Delhi again

Our flight to Leh was cancelled today due to snow, so it looks like we're in for another day, possibly more in Delhi. We're going to the airport tomorrow, but it's doubtful we'll be able to find seats for all 17 of us. Looks like lots of waiting.

Mussoorie

Yesterday was a long day, we hiked roughly 13 miles from outside of Dehradun to the mountain village of Mussoorie, at around 6,000 feet. It was a beautiful hike, first following a prayer flag festooned river up, then winding through villages appearing out of the greenery, little children chasing after us, peeking through fences, their giggling giving them away. Mussoorie always seemed just around the next bend, as we climbed on, heading towards the distant dots on the horizon. Finally, we could clearly see white buildings jutting out of the steep hillside, or as Tashi put it, "hanging like a beehive" off the edge of the mountain. Arriving in Mussoorie we had a hasty snack on a balcony overlooking the vast valley we had just climbed, then piled onto a bus for a long windy ride down.

After an early morning (3am!) start, we caught the train from Dehradun to Delhi, and arrived around 11am this morning in Delhi. Students are checking internet and calling home now, and tomorrow we fly to Ladakh, our home for the rest of the semester. After the crush and crowds of Delhi, we're all looking forward to a little space in Ladakh.

Songtsen

The past week was spent outside of Dehradun, at the Songtsen Library and Center for Tibetan studies, learning the Ladakhi/Tibetan alphabet, and doing a short weeklong introduction to Buddism, all taught by the Drikung Kagyu monks of Songtsen. Songtsen is an amazing place to study, beautiful library housing vast scrolls and more modern Buddism books. Students all presented a short presentation on one of three topics: The Wheel of Life, The 8 Fold Path, and the 4 Noble Truths. Keep an eye on the Songtsen Library website, they were eager to post photographs of our group and our presentations on their website. www.songtsen-library.net

Haridwar

We're in Rishikesh now, after a beautiful long train ride from Delhi to Haridwar. We saw people bathing in the Ganges in Haridwar, and watched a Hindu puja, prayer service last night in Rishikesh, overlooking the banks of the Ganges, enormous statue of Shiva rising out of the water. Students are using the internet and calling home if they want during free time this morning, and then we head down to the river to meet our raft guides. We'll spend tonight camping next to the Ganges, then raft tomorrow.

Off to Ladakh again

Hi Family & Friends,
After a long stretch in Vermont & New Hampshire, I'm headed back to Ladakh to lead another semester for Vermont Intercultural Semesters, along with James, my co-leader for the past 2 semesters. James and I spent the past 4 days prepping at our boss Curtis's house, working on curriculum and printing up new readers for both Environmental Science and English courses. We met up with our students this morning and now we're just hanging out in the airport, an 8 hour layover in Newark before we fly to Delhi.

Anyways, it'll be a while before I have internet again--the next few weeks will be spent travelling to Rishikesh to go rafting on the Ganges River, then to Dehra Dun for a stay at Songsten Library, then finally arriving at Secmol in early February, and staying there for the rest of the Spring semester.

Since internet isn't too frequent, mail is always welcome! Most of you have my address at SECMOL school, but if not, just ask, or it's also up on my Facebook page.
Still another 2 hours until boarding, and then I'm off!

PS
While I was in the US the past few months with good internet I went back to old blog postings and posted photos for many of them, have a look, it'll give you an idea of what the places I'm headed to this semester are like

Exhibition

The past month VISpas have been working on their "Exhibition" project, a period of independent study, often centered around an internship, homestay, or other significant learning experience. Some students chose to learn a new skill, like sewing traditional Ladakhi and Indian clothing, playing a traditional Ladakhi musical instrument, or cooking Ladakhi and Tibetan foods, others researched a topic of interest, such as the education system in Ladakh, politics in Ladakh, or mental health in Ladakh. Other students find ways to share something with Ladakhis, like one student's series of classes and q&a on women's health issues for girls in grades 7-12 at a public school in town, and for SECMOL girls in class 10. Some explored fields of interest by job-shadowing a veterinarian, job-shadowing an amchi, a traditional medicine practitioner, or living in a monastary for a full week.

The Exhibition period culminates with a lengthy research paper and a 20 minute presentation to the entire SECMOL community, staff, students, guests, and fellow VISpas. It was pretty amazing to see all of this year's students present what they had learned. Presentations were varied, one student presented the photgraphs he'd taken after living with the Brogpa people of Da, another the film she'd made of interviews with Tibetan refugees on Tibet, and one presentation was of a traditional Ladakhi dinner cooked for the entire 60+ people in attendance. It's hard to fully explain the depth of what each student did, or how gratifying it was to see each of them stand up there

Gyiak

One of the SECMOL students invited me to her home, as it's exam period and many of the students are travelling to farflung corners of Ladakh to see their families and take exams, and I had been meaning to take my days off. I went with Jigmet on a long bus ride along the Indus River gorge to a restricted area that I needed a permit for, then a long hike from the road up to her tiny village, Gyiak, three houses, all of which were her family members. It was cold and windy when we arrived, the bus honked, and a bit later Jigmet's sister appeared on the steep hill, and took the packages we'd hauled all the way from Leh, bags of rice, sugar, an enormous bottle of ketchup.

Large dobermans greeted us with ferocious barks, but her father, silver speckled hair, plaid shirt, lined face, glasses, big smile, led us around them and into the house. Out of the howling wind the quiet was intermittently punctuated by the crackle of the stove which Jigmet's sister fed, snapping sticks to fit in the repurposed oil drum. One of Jigmet's cousins peeks in at me. Dinner appears magically. We're tired and darkness settles in over the narrow valley early, we settle in to sleep but end up talking for hours in the dark once the stove has gone out, voices muffled under a thick pile of blankets.

Waking up the next morning I'm pleasantly surprised to realize I can sleep a bit longer, Jigmet and I get up at 6 at SECMOL, but here in her family's house we sleep in until 8, late by Ladakhi standards but much needed by both of us. Jigmet has been studying for her class 12 state of India technology exam, and I'm taking my first days off all semester. We have mugs of hot milk mixed with instant coffee, a rare treat, for breakfast; I think one of the reasons I'm so comfortable with Jigmet is little things like this, that she prefers coffee for breakfast instead of the usual heaping plate of spinach, lentils and chapatis.

Jigmet's father and cousin are separating their herd of goats, penning the month old baby goats up and preparing to head up the mountain valley with the grown ones. Jigmet's four year old cousin pauses from her work to reverently hand me a tiny sun bleached skeleton, the bones and dried skin of a stillborn goat, an impossibly tiny skull.

We spend the day hiking up the valley, to the ruins of an army camp from 15 years before, concrete walls crumble and we walk through houses trying to imagine the floor plans, picking up bits of old ceramic cups, pretty rocks, slate from the roofs. We trail down the valley, sticking close to the stream which springs forth from the ground, an aging white chorten marking the spot where the spring spirit resides, the source. An enormous poplar tree grows downstream, so big and old it must be sacred to have not been cut down for firewood or building.

We walk down to the waterwheel, a mill housed above the stream and Jigmet moves stones around to divert the water to make the ancient grinding stone turn, though it's too early in the season to get enough water pressure to grind barley flour. Heading back upstream, we stop to visit her mother's sister, with her three baby girls, all under the age of 5. We play games and drink tea until the early evening, when Jigmet goes back to her house to help with the goats.

Jigmet's grandmother has returned from the mountain with the goats, and Jigmet's sister and father and four year old cousin all pitch in, shuffling the baby goats to their mothers to nurse. I watch the chaos as somehow all the kids are fed and shuffled back into the correct pens for the night. Jigmet had once told me a story about herding the goats with her mother when she was four or five and watching a snow leopard devour several of them, too scared to scream for her mother.

As darkness settles and the goats are safely put to bed, we head into the kitchen and begin making dinner, chu tagi, my favorite. I have to beg to help but finally Jigmet relents and she rolls the dough as I use a tin cup to cut out the round boat shaped noodles. Jigmet's father impishly drops bits of paper and a few utensils down her cousins jacket, until the four year old begins to itch her back and then shakes out a cascade of odds and ends, and we finally burst with laughter. I see where Jigmet gets her mischievous sense of humor from. They all tease the cat, an easy going tabby, most often dragged about by the three baby girls as they would a stuffed animal. He sleeps heavily now, next to the stove, as Jigmet puts bits of dough into his mouth. Her beautiful grandmother speaks to me in Hindi, which she learned during the army's occupation of the valley, though Jigmet keeps reminding her I don't speak Hindi. My bits and phrases of Ladakhi make everyone laugh, and we all sit sipping coffee after dinner, sides aching.