Summer 2009 Blog Entry Two

Stanzen Namgyal's Family

This is part of my Ladakhi family and extended family. There are four houses in their compound and ever time I spend the night I have to visit all four houses and drink juice, milk tea and Ladakhi tea at each house plus a little snack. Refusing is not an option! I love the picture they have hung in the kitchen as some of the photos I have taken of them are proudly displayed. I've been sponsoring Stanzin Namgyal's education since he was in Upper Kindergarten and have been visiting his family for the past three years. If you click on any of the images they will enlarge.









































Baby Chospal who I've known since Tsewang was pregnant.






















Tsetan, Stanzin's father,.






Stanzin being goofy with cousins Dawa & Tsering.
















Tsewang, Stanzin's mother, with cows.






When I sleep over at their house I sleep with Stanzin, sister Stanzin, Chospal and Tsewang. I think we all snore but sleep deeply.

TEEN PARTY TIME
If you ever wondered about the teens in rural villages, just outside Leh, here is an example of a party I was invited to as a grandmother figure (abilay). [surprisingly this reminds me of when I took hip hop lessons with a room full of junior high girls!] It was Stanzin's cousins 18th birthday party. She is attending Class 12 in Jammu and has her girlfriends from school with her during their school break. It hardly seemed different from our teen parties sans alcohol. They had about seven bvowls of chips and snacks, an iMac on a black inflatable couch blaring music and just the typical girl hanging out scene. This is probably not typical in terms of the iMac & furniture but cousin's family is not as poor as the rest. I was told the next morning that they danced for awhile and stayed up until 2:00 AM talking. Notice the hand gestures!

Beginning of Summer 2009 Adventures

I think this is going to be one huge blog entry covering the past 5 weeks that I’ve been in India. Everything (business, communications, Internet connections, etc) in Ladakh takes a long, long time. Just conducting one or two small but important tasks can take up an entire week. For example you have an appointment on Tuesday at 9:00 AM – you show up and no one is there – the next day you get them on the phone and they say where were you Monday I waited for three hours! Then you make new plans and so it goes. Needless to say this blog has been in the works since I arrived. Connections to the Internet are getting worse every year and the electricity keeps going down. Who couldn’t love a place like this!

I’m actually becoming very fond of Delhi even though it is crowded and has steaming temperatures of 45 degrees centigrade. The second I leave the enclosed airport there is a rush of the warm, sweet, exotic and comforting smells of dung fires, diesel fuel, human excrement and blossoms. The laziness from the intense heat, even in the middle of the night, gives way to people everywhere sleeping on the pavement, in their rickshaws, on the median of the roadways, on pallets or charpoys, and so forth. The street dogs are out and prowling, cows are walking in the middle of the road and the traffic is minimal. I’ve come to love this drive from the airport to the guest house in the middle of the night.

My major reason for staying over in Delhi for three days was to purchase books and have them shipped to Ladakh. Thanks to HEALTH Inc. I received funding to buy books for the Domkhar Dho Government School pre-k through Class 10. I purchased most of the books at Teksons Bookstore in Delhi and this year they had to ship them via air cargo which is a little pricey but I had them in hand three days after I arrived in Ladakh. The other reason I enjoyed being in Delhi was my stay at the World Buddhist Center established by a Japanese Monk, Guruji. He also had the Shanti Stupa, here in Leh, built for the people of Ladakh. He’s a musician and last year he had sung me some of his new songs – this year his CD which was produced in Los Angeles with famous backup musicians was finished and for sale. I bought the CD and one of his books and can’t wait to share them with people. I’m so touched by his music and what it has to say. My room (third year) entitled Tamara’s Room has been painted since last year and has new curtains. I arranged the furniture to suit me and bought a Tibetan carpet so I could do my exercises on the floor. Also I wanted the room to feel like a small apartment without cooking facilities. When I opened the big trunk I left here over the winter I was so pleasantly surprised at all the treasures I’d left behind – books, clothes, sleeping bag, toiletries, etc. The food is better than ever this summer – my first few days there was a visiting French chef and the food was impeccable. As I’ve mentioned everything is fresh – vegetables, fruits, homemade pasta, etc. No canned or processed stuff (well, I imagine a few things come from packages). This nutrition should help in my healing as I enter month five of my hip recovery. Right now peas are in season and so I have been buying peas and eating them as a snack – it’s like eating dessert. It’s funny to taste real food – even the mutton & chicken I occasionally eat tastes real – they are freshly slaughtered that day.

TSO MORIRI & TSO KAR

Several people from my Sangha were here for a few weeks – I’ve spent a day and several dinners with them. Lisa (one member) brought two college girls to volunteer at the Siddhartha School. Scott, who is on the Siddhartha School Project Board with me, was here for three weeks to visit the boy he sponsors, to get communication going with the Board here and to bird watch. Scott and I went on a camping a trip to Tso Moriri (where I wanted to go last year but never did) for three days to bird watch and see wild animals & Nomads. We camped out the first night at Tso Moriri a high altitude lake and did some hiking – I don’t believe Scott was able to check off too many new bird sightings at that site. I bought both Scott and I Napalese Yak wool hats that are lined to keep our heads warm at night as it gets pretty cold at that altitude. The second day we continued on to Tso Kar which is a high altitude salt water lake. On the way we saw Tibetan wild ass, blue sheep, pashmina sheep, marmot and many birds. We were very fortunate to see 3 rare and endangered Black Neck Cranes at Tso Kar. The cranes are only found near this area and contiguous Tibet. What fun and adventure. We hired a driver and a wild animal/birder guide/cook for the experience.

SIDDHARTHA SCHOOL

I’ve been out to the Siddhartha High School (pre-k – Class 10) a few times and they have maintained the library perfectly. Susheel, the secretary, has finished his degree in Library Information Science except for the final test – his wife had brain surgery during the testing period so he will take it next testing time. Two other teachers at Siddhartha have just signed up for the Library Information Science program as well. They love cataloging and maintaining the library so I am very pro

ud of them and pleased that within two years they have taken the ball and run with it. The two librarians at Siddhartha hosted two of my teachers from the Domkhar Government School for two days of intense workshops and we were able to catalog and cover all the Domkhar books that I purchased in Delhi and shipped up to Ladakh. Then I will go out to Domkhar circa August 6^th with the books and my two Librarians from Memphis to set up the library. We will be giving staff workshops in an effort to support the Domkhar teachers who have been trained. Our focus will be on respecting the library, its value, use, and how to use it with students. Some teachers are not so keen on having a library or any extra work. Because it is a Government school there are many issues but the largest is the lack of real interest, on the part of the teachers, to teach. They often go away and don’t show up for weeks or they sit in the classroom and knit or socialize with other teachers and totally ignore the students. This is endemic in government schools all over India. The Public schools, which are really privately managed schools, are much preferred because teachers are held accountable. Then there

are Private schools as well. This and many of my professional readings have given me a more open view of education and educational excellence. I actually feel that Charter

schools, private schools and public schools in the U.S. can co-exist very nicely. Back to Ladakh – I’m very excited that

my influence here has generated five educators wanting to be school librarians who will be enrolled in school this Fall.

BON COMMUNITY

I’ve been spending quite a bit of time in Choglamsar visiting a Tibetan Bon monk Geshe Lungrig Nyima. He had asked my Bon teacher Chongtrul Rinpoche in New Jersey to help sponsorship of his Bon students here in Ladakh. My mission was to take up-dated pictures of the students and of Geshe and the little monastery he built. There are very few Bon people left and only a few in Ladakh (eight families) so much support is needed to maintain their tradition and to get the kids educated. I’ve really had some nice afternoons with the Geshe – he got to practice his English with me and I got to take some pictures. He invited me to a Puja (religious ceremony) two weeks ago and I got to meet almost all the families and children. The Puja goes all day so we had breakfast, lunch, breaks and lots of chanting and socializing. More picture taking ensued.

Ph-Yang Festival: Mask Dances

I've met a very nice Scottish woman who I’ve been sharing dinner and wonderful conversation with most nights. She has been spending the past five years travelling around the world and then spending large amounts of time in Napal, Cambodia, India, Thailand, etc. She volunteers wherever she’s at with local women’s organizations. I asked if she had “stuff” stashed at all these places and she said no – she carries a rucksack with a few outfits and when they wear out she has new things made. I admire her economy of travel. I also love her stories of the villages she’s worked

with. Here in Ladakh she is working with the first Woman owned and operated Trekking & adventure company that just started a couple of months ago. Part of what she is doing is going on Treks with the Trekking Company trainees before they actually take tourists out. She’s also working on their webpage. We went to a Mask dance at the close by Ph-Yang Monastery recently and had a ball. The dances were slightly different than the dances I went to at Hemis Monastery the past two years. Some of the

masks were significantly different and it was obvious that the Monastery was not as well off as many of the others in Ladakh.