On the road to Dharmasala!
Today we awaken to clear skies, the Himalayans as a backdrop from our patio. We watch as the village awakens, people gather at the well, teeth are being brushed by the villagers, school children hustle off, women brush their daughter’s hair, the old man sits meditating into the sun, the cows moo. We begin the day with our usual routine of finding our man, Manod, or him finding us in the early morning to bring us coffee and tea on the balcony of our room. Not like Starbuck’s, but it works. He serves us bananas and apples, the first fruit since we left Delhi. Mike agrees to peel the apples and eat one. This is an experiment. If he gets sick, no more. If he doesn’t, I’ll have one later.
The view is of an enormous play unfolding with actors performing their small but integral part of the total village scene. Children are dressing and preparing for school, after which they all walk or run down the main village path to the school, women are sweeping the roof or porch, a man sits seemingly staring off into space…is he meditating or something else?, an old man sits on a large pile or rocks and hammers one endlessly to shape it into a square for the new addition to the house. The children are many and the girls each have 2 red ribbons in their hair and wear long white shirts with blue pants and a sash for their uniform. Out on the road 5 men watch one raise the metal roll-up to his shop, an old women chases a cow from the field, another women beats rugs to clean them and hangs them up to dry, at the village water pipe people come and go splashing water on to various body parts to bathe. All of this and much more is going on below the backdrop of the Dargulahur range of the Himalaya. Dense moist clouds roll in and then out, veiling one minute and the next reveling the steep rocky cliffs and green lower slopes.
The electricity goes off, the water stops. What we so take for granted at home. It’s ok here. The sun is warm, so why do we need those things now anyway?
The boy offers to take us on a hike through the village later, up to a waterfall. We will look forward to that.
Our "hotel" in Naddi village in the Himalylas.
Our plan today is to walk down the road to the Tibetan Children’s Village. As some may know, this school was created by the Dali Lama shortly after the Chinese forced him and hundreds of thousands of Tibetans into exile from their homeland in 1959. Over one million Tibetan’s were slaughtered then by the Chinese. This event in human history is well known the world over. To be here, to see, and to watch the children and the Buddhist monks and see the primitive (to say the least) living conditions really brings the story to life. Heartbreakingly, parents in Tibet send their children to the Tibetan Children’s Village in India and many never see them again. Why would a parent do this? In Tibet today, the only schools are run by the Chinese that suppress and denigrate Tibetan culture and language. All classes are taught in Chinese and the school system is used to suppress the cultural identity of Tibetan children. The Tibetan culture is being destroyed, while Western consumers continue to support the communist government of China by buying just about everything from that country. The Tibetan Children’s Village is a vast and sprawling complex of buildings cascading across the mountainside. Here there are class rooms, sports fields, living quarters, dining halls and education centers for teachers. If you’d like to learn more go to www.tcv.org.in
Our next door neighbors.
Mary and her new friend at the Shiva waterfall!
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