about is "face". It is important to phrase things in a way that shows you recognize another person's dignity. If you seem to assume they are not smart, honest, well-intentioned or kind, or you make it impossible for them to show these attributes, you are insulting them. This is a tricky one, very subtle.

5. Mind your body language. Learn what offends. I have to know when to take off my shoes, when it is not okay for me to have bare arms, when I should not wear certain colors (e.g. black in a Jain temple), when I should not sit so my feet are pointing at someone, what to do if I step on someone's foot (appaently a big deal in India). I also have to be careful of the most simple gestures, e.g. giving a double thumbs up in Tibetan culture means "I apologize." Pointing at someone instead of gesturing with your chin is very rude in Indian culture.

4. Mind your physical health. This morning I had tea with fresh ginger root to calm my stomach. Today I will lay off the chili paste a little. I drink even when I am not thirsty in order to avoid dehydration since this is a relatively dry, high altitude environment. I wash my hands with Purell hand sanitizer a lot, especially after typing on keyboards like this one. I get 8 hours of sleep as often as I can. It is easier to interact with people when I am not preoccupied with my own discomfort, so maintenance is a must.

3. Mind you mental health. I try to keep track of when I have taken in a lot of new, shocking, or important information, and I give myself a mental rest afterwards. Since so much of travel is new, it can wear out your mind, and then your emotions get all goofy. I try to pace myself.

2. Mind you mission. Remember that your top job is just to learn, to smile, to endure, to adapt. It is important to remember that you can do all of these things without sticking to an exact timetable, routine or set of assumptions.

1. That being said, LET GO. Travel only changes you if you are open to change. I have come to believe that a place like India can be a heaven or a hell, depending on one's own perception of it, and indeed it is both, sometimes from moment to moment. Thinking that the world will adapt to you leads you to hell, while letting go of how you think it should be opens the door to heaven.

This turned out way more serious than I intended. Here's a little more lighthearted top ten:

Top Ten Fun Things About India

10. Riding in a cab is a way bigger adrenaline rush than any video game.
9. Dropped a banana peel? No worries, the next cow will eat it.
8. Monkey show! Every hour of the day!
7. Walking across a street in Delhi is a great free test of cardiac health.
6. Several hundred gods, no waiting.
5. Bollywood ringtones provide carnival atmoshpere.
4. Dinner for four? Five bucks.
3. Betting on how high the thermometer will go in Delhi (114 by the month of May).
2. No need to explain where you are from. Almost every person you meet has a cousin who lives there.
1. Maybe it's important, maybe it's not. The universe will be here an awful long time, and we'll all be reincarnated anyway, so relax!