On April 14th we drove to Tashi's village in western Ladakh. Actually, our group was split between his village of Chiktan and another one down the road called Pargu. Tashi's family is the only Buddhist family in either village. All the rest are Muslim, as is usual in the western district. Methods for farming and house styles are quite similar, but instead of chortens and prayer walls, and elderly folk quietly chanting mantras, there were muzzeins blasting prayers out of megaphones from mosques. We helped in the fields and I gave my host a hand in repairing part of a wall that had fallen. I'm pretty sure I ate a piece of sheep intestine at one point. Like angels of our dreaming, three young girls in our household in Pargu brought tea and biscuits into our room each morning before 7:00 and said "excuse me...tea." They put the saucers next to the three of our heads and we drank and ate from a still-horizontal position in sleeping bags, then went back to sleep sometimes until breakfast. The life! Plus our host gave me a pashmina hat he'd made after I helped him with work one day.
From Chiktan, we moved to the Mulbek block where SECMOL's former director Norbu is now the principle of a private school in his home village. After visiting the school and breaking into groups with the students there for games and conversation, we headed to a nunnery in nearby Wakkah for the night. In the morning we all went into Kargil, the western district's (Kargil district) main town and took a little walk around. Everyone except for Bennet and I returned to the nunnery in the late afternoon. The two of us waited until midnight to catch a car to Kashmir.
Occasionally we caught a few winks on the ride, but the full moon gave us glorious glimpses of Zoji-la, the main pass between Leh and Srinigar. Luckily for us the pass had opened just a week before, earlier than ever. Arriving in Srinigar at 5:15, we found our way to Dal Lake and hopped into a Shikara (long boat with canopy) for an early morning float out to the vegetable market in the lake. As we floated back, Abdul called my cell phone. VIS teacher Sam had met Abdul when he was in Srinigar back in January and recommended I get in touch with him. Abdul was a good resource and friend. Bennet and I stayed in the home of his sister and ate meals with the family, and Abdul showed us the sights of new and old Srinigar, including many mosques and the site where some believe Jesus was buried. We had lhasi and fresh bread at little shops on the street and popped into Abdul's houseboat for tea in the afternoons. Though Srinigar is a beautiful city, with its Mughal gardens, mosques, and many green parks, it is also a dirty and chaotic city. We were constantly approached by houseboat owners wanting us to stay in their guest houses, and Abdul pointed out the difference in color between the river and the water flowing into it from a canal connecting to Dal Lake. The darkness from the canal represented a lot of waste. Also, there is no proper sewage system in Srinigar, except in maybe one small area. Getting out of Srinigar into Pahalgam was quite a contrast, and let me see some of the Kashmir I had imagined--lush, green mountains covered in trees and laced with quiet streams. Here we lucked out on the sleeping quarters as well. We stayed with an amazing cook. Since Abdul's sister is equally amazing at the stove, we enjoyed kick-ass Kashmiri cuisine all week. Our host in Pahalgam as well as Abdul and his brother Rashid told us a lot about the time during the insurgency from 1989 to 1999, when the military held their guns at the hip with a finger on the trigger. Though the military is still everywhere (we were searched once crossing a bridge), their guns hang to their sides and they seem in good spirits, leaving us to marvel at their mustaches (for which they are paid by size, or so says Rashid). Abdul pointed out at least one building riddled with bullet holes from that unfortunate time in Kashmir. Abdul embraces the "cell phone" culture, new to Srinigar, with open arms. "Better cell phone culture than gun culture." He is optimistic about the future (even though there'd been a small bombing a week earlier), and is constantly smiling. This was not the general sense I got from Kashmiris, however. In my short time in the region, I picked up on a lingering sense of fear...and maybe anger, which a new optimism must muscle through. Like a shaft of light shining through a big cloud in the late afternoon, the Kashmiri smile may be emerging after a long period of turmoil. One of the biggest challenges for Kashmiris may be the corruption that persists in politics. Bennet and I also noticed that during several conversations we were given a similar shpiel about how "Kashmir is the most beautiful place in the world with the most friendly people and beautiful women" like some verbal business card. On the way back to Leh we saved some money by taking a two-day bus trip (10 hours each day), spending one night in Kargil. It was painful, and I thought my life was about to end when the bus driver momentarily lost control at Zoji-la.
Here, back in Leh and Phey, our students are wrapping up their exhibition work and will give presentations for the school and other visitors later this week. I've got to write evaluations of students and of the program, and maybe pick up a few things to bring home from Leh town, where I am currently sitting in the good old internet cafe for one of the last times. Well, time to meet Tashi across the street and get lunch! Adios amigos, and see you in a few weeks!
Monday, April 28, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
Tuesday, April 8, 2008
Rumbak, Rellay, and Rinchen
Y'all?
Apologies for the delay in writing. Since the last post, much has happened and seeing as I have a little time in the internet "cafe" in Leh at the moment, I'll try to recap things on the spot instead of on my laptop back at Tashi's.
Tashi Angchuk is our guide here. He's helped VIS in years past and is now an official employee. Tashi knows almost everyone in Ladakh. For instance, I came here with one name--the name of a friend from Baltimore's professor's friend. Tashi knew who I was talking about. Jansyn had a picture of someone she needed to deliver ice skates to, on behalf of a relative or friend from home. Tashi knew him by his picture. He knew another student's contact and where to find him. Tashi is a good man, and an excellent guide.
This week us teachers are based at the home of Tashi and his wife Dolkar as our students have left the SECMOL campus in order to research for their independent exhibitions. Each of our eleven Vermonters/Massachusites have chosen a topic and are staying with different families in order to get hands-on experience. In the next few days we'll be checking in on them. Lately I've taken to editing my short film clips and setting them to music and there should be a lot of good opportunities for footage during these visits:
Jansyn is staying in Choglamsar, a Tibetan refugee community. As you've seen in the news, this should be a particularly interesting time to study the Tibetan issue. Tess is staying with nuns, focusing on women's roles in Buddhism. I'm fascinated in this topic as well, and gave Tess a poem by Milarepa, a great Boddhisatva and one of the most important figures in Buddhism, called Women in the Dharma. In it, a woman acknowledges having been born into an "inferior body." (Many Buddhist sects maintain that in order to become enlightened, one must first be born as a male.) Duncan is studying with a Ladakhi drummer. Musicians are traditionally of lower caste, and that will be part of his focus, though he is putting a lot of energy into the musical aspect with two hour lessons each day. I'll be visiting Jansyn, Tess, and Duncan this week since they are my three advisees on this project. Also, in order to have a male perspective, I'm joining Ashleen in the classroom of a private and public school Thursday as she speaks to students about sexuality. Today, on Ashleen's first day in the classroom of the private school, students wrote down many questions and placed and folded them up anonymously for her to look over and bring back another day. It's a great way to learn about what Ladakhis are taught, how open they are, how generations vary from one to another, and local myths. I think it's a brave topic for a student to pursue, and we were a bit surprised at how open the Lamdon school's principal was to having her talk with the students. We're excited about her day-one success. Every student has an interesting topic and hopefully there will be some aspect of their research posted on the VIS blog later on.
Since the last post, I've taken a few days off to trek to Rumbak, through a narrow canyon in snow leopard country. (Keep up with the VIS blog for a student article about these elusive cats). We also had our second group trek, which included two nights in Rellay, probably the most beautiful place I've seen so far in Ladakh. One student called it a "Lord of the Rings shire." My group of three was lucky to have stayed with family of Kunzes Dolma, a college student who stays at SECMOL. It was comfortable and her family is most friendly. It was also nice to have meat for a change, of the local variety (though my meat appetite has waned a good bit). Rellay is a yak and goat herding village, and during a day hike we passed nomadic tents tended by Kunzes' brother and a companion about an hour up the valley. They were tending yak and goats, letting them graze away from the village. Two of Kunzes' other brothers are lamas, and one is married. This type of situation is typical in Ladakhi families, and is part of the reason the population doesn't increase faster. (Polyandry had been another, but is now illegal and rare except, I'm told, in some of the more remote villages).
Earlier in the trek I stayed in the home of another SECMOL friend Gyaltson, though he was back at the campus. We abandoned the second part of our trek due to high snows on the pass into the Nubra valley. There was another unfortunate experience: one of the Ladakhi students who had been trekking with us was possessed for a few minutes in the car ride, by the ama-le (mother) from her homestay. This combined with some car sickness of other students and waiting at a 17,000 ft. pass for other vehicles to get "unstuck" made for an interesting journey.
Next week we're heading to the western, and predominantly Muslim part of Ladakh, to the village where Tashi comes from, and to Kargil, the main town out there. From Kargil, I'm breaking off from the group to explore Srinagar with Bennet, a volunteer with VIS. We will return to SECMOL a couple days after the rest of the group, at which point exhibitions will be coming to a close and presentations will happen. (Then we will try a mini-trek maybe, head to Delhi for a few days, and I will fly home.)
Since we're staying with Tashi in Leh now, this is a good week to do some shopping when I'm not catching up on student research. I dropped off some material to have some pants tailored this afternoon, to a guy named Rinchen who has been making stuff for Daniela and some of our students. He is said to be one of the better tailors around.
I've also continued teaching another Rinchen (from SECMOL) about music, and giving piano lessons from his small keyboard. If I return next year I absolutely must bring a nice set of keys out to SECMOL...maybe I should start a fund drive for this. One thing that's very absent from SECMOL is musical instruments.
Instead of saving this I think I'm going to just stop writing and post this blog to get something up. It's been too long. Later!
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