Ashwani squired us once more through the labyrinthian back country to our first stop, another TCV school in the town of Gopalpur, where we visited Tashi Lobsang, the student sponsored by my close friend in New Jersey, Phyllis Bitow.
He is thriving in this beautiful setting in the forested Himalayan foothills, and gave us an exhaustive tour of the grounds, gardens, and his living quarters. Tashi loves the pristine and immaculate ambiance of his environment, he says, and is throwing himself into his academic work with fervor. We left him as he was going for “self study” in a computer class.
I was taken by these plaques with various sayings painted on them as reminders of the wisdom of the past from all around the world. Some were in English and some were in Tibetan script. It was a beautiful sight.
Our final stop before reaching Suja was in Palumpur, a major center for commerce in Himanchal Pradesh. It was bustling, despite many stores and small markets being closed because of the financial demonitization.
Ashwani suggested his favorite eatery, The Joy Family Restaurant. Wow! What a great choice…coffee shop, ice cream parlor, hamburger joint, sweet shop, you-name-it…all rolled into a veritable hole in the wall. It was narrow and brightly decorated, and had been run for forty-seven years by the Narang brothers, uncles of Nmang, a charming young man, who helped steer us through the formidable menu.
Their famous specialty, chat patri, worried me, since it was cold and had yogurt and some uncooked vegetables in it. But Cary put on her brave suit and ate every bit of it…to her delight. My loss.
Later I was told its ingredients: fried wheat puff pastry, potatoes, yogurt, green and red sauce, a type of lentils, sweet and spicy, smooth and crunchy. And served cold. The rest of the food was a bit spicy for me, but I indulged in some of the best Indian sweets of my long life. If you’re ever in Palumpur, don’t leave without paying the Narang brothers a visit. Ashwani knows them well, also, because he buys their ice cream for his shop in Bir!
By 3 PM we had arrived at the Suja TCV school, another favorite home away from home. The new sponsorship secretary, Tenpal, was expecting us, and we spent the rest of the evening on a sentimental exploration of the campus, noticing many changes and improvements. As always, the children greeted us warmly.
Click on the photos for slideshow.
We stayed in our usual room, and were treated to colorful sunsets every evening. What a welcome!
The next two days were varied and full of emotion. I missed so many old friends…students as well as teachers whom Cary and I have known and loved over the years. It almost seemed like the end of an era. People graduate, move away, start their lives anew in far away places, and relocate, as several of the teachers have, in other countries. Also, the population of the school has shifted radically over the past few years since the Chinese no longer allow children to leave Tibet, so the school enrollment is down. Even though there are students from the Buddhist enclaves in Ladakh and the Yolmo in Nepal, it’s different. And the offspring of the original group of refugee children are starting to attend, but they have immeasurably more resources and, thus, advantages over those who fled across the border on their own. Nor do they have the same feeling for Tibet as their homeland, for they have never been there. Yes, life is impermanent and we have to adjust to changes in whatever form they take. And educating the children is so vital and important, no matter where they call home.
There are still two students at Suja who have Whidbey Island sponsors that we wanted to visit. As we wound our way through the living quarters we could see that it was washday.
Tsering Phuntsok is now class 10 and in the boy’s hostel. We hadn’t seen him in a couple years and he has grow from a child to a young man in that time.
Lhakpa Dolma is a little younger, and becoming much more confident and less shy than in our previous visits.
Her dorm was next to the girl’s covered basketball court. She shares her simple and cheerful room with over 25 other students.
Cary had fun sharing highlights from a Seahawks game with Tsering and Lhakpa. Tsering’s sponsor had given him a Seahawks hat (foreground) and she was explaining just who they were. Neither had ever seen football before, so it was fun to watch.
In between visits with the students, we visited the town of Bir, heading down the familiar path, enjoying the warm sun as we walked through the yellow fields of winter wheat, over a bubbling brook, and past brightly painted homes where livestock stood tethered and small gardens flourished.
Ah, but so much had changed. No longer was my favorite café, Buckstars, open, and the lovely monk who ran it when he wasn’t painting sand mandalas had gone back to Sikkim. And our dear friend, Sonam Hara, who was the director of the Tibetan Primary Health Care Centre, was now living in Canada, and his wife, Tsering Somo, had resigned from teaching at Suja and was leaving to join him.
Of course, we had to search for an alternative place to buy the superb Indian cappuccino, and we found a small outdoor restaurant way on the edge of town where we indulged.
We were so happy to see Tsering Somo again before she leaves for Canada. We shared lunch at a different Joy Cafe (that we can also recommend!) in Bir. Even a revered teacher is not immune to the hypnotic power of the cell phone!
Before leaving, we took a casual stroll around town, stopping in Ashwani’s store to reimburse him for the 10,000 rupees he had loaned us upon our arrival in India, and buying papaya from the smiling lady who is our favorite fruit vendor.
It was with mixed feelings of joy for Tsering’s opportunity to be reunited with her husband and sadness for the end of an era at TCV Suja and our social life in Bir that we strolled back through the fields to the school.
The countryside outside the school is very peaceful and pastoral, unlike any other place I’d been in India, and so we took a long stroll down a country road, past some small shops and through a small Indian village. The houses were large, brightly colored, and interesting, with balconies or shingled slate roofs. Some were new and grand and others more of a farmhouse. Animals were tethered in front, usually, and mounds of hay adorned the fields. Women in colorful saris greeted us. And children clustered around, wanting photographs. The boys played cricket in a large field by the river. We felt very welcomed and very much at home.
Following a sumptuous dinner of veggies, chicken (bones and all) and fruit, we once again spent a quiet evening watching the sunset from our balcony. The dogs seemed to have calmed down for the moment and we were able to enjoy the singing and chanting at the nearby hostel.
I shall be back with a report on our subsequent adventures as we make our way through Delhi and on to Nepal for a visit to Kathmandu, Boudhanath, and Dhulikhel, and for a ten-day trek in the Solukhumbu district of the Himalayas. This will be the first time I’ve been back to that area since 1987. But, first, it’s off to the East Coast to check on friends in New Jersey, and to devour as much as I can of Broadway’s Great White Way. Seems I’ll be flying into a blizzard, which suits me just fine, since I love snow…unless I have to land in Philadelphia. It was March 12 when I wrote this and it was not supposed to snow in the old haunts on my selected weeks. The best laid plans….
During our stay we watched the progress of the construction.
As we were walking to dinner on our second day we bumped into an old friend, Thinley Gyatso, about whom I’ve written in the past. We first met him in 2011, when he was doing translation work for a Swiss NGO. Last year we visited the restaurant he had started in Dharamsala to help young Tibetan refugees get work and begin a new life in India. He just sold the restaurant and now lives near Dal Lake by the Upper Dharamsala TCV school, continuing his writing and translating. We spent a very highly charged evening of political discussions with him as well as an afternoon at his home following our first visit to the school.
We visited with Lobsang Tenzin, the former TCV Bir sponsorship director. It was fun to see him in his new office with his two children. On the way we were delighted to bump into Ngodup Wangdu, former director of TCV Bir and now director at Dharmasala TCV.
We met, once again, with a delightful young woman, Boshey, sponsored by Jim and Rebecca Sundberg in Langley. Boshey is taking advanced business and science, and gave us a tour of the school and her dorm. I’ve never climbed up and down so many stairs in my life, except on the Inca Trail in Peru!
We used some of our precious rupees at a lovely handicraft store owned by a charming Indian/Kashmiri woman, Sunanda. As with so many of the businesswomen we met, she was well-informed, highly intelligent, and had a wide circle of friends around the world. Her handicrafts were lovely and one of her handwoven runners is now gracing the dining room table in Cary’s new home at Upper Langley.
You may remember my writing about another friend I’ve known since 2011, Bilal Ahmed Gunna, who runs the Paradise Arts shop, with beautiful Kashmiri tapestries and rugs, and says that I’m the toughest bargainer he’s ever met. High praise, eh!? Here is a photo taken in 2014.
We stopped by his shop, eager to see him again, but he was in Srinigar getting married, and his friend, Jacob, was holding down the fort. We talked for a long time with this charming gentleman, getting an overview of Indian-Kashmiri problems and the custom of arranged marriage and family life from his perspective. We live in a varied world, indeed.
Seattle (on the Other Side) was around 175,000 and my grandson, Thomas Bixler, and my niece, Rebecca Magill, told me of the astronomical numbers crowding the streets of Washington, DC. Ditto for seventy countries around the globe. You’ve all seen the pictures and read the stories. Here are two of Rebecca, her daughter, Amaya, and husband, Paul Benzaquin.
Omigod! Why are these robins so fat? Who has been feeding them? Surely they can’t get worms from the frozen ground. Suddenly, my mother’s words came to me: “He’s puffed up like a robin in winter.” So I looked up robins in winter (how I love the internet! Gives me such a momentary feeling of erudition). And I found out more than I ever wanted to know about them. Even when the temperature is subzero, these little creatures can puff up their feathers and increase the amount of air next to their body to insulate themselves. It can be 104 degrees under the feathers and 10 degrees outside. How about that? Nature, to me, is unbelievable in its complexity.
Here we are at the Shechen Guest House near the Boudhanath Stupa in Kathmandu. Cary and I have just returned from a strenuous trek from Phaplu to Shivalaya in the Solukhumbu district of the Himalayas. Hooray…we survived! Hot sunny weather at midday, and freezing temperatures at night were the order of the day. You can’t beat that!
Close by was the town spigot and washing station—a communal area where all the action was taking place. I was fascinated! It was like an open-air bathhouse with people washing feet, clothes, hair, potatoes, and pots and pans…all in cold, cold water. How I shivered when I saw naked children being bathed, but they just squealed and took it in their stride. I was loathe to photograph the bathing, due to respect for the mothers and children.
Then we started down the hill, expecting an easy three hours to Thimbu, but, unfortunately, had to take a new trail. The usual one on the other side of the river had been badly damaged by avalanches and there was a great deal of exposure. Believe me, there was a great deal on this side, too.
Caritas is rebuilding the school and the director proudly showed us the plans posted on the wall of the administrative building. We met with several teachers and, again, shared Lynn Rubright’s gifts as well as money offerings from the South Whidbey Academy middle school children that we hoped would go to providing mats for the children. It was a very emotional moment, symbolized for me by the stark remains of a once-proud stupa.
They honored me with the usual white kata, which I wore most of the way down on what became one of the most hazardous trails I’ve ever experienced.
Yes, that’s what it is. Snuggled among the pine and hemlock on a piece of land slanting down to the shore of Lake Winnipesaukee, stands this simple cottage, built by my parents in 1951 before the onslaught of fourteen grandchildren, and it has been expanded to become a family gathering place ever since. Just one hour away from the White Mountains, it is also our New England base camp for wilderness exploration and hiking.
