amy in ladakh

Mythic beasts

2011-06-19T22:48:00.001-07:00

Ladakh is one of the rare places left on earth where in the black of night, you can’t really be sure of what you saw, if it is animal or myth. On the overnight bus across the Himalaya, Tara shakes me awake at 4:30am. “Did you see it?” she asks. Bleary eyed, I can’t say that I did. In the darkness all I can see is the white snow all around us illuminated in the headlights, and beyond that a blackness. “It was a big cat, with spots, maybe the size of a dog.” The bus charges on through the predawn darkness, and I stare out the window, hoping for a glimpse of whatever creature Tara saw. Snow Leopard? Lynx? Mythic beast?

Seven nights later, I’m sitting in the home of my boss along with his family and some of his good friends. He tells stories about the seven years he spent in the remote region of Zanskar, about how it used to take a month to reach the village of Dha which now takes one day, and a story about camping near a remote project site and waking in the night to find a bear circling them.

His daughter tells a story about driving home late one winter night and seeing three big shanku, wolves, striding right down the middle of Fort Road in her headlights. Someone asks if they were not dogs, and she laughs, "no, with those teeth? Such big teeth!" I shiver at the thought of walking home at night and having the misfortune to run into wolves right in the middle of town.

The room is warm and we’re all stuffed from the heaping portions of momos and palak paneer served earlier, not to mention the endless cups of butter tea and chang. I could happily fall asleep here on the rugs in the dining room, but somehow we find the energy to head home. I am no stranger to navigating the nighttime streets of Leh, haunted by packs of low growling dogs, and I gratefully accept a ride home from my boss’s son-in-law. The headbeams of the car illuminate the empty streets of Leh, as always, eerily deserted even at 11 o’clock on a Saturday night, devoid of tourists and taxis. The drive up the hill to where I live is long, and I briefly feel guilt at dragging Skarma and his young daughter all the way up here so late at night. Yet as his headbeams illuminate the gate of the hostel here at the outskirts of town, in the hills, I can hardly believe what I see—at least twenty furry bodies flowing out through the holes in the gate, scattered by the light. Dogs big and small. I gasp, Skarma lets out a slow whistle.

Skarma walks with me to the gate, both of us reassuring the growling dogs that we mean no harm. I feel intense gratitude that he’s willing to get out of the car. At the halfway point we part ways after I reassure him I’ll make it to the door okay, I am equally worried for him. Packs of dogs are eerie, they don’t follow the rules that govern pet behavior. Dogs trail me and I keep talking softly. I signal to him with my flashlight from the safety of the door. Part of what makes this culture so different is the intense feeling of safety you get from coming into the warmth and light and closing the door on the darkness and wild animals. It’s rare to still feel that sense of fear at the darkness, at the mysteries of what beasts exist beyond a flashlight beam. It’s one of the things that keeps me pressed to the windows of buses late at night, or dozing by the fire until the sun comes up. I am both awed by the mysteries of the midnight mountain dwellers, as well as deeply grateful for the company of my fellow humans here.

Church in the Wilderness

2010-05-17T04:14:00.000-07:00

James and I went to church on Sunday. There's an old church, St. John's in the Wilderness, built by the British when they were here, just outside of McLeod Ganj, out in the woods. We intended to go to the 11 o'clock service that James saw in a guidebook. As we arrived we saw little white haired old ladies exiting, shaking the pastor's hand. Turns out the English service was at 10, and the Hindi service at 11. We decided to stay, good practice for our Hindi to try to follow a whole service, and we'd sit way in the back so as to not embarass ourselves.

Like religious sites anywhere in India, the majority of people there are tourists from different religions. The same way that with the VIS students we visit Buddhist temples and do our best to be polite and curteous, it was with the Indian tourists at the church. They were trying their best to be quiet and respectful while curiously poking around the church, taking flash photographs, posing the group in front of the altar, etc.

As the pastor put on robes over his short sleeve plaid shirt, the large group in the pews slowly filed out. First the foreign tourists exited, then 20 teenaged Indian boys who had been posing for a picture in the pews, then the Indian families that I had assumed would be staying. We were down to seven parishioners, including the 3 teenaged girls in beautiful saris who sat there texting on their cellphones. So James and I were fairly conspicious now with the whole building practically empty. We made it through almost ten minutes, most of which was singing, and then James abandoned me and I gave it up shortly thereafter, and scooted quietly out the back.

Walking around the church and cemetery, we watched Indian families posing in front of monuments. There were about 40 or so people milling about, compared with the minute number inside. One father approached us and asked us to be in their family photo, which was funny. They were from the east, where is was currently 46 degrees celsius! They were enjoying the cool climate of Dharmsala...which is still incredibly hot by my standards. James and I had worn nice clothes for church and had sweated through them just standing there. So we took a few photos with the family, then walked around the beautiful cemetary, light filtering through big green leaves onto moss covered graves from the 1860s detailing dedicated British servicemen and their wives and children stationed here. And that was Sunday at Church.

Majnu Ku Tilla

2010-05-12T04:27:00.000-07:00

James and I are at a coffee shop in Majnu Ku Tilla, the Tibetan Refugee colony in Delhi, waiting for a bus to take us 14 hours north to the city of Dharmsala and neighboring McLough Ganj, seat of the Tibetan Government in Exile. Strange to wake up this morning without 14 other people around!

Delhi

2010-05-09T05:13:00.000-07:00

Well, we're back in Delhi after a tearful goodbye to SECMOL students last night and this morning. I'll post updates from the past 5 weeks or so soon, the internet cafe in Leh had been too crowded to do much more than email lately, so this high speed internet is a welcome change. Two days in Delhi with students, then students go back to the U.S.

Ursi

2010-05-03T03:57:00.000-07:00

Soccer in the streets of Ursi

Exhibition

2010-05-01T03:54:00.000-07:00

VIS students presented their independent study projects to the whole SECMOL community this past week, here's me and 3 students who presented on that day

Plowing in Rumbuk

2010-04-24T09:45:00.000-07:00

Plowing the field in Rumbuk
Though it's dusk, there's a feeling of excitement in the air. In the fading light by the window in the kitchen the abi-lay of the house is putting on a heavy woolen goncha, cinching the tie dye belt. Their 18 year old sun, with his shaved head, is suddenly animated, gathering up the copper kettles and examining them. Through the language barrier I can figure out only that I should follow. In the fields beyond, in the chilly air two enormous black dzos snort and stomp, yoked with a heavy wooden plow. Burning sage in old oil tins line the field, as well as copper kettles full of yak butter.

Koko, they chant, and drive the two dzos forward, tugging at a rope attached to a nose ring. The men and 1 womean walk with the dzos, swinging the smoking sage, which brings furious tears to our eyes as it passes. After dragging the plows along the edges of the field, churning the dry grey soil over, dark chocolate colored soil rising in it's place, the procession of 20 or so moves to the center of the field and they begin carving a large circle in the center, dramatic peaks behind them as the last rays of sun reach us. A crescent moon shape follows the circle. "Nima Dawa," Tsetan, one of the SECMOL students trekking with us tells me. Sun-moon.

Butter is smeared on the yaks foreheads, and then one of the teenagers with the shaved heads--there are 5 of them, Tsetan tells me they are in the army--leaping about like a dancer, all youthful exuberance, smears butter on all the villagers' foreheads, and everyone is clapping.

Just as our attention is waning, drawn to the stamping of cold feet and frozen boots, the dzos are unyoked and set free, and they charge towards the edge of the field where we stand. Too startled to even yell, everyone leaps up the hill in a matter of seconds as the dzos change direction and race around the field, furiously kicking up dirt, before running through the streets of the village. The largest bull stands snorting in the main square of the village, and UT, another SECMOL student leads us cautiously up the hillside and around the back of the village, before we all head inside for dinner.

SECMOL Campus

2010-03-12T03:40:00.000-08:00

An update, written for the parents of my students, posted on the semester blog:

Julley all!
We are back at SECMOL and spending the next month focusing on academics, interspersed with some guest speakers and a few fieldtrips. Yesterday we took a trip to Choglamsar, the Tibetan Refuge Colony, outside of the city of Leh, to visit the Tibetan Children's Village School, hear about the history of the Tibet conflict, and hear the story of a man who escaped from Tibet as a small boy. This week James's English class has been wrapping up reading Patrick French's Tibet, Tibet and learning about Tibetan history. SECMOL hosted a Cultural Workshop this week, so campus has been quite busy with the pounding of traditional drums, flute playing, singing, and lots and lots of dancing! VISpas attended the final performance. Many care packages arrived in the mail, and there were many big smiles! Phone calls to SECMOL Campus have also been much appreciated, the best times to call are mornings and evenings (Indian Time), when students are usually in the kitchen having breakfast or dinner, or in the dorms.

To give you an idea of the days here, the morning begins with a 7:40 staff meeting, a 7:50 VIS student meeting, (some students on cow duty and solar duty start their days much earlier, 5:30 or 6:30am!) 8am breakfast,9am work hour, 10am class, 11am tea, 11:30 class, 12:15 class, 1pm lunch, 2pm class, 3-4 freetime, 4pm afternoon tea, 4:30 responsibilities, 6pm class (some days), and 7:30 dinner, 8:30 evening activities.

If you call, most likely a Ladakhi student will answer. They are learning English, and most are quite good but it helps to speak slowly and to just keep repeating your VIS student's name...eventually they'll find the right person! Often to fill airtime one of the other VIS students may pick up the phone while someone else is running over to the dormitory. Internet has been out on campus, but we've been in Leh about once a week and you probably have heard from your VISpa by now. (I hope!)

The Sham trek was wonderful. Lots of snow, lots of hiking, everyone has acclimatized extraordinarily well. Several students have posted about the homestay experience, and I just uploaded both a photo of one homestay family and one of the group on a pass around 13,000 feet, on our hardest day. In Environmental Science, we've been doing a unit on Agriculture and Appropriate Technology, so students spent their freetime in villages interviewing villagers about topics ranging from Composting Toilets, to Water Wheels (for grinding grain), to Seabuckthorn Fencing (used like barbed wire, to keep cows from damaging precious trees), to Oil Drum Stoves and Cow Dung Fuel, and many, many more. In conjunction with English, James taught a journalism workshop and students have just turned in their final articles.

Fieldtrips to Stok Monastary, the Tibetan Colony, and guest speakers on Ancient Futures, a Buddhism Workshop, and Nick's unit on Buddhism have occupied our Ladakh Then and Now Class, as well as discussions on the book Tibet, Tibet and newspaper articles. Ladakhi class has gotten off to a very slow start, as our Ladakhi teacher has been sick, but James has been teaching the class and students got some intensive practice during homestay visits! We are getting a new Ladakhi teacher begining next week.

This photo is one of the main building at SECMOL, during the Culture Workshop, the uppermost floor houses the school's library and the girl's dorm, and the lower floor is the auditorium and classrooms. That's about all for now, as I write this, everyone is happy and healthy and enjoying Ladakh.
Julley,
Amy

Classrooms & Teaching in Ladakh

2010-03-12T02:45:00.000-08:00

We've settled comfortably into SECMOL Campus. Our days begin at 7:40 with staff meeting, then the 7:50 VIS student meeting, 8am breakfast,9am work hour, 10am class, 11am tea, 11:30 class, 12:15 class, 1pm lunch, 2pm class, 3-4 freetime, 4pm afternoon tea, 4:30 responsibilities, 6pm class (some days), and 7:30 dinner, 8:30 evening activities. The days are full, but somehow this lends itself to using time more creatively, more effectively than if I had hours to lesson plan or just go for long runs in the mountains.

This year I am especially proud of our classroom and office. When we first arrived, we had two bare rooms. Now the classroom is outfitted with a low table, a large whiteboard, 4 long floor cushions that each seat 4, and the large electronic keyboard that James gives music lessons on. The walls are tricky, as they are hard mud, and tape simply gives up and slides down the wall, and tacks serve only to chip off large disasterous hunks of plaster. Everything must be hung from a small high strip of wood set into the plaster, and so I have rigged up various contraptions, ranging from tied together bits of string to mangled guitar strings to hang posters, a world map, an enormous, wonderful, map of India, maps of the Himalayan range, the Zanskar range, the Ladakh region, Ladakhi birds, Ladakhi mammals, a great map depicting Ladakh's agricultural seasons drawn by last year's student, Libbie P.

The far wall now is awash with color, maps drawn by each student of "home," which vary from floor plans of homes, to the streets of Montpellier, to maps of Bethel, Sharon, Lyme, to maps of Vermont, a map of New England, and a map of the world. Sometimes in between classes I'll find SECMOL students in the classroom, peering at our maps.

The office now has two (!!) desks, that Nick James and I share, a large low table with lesson plans and readings carefully organized by piles, a 2nd low table that magically appeared one day that I hope to hold onto by making it indispensable; it now holds the printer and two computers. A first aid box sits in the corner, another tin box of electronics, and finally a large bookshelf that last year's Shona S. spearheaded the building off, out of heavy rough-hewn wood, holding stacks of Salman Rushdie's Shalimar the Clown and Midnight's Children, (James's English Class), Janet Rizvi's Ladakh (Science class), and Ancient Futures (Ladakh Then and Now), as well as Herman Hesse's Siddartha, Rudyard Kipling's Kim, E.F. Schumacher's Small is Beauitiful, Sumantra Bose's Kashmir, Patrick French's Tibet, Tibet, and a miscellany of odds and ends, from the Associated Press Guide to Newswriting to the Humanure Handbook. The side of the bookshelf that faces my desk has the names of last year's VIS girls', (who built the bookshelf), and the inscription "We love SECMOL." On the walls hang posters from last year's science projects and Fall '08 and Spring'09 exhibitions.

Much as I love order, frequently things go missing. I hide the whiteboard markers in between classes, as there is always a shortage and both the VIS teachers and the SECMOL teachers will pillage each other's classrooms in desperation, as students are sitting, waiting for class to begin. Half the time I use my hat as an eraser, and about 20% of the time large pieces of furniture go missing, tables vanished, leaving only piles of neatly placed papers stacked on a chair or windowsill. The electricity is only on in the early morning or late evening, so planning ahead to print homework assignments and quizes is essential. Our late 1990s printer will only work with our early 2000 vintage Apples, so mornings like today (Appropriate Technology articles due) the office is abuzz with sharing flash drives and accidental printings of 3 or 4 copies of someone's queued document. There are no photocopy machines, and no internet, which means that instead of googling something to refer to in class, I often haul a pile of books from SECMOL's library, sifting through pages of 1970s figures and graphs for the one piece of information that I wanted. Perhaps because of this, information seems to have more value here. Marga commented the other day that the books she reads here seem to "mean more," to seem more relevant and interesting, than if she had read the same book back at home. If I print something out for students, it is automatically weighty with importance, as we try to conserve printer ink, and to print a single copy of a relevant NYT column to read in class indicates at least 30 minutes of waiting for a page to load, much less googling something. Scarcity of resources makes us more deliberate, I suppose.

Hemischupachen Homestay

2010-03-11T03:49:00.000-08:00

A photo from one of our homestay homes in the village of Hemischupachen, on the Sham Trek, where we spent two nights researching appropriate technology, enjoying tea, helping to make dinner, and playing cricket with the 2 small boys in the family. In the photo is the homestay family (mom, dad, grandmother, 2 young boys) VISpas Max, Emery, Schuyler, Laura, and me, and Tenzing, a SECMOL student who came on trek with us to help translate.
-Amy

Hemischupachen

2010-03-11T01:47:00.000-08:00

Homestay in the village of Hemischupachen: grandmother and her two grandsons playing cricket in the late afternoon. One of my favorite moments from the trek was this particular afternoon, watching this two-year old, fearlessly pitching to his grandmother and brother.

Ule

2010-03-11T00:55:00.001-08:00

We've left the rest of the group at 13,000 feet, and Marga, Dan and I are now at 13,800 ft in elevation, according to the GPS, finally at the doorstep of the house in the clouds that we gazed at an hour ago from the main village of Ule. Exhausted from the uphill climb, we unlace ice encrusted boots and pad in wet socks into the warm kitchen. Cow dung fuels an old oil drum repurposed for a stove. Delicately painted eggs hang in clusters from the ceiling. The family pours us milk tea and baskets of biscuits and cookies appear in abundance. The kitchen faces the valley, overlooking the village below, we gaze out at peaks of the Himalaya (more accurately, the Ladakh Range) at eye level, clouds snagging on the jagged rocks.

In the warm kitchen perhaps a decade's worth of yellow and red mustard oil tins, with alternating Urdu, Hindi, and English scripts all depicting the same smiling woman, decoratively line the uppermost shelves of the kitchen. Red lidded jam jars encircle the rest of the room, holding a miscellany of spices. I imagine that anything that makes the long journey from the city of Leh to this remote house in the clouds stays forever. The house seems to be one of the oldest I've seen, the kitchen roof framed in enormous timber beams, blackened with years of soot. "200 years old," the father says proudly. He tells me that some of his family migrated down to the village of Yangtang, where we spent last night, in fact the very house we'd stayed in, but that they have always lived here.

Their 18 year old daughter, Angmo, sits next to me overlooking the valley and impatiently presses a cellphone to the windowpane, sighing in frustration at the lack of a signal.

The horseman, Tsewang Dorjey, tosses bits of a biscuit to a fat grey and white cat. "I brought this cat here, " he says with fondness. How long ago, Marga and I wonder, and he smiles, "15 years ago" he answers.

Dan takes a nap and Marga and I dry our wet feet by the cranking stove, steam rising from our purple and blue smartwools. Already the chilly hike up one ridge and down to the river, then back up a steep hillside, sinking into ankle deep snow is a pleasantly fading memory. A skinny kitten prowls around looking for crumbs from Fatty, who sits cleaning his paws by the stove. "Abilay bila," I say, (grandmother cat), and the horseman chuckles and says, "Me-me bila," (grandfather cat).

The skinny kitten curls up at Marga's feet, next to the stove. The horseman picks up a golden prayer wheel and the rhythmic swish of it blends with the soft roar of the stove, as he murmurs "Om mane padme om" over and over.

Tea is served, then chang, the local barley wine, all in ornate teacups decorated with dragons. Clouds rise behind the mountains, drifting up to meet a wintry sky.

VIS Student Blog

2010-03-06T23:54:00.000-08:00

I have been quite bad about posting updates lately, there is no internet at SECMOL and my trips into the city of Leh have been busy getting everyone oriented and acquainted, but the students have all been posting on our semester blog, which can be found at:

http://visspring10.blogspot.com/

Jullay!
Amy

Sham Trek

2010-03-06T23:44:00.000-08:00

Beautiful trek in the Sham region of Ladakh, 5 nights and 6 days of hiking and homestays. I'll write up a better description later, but for now, myself and all the students are back safely and had a wonderful time.

Ladakh!

2010-02-18T21:29:00.000-08:00

Just a quick update, we arrived in Ladakh after all the delays about 6 days ago. It's cold and the mountains are snow capped, and we're all so excited to finally be here.

Mahashrivatri

2010-02-12T06:57:00.000-08:00

Well, we're still in Delhi. But the snows in Leh have stopped (knock on wood) and we have 17 seats on the flight tomorrow, weather permitting. Here's hoping that we get out of Delhi tomorrow! In the meantime, James and I have been learning our way around this crazy city. We've taken the metro several times now and are used to the separate queues for guys and girls, then the aggressive security pat down behind the screens, then the bag x-ray, just to go a few stops. At least you don't have to take your shoes off. We've seen the National History Museum, Dillihut, and the Red Fort, eaten at more Indian restaurants than can count and even made a trip to McDonalds at the students request--McDonalds here serves no beef, a concession they had to make for the Hindu majority here. We've travelled by rickshaw through streets crowded with motorcycles, oxen pulled carts, and children riding horses down major highways. We've watched a wedding procession and now a major holiday celebration from the rooftop of our hotel. We've learned to endure the labrynthine streets, filled with beggars missing limbs, sleeping homeless bodies, street hawkers gesticulating wildly, and the bizarre paparazzi effect that our group has. As we pass, many Indians whip out cell phones to subtely, or often, not so subtly snap a picture. Today at the Red Fort one Indian women came over to our group as we sat listening to a history lecture, sat down next to us, and her husband snapped her picture. As we later sat at a different spot, four small well dressed children ages 2-6 craftily snap our photos with a cellphone, then rush back to their parents picnicing on the grass, who review the pictures, shake their heads, and then send the children back for more! Today is the holiday of Mahashrivaratri, the wedding of Hindu god Shiva; a large stage has gone up overnight, blocking the entire road from traffic, decorated with enormous statues of Hindu gods, scaffolding, enormous vats of oil frying breads, and Hindi music blaring. Delhi never ceases to amaze! Hopefully...hopefully Ladakh will be amazing us very soon...here's hoping the good weather holds.

Delhi again

2010-02-08T08:18:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-07T02:11:00.000-08:00

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

2010-02-07T02:00:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-29T20:56:00.000-08:00

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

2010-01-26T14:35:00.000-08:00

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

2009-04-30T14:05:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-21T22:23:00.000-07:00

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.

greenhouse progress

2009-03-22T15:01:00.000-07:00

Laying the bricks for the front wall of our greenhouse, Libbie, Lui and Sangdrup

SECMOL Campus Life

2009-03-16T16:16:00.000-07:00

SECMOL Campus is a busy place, classes take place 6 days a week, and in addition to 4 or 5 classes a day all of campus participates in work hour every morning, student responsibilities in the afternoon (maintaining the solar panels, milking the cows, gardening, forestry, sweeping the main hall, grocery shopping etc.), and evening meeting and dinner. It's a full day, both for students and staff.

Vermont Intercultural Semester's program is a combination of a number of things: treks in the Himalayas, homestays with Ladakhi families, and a full academic high school semester of work, which I often forget to talk about though it is the majority of my time this semester. I teach Environmental Science, James teaches English, Kunzes teaches Ladakhi Language, James and I co-teach a course called Ladakh: Then and Now (History, mainly), and also co-run our 5th class, Exhibition, which is an independent study for each of the students with the goal of creating a presentation at the end of the semester. In the evenings we run English Conversation Class for an hour, a chance for the Ladakhi students to practice their English.

In Environmental Science we've completed a unit on Ecology and Landscape, focusing on Ladakh's ecosystem, agriculture, and our ecological footprints in the U.S. and here in Ladakh. While trekking last week we did a combination unit with Ladakh Then and Now and English, focusing on Appropriate Technology, exploring Ladakhi innovations, from ancient water wheels that grind barley flour to solar panels adorning the straw bale covered roofs of so many Ladakhi homes. Right now we're in the middle of a unit of Climate Change, reading a bit of Hot, Flat and Crowded in class (Thanks Mom), and Bridge at the Edge of the World, to balance out the textbook readings, and hoping to do another Glacier Day Field Trip, since last semester's was so much fun.

In Ladakh: Then and Now James and I pull in as many guest speakers as we can, Buddist monks teaching about Buddism and Tibetan script, politicians speaking on the Union Territory effort, the state of J&K, the Kashmir conflict, Becky speaking on the political system, SECMOL students speaking on the education system, a scientist from the Defense Department speaking on High Altitude research, Thinles speaking on Ladakh's history, marriage, and tourism and development. Fieldtrips to Buddist monastaries, ancient ruins, monastary festivals, the Tibetan Children's Village School, a few other ones in the works. We're in the middle of reading Tibet, Tibet right now, as the 50th anniversary of occupation approaches.

Independent projects are starting to become more developed. Some really good ideas and interesting directions this semester, with students looking to do internships in metalworking, cooking, veterinary medicine, traditional medicine, climate change, music, mental health, education, traditional clothing design, tourism, architecture, photography, and more.

Morning work hour is spent working on a greenhouse to grow some new vegetables in. We've picked a site and ordered materials, this week has been the less interesting work of leveling out the ground, but once we start building the walls things should get a bit more interesting.

English Conversation Class has become mostly our intern, Holly's, class, though James and I still teach it from time to time. Last night it was my turn; the topic was "Accidents, Injuries and Hospital Trips," which made for some pretty funny and gruesome stories, and Devan and Jess acted out a few of the tricker vocabulary words, like "tripped," "concussion" and "fainted."

Busy as the days are, all of campus breaks at 11 and 4 for "teatime," possibly my favorite time of day, enormous thermoses of milk tea or sweet tea making the rounds, as we sit around the kitchen or just outside the kitchen in the late four o'clock sun. Salt tea is still an acquired taste for most of us. A break from 5 to 6 finds most of the students playing cricket or soccer, though James has been lobbying to build a basketball court.

Dinner is served in the dining hall, long cloth tablecloths unfurled in two long rows, constant chatter broken intermittently by student announcements, daily news recap, a song in ladakhi, and one student or staff giving a dinner talk. Post dinner there is evening activity, usually dancing, either Ladakhi drumming and traditional dance, or a mix of American and Ladakhi pop songs, but on quieter nights a good movie, everyone draped in sleeping bags or Tibetan blankets bunching around the one TV, a nice close to a busy day.

Pizza Party!

2009-03-09T14:40:00.000-07:00

VISpas made pizza today for SECMOL

Sham Trek

2009-03-07T20:33:00.000-08:00

The past week we trekked through the Sham region, travelling by car to Likkir, then hiked to Yangtang, an easy 4 hour trek, where we spent the night. In Yangtang we stayed in the homes of 2 families, a good first introduction to Ladakhi homestays. We had Chu Tagi--it translates literally to "water bread," a thick delicious barley wheat noodle in a milk and onion sauce. I'd had it before, but never this good! VIS students slept in 2 bedrooms, one for boys, one for girls, and I slept in the kitchen with Kunzes, the VIS Ladakhi teacher, and Tashi llamo and Somo, two SECMOL students who came trekking with us. Falling asleep with a full belly by a warm stove, listening to ladakhi words I thought once again how lucky I am to be here in Ladakh. Sometime during the night I woke to one of the kittens crawling into my sleeping bag, searching for warmth.

The second day we hiked uphill for about 3 hours, to the village of Ulley, high up in a mountain valley. VIS students were split into smaller groups here, and after we reached our houses we had some tea, changed out of our sweaty clothes, and sat around the woodstove talking and eventually nodded off in the smoky warm room. I woke when the room got cold, the fire had gone out, and no one was around. The door creaked open and a little boy, about 5 years old peered in at me, and then beckoned. What else to do but follow him through the dark shadowy house, through pitch black corridors, and into the kitchen, where Shona, Matt and Morgan were dancing with him to Hindi music? Quite the dancer, little Stanzin refused to let any of us stop dancing. We must have danced for an hour, this enthusiastic 5 year old delightedly shrieking in Ladakhi at us--he was at the age where he couldn't understand why we didn't speak Ladakhi, why everyone in the world wouldn't speak Ladakhi--so we danced until his mother came back and we started preparing dinner.

Our third day we hiked to the village Hemischupachen, one of the larger villages in the Sham region. To get there we backtracked down the valley the Ulley sits in, then went through another snowy valley and over a small pass. In Hemishupachen, light filters through a piece of green plastic in the roof, bathing the room in green glow. A cat sleeps beneath the stove, paws twitching with animal dreams, ribs rising in falling in deep sleep. An old radio sits on the wooden floor, playing slow sad Tibetan music. At 6pm there are 5 minutes of news in English, staticky, British accented. Flowered contact paper covers the chokste table. The wood floor is blackened around the stove, and we sit on a threadbare but beautiful rug.

The radio crackles and through the static speaks, "Pakistan terrorists killed 8 members of the Sri Lankan cricket team. New Zealand has cancelled their upcoming match with Pakistan." Tashi looks at me. "Nobody wants to play with pakistan anymore," he says softly, smiling sadly at his phrasing. I nod. Nobody wants to play with Pakistan anymore. The cat rolls over and yawns.

Our final day of trekking brought us across one large snowfield, finally reaching a set of prayerflags at the edge. We took some group photos, gazed out from our vantage point, about even with the next pass, but with about a 1000 foot drop to a valley below. Then we tore down the mountain, sliding down the snowy slope before resting over cookies and candy bars in the sun. About an hour's trek through sandy rock, and we reached the south side of our second pass of the day. Trudging up with the ponies and our own packs, we passed another hour or so simply putting one foot in front of the other, shedding gloves and hats for t-shirts as we baked in the sun. Endless switchbacks, finally we found footing in the snow as we neared the top, and took a lunch break on top. From here we could see the prayer flags where we had been only a few hours ago. The rest of the day was a descent into the village of Ang, falling into a methodical rhythmn as we tramped through canyons, shady sides frigid and snow covered, sun side warm and sandy. Finally we reached Ang, and the silence was broken for the first time in hours, as if we'd just woken up, grins all around.

All in all, the Sham Region trek has been one of my favorite treks, both for the beautiful snowfields marked by chortens, high passes, changing climate from desert to mountain, and evenings spent around warm stoves with welcoming families in high mountain villages.

Solar Tour

2009-02-10T08:45:00.000-08:00

Today science director Acho Norgay gave the VIS students a tour of the facilities. Starting with the passively heated solar buildings, we covered the importance of always moving the reflective solar cooker with the sun-lest it scorch the kitchen door (again), the recycling system--everything is reused, paper and plastic trash becomes insulation, glass bottles are reused for apricot jam, the only thing that cannot be recycled are batteries, which unfortunately can only be contained as securely as possible and buried as far as possible from water. Rather than mindlessly throwing stuff out as we do in the US, living at SECMOL makes you (painfully) aware of what we waste (candy wrappers, packing peanuts etc.) and where it goes--or doesn't really ever go from, in the case of the batteries.

After covering the basics of how campus runs, including the solar water heaters in the kitchen and washroom, the greenhouses and the solar heated cow shed, we walked down to the edge of campus, overlooking the Indus, to see the solar panels and battery house, which is what powers all electricity at SECMOL, from lights to radios, to the TV, the computer lab, to ipods lighting up like fireflies in bedrooms at night.

Ladakhi Winter

2009-02-09T08:40:00.000-08:00

Monday, February 9th we arrived into Leh airport, and felt the change in the air. Not just the cold, bitter and bracing, but the very attitudes of people as we exited the small plane. Patient is a word that well describes Ladakh. Noone is ever in a rush, everyone patiently waiting for little old Ladakhi women to inch down the steep stairs to the runway, or helping drag enormous bags off the belt in the small one room airport. Such a contrast from Delhi, fighting off people trying to "help" with luggage, the constant elbowing in lines, bumper cars with luggage carts, airport officials pressing for money, constant pushing at your back. Even standing on the runway in the cold waiting for a bus there is a pleasant attitude, all of us marveling at the mountains surrounding us.

We traversed a dusty offroad path winding through the treeless hills, our jeeps ably tackling the rough terrain, as the main road to campus is being paved, and arrived, finally, at SECMOL, to students waving and coming out to greet us. After tea and an introductory talk by Becky most of the VIS students staggered to the dorms and fell into bed; we'd gotten up at 4 the last few mornings, and the altitude was beginning to hit.

SECMOL is beautiful in winter. The front field is converted into an ice rink, and students play hockey between classes. All around us the mountains are white streaked with dark outcroppings of rock. Our first night a full moon reflected off the snow, mountains and campus bathed in a dark white glow.

Taj Mahal

2009-02-08T08:43:00.000-08:00

The crowds, the vendors, the insane taxi drivers, the boys yanking monkeys on chains, all of these things get old but seeing the Taj never does. Beautiful everytime, despite the arduous journey there.

Working on posting a picture...internet is very very slow right now

SECMOL Mtn. Hike

2009-02-06T14:28:00.000-08:00

In preparation for next week's trek we did a short hike up the "mountain" behind SECMOL. Most Ladakhi's would consider it a hill, as evidenced by a few of the senior class boys tearing up it and waiting for us at the top, but it took us about 4 hours to go up and down. Here's a photo of James's English class that day, about 3/4 of the way up.

Songstsam Library

2009-02-03T22:46:00.000-08:00

I'm writing from the Songstsam Library, at the Center for Tibetan & Himalayan Studies. Beautiful stone walls, paintings on the ceiling, a silent hush surrounding the shelves holding ancient Tibetan scrolls wrapped in orange and red. Monks whispering quietly, bent over texts. We are lucky enough to be staying here in the dormitory for this week, along with Tibetan Studies students and meditation course students, taking a weeklong course in Tibetan Script, and another in Buddhism Studies. Yesterday morning a few of us sat in on the morning prayer, listening to the rhythmic chanting of monks, shifting our bones as we sat cross legged on the cold marble floor, before walking out to a quiet sunrise. The students are researching their presentations on concepts in Buddhism at this amazing library. We have two monks teaching our classes, Ven. Sherab and Ven. Tamphel, incredibly patient with our slow progress on the Tibetan alphabet--much trickier than the Roman alphabet, there 30 consonants, 4 vowel signifiers, and then the Superscript characters and the Subjoined letters, making more character combinations than I can count. Not exactly the type of alphabet you could summarize in a children's song! We're learning a lot and enjoying our time here.

Newark news

2009-02-03T22:40:00.000-08:00

Did I mention that during our adventure in the airport a news crew in Newark filmed us and interviewed James and I on what we think of fare increases? The internet is too slow to watch it here, but here is a link of us the VIS group at the airport that one of the parents found online:

http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/video?id=6631807

Rishikesh

2009-02-01T15:08:00.000-08:00

Rafting in Rishikesh

Airports

2009-01-29T12:15:00.000-08:00

James, Holly and I met our students at the Burlington airport yesterday, in what can best be described as "pouring snow." A great day for skiing, a terrible day for flying, it turned out. We were delayed for about 6 hours, before we finally got from Burlington to Newark, though in Newark the Delhi flight had just left, we'd missed it by just minutes. Luckily, Continental has great customer service and they arranged for hotel rooms for all 15 of us, meal vouchers, and managed to find 15 seats on the next day's flight to Delhi! We're now in the Newark Airport, waiting around for tonight's Delhi flight. Here's the first picture of the trip, from a parent of one of the students. The group is 12 students, James and I, and our new intern, Holly, from UVM.

Uttarakhand

2009-01-27T05:34:00.000-08:00

I'm all packed up and preparing to fly to Delhi tomorrow morning with a new group of students, VIS Spring Semester '09, this time a group of high school aged students. I'll be teaching Environmental Science and co-teaching a history and cultural studies course called "Ladakh Then & Now," about how Ladakh has changed and developed. I'll try to post regularly. After arriving into Delhi we'll be travelling to Uttarakhand, a region south of J&K (Jammu & Kashmir) with Nepal bordering it to the East. We'll spend about 10 days travelling there, to Dehra Dun and Haridwar, before making our way north to Ladakh to begin our academic semester. Here's a google map of the region where we're headed.

NYTimes.com Article

2008-12-02T09:38:00.000-08:00

One 16 hour flight later and I'm back in the U.S. for the holidays! It's nice to be home. I have some updating to do on the past few weeks in Ladakh and Rajasthan and Delhi, but for now here is an op-ed that explains well the situation in India (the terrorist attacks on Mumbai). The best line in it is this: "The idea that the road to stability in South Asia goes through Kashmir is as persuasive as the notion that the path to peace in the Middle East goes through Jerusalem. It is also equally hard to realize."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/02/opinion/02mishra.html?partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Taj Mahal

2008-11-22T20:16:00.000-08:00

After seeing so many photos of the Taj Mahal you'd think it would be a bit anticlimactic to finally see it in person. It wasn't. It was just as beautiful as you'd imagine, we went early in the morning, steam rising off the river banks behind it as the day grew hot. Even with the crowds, it had a solemn feeling. You've probably heard that the Taj Mahal is a maosoleum, built by the king as a monument to his dead wife. His sadness at losing his wife is palpable in the details, roses etched and inlaid into marble in shades of pink and green stone, flowered tiles worn under many millions of bare feet, trellises of thin translucent stone surrounding the center mausoleum.

Wilting in the sun at midday, the VIS group sat waiting for all of the group to catch up, we were approached by a man with a camera and a group of well dressed little girls, who had been surreptitiously eyeing us for awhile. Headmaster of a girls' school, he asked if we would pose with them. It's a funny thing, in Delhi, always strangers asking you to pose in their pictures with them, but with this school group we did, mostly because the headmaster was so somber, arranging everyone for a very formal photo for their school. Here's the photo. There are more of the Taj Mahal on my picassa site.

Glacier Day

2008-11-17T07:19:00.000-08:00

Ladakh is running into a water scarcity problem, as glaciers melt earlier in the season, and runoff flows through streams near farms when the fields are still to cold to plant. Chewang Norphel, a retired Indian Army engineer, is working on a project to create "artificial glaciers" on the north sides of mountains that will stay frozen longer, allowing glacial melt to thaw later in the season. He invited us out to see his work at one of his sixteen sites, so we found hired a bus and brought most of the SECMOL students too. The bus, driven by a teenager, read "Guns & Roses" on the front windshield and on the back letters spelled out "Love Will Keep Us Alive," which really sums up the prevailing feeling on driving in India. The bus hurtled up the mountain, and frequently we had to get out, all 50 or so of us and prop rocks behind the tires and then push. Eventually after many hours of stop and start driving (and sliding back driving, and pushing) we made it to about 14,000 feet and hiked from there to the glacier site. It was well worth the long bus ride. A beautiful glacial lake before us, SECMOLpas ran towards the lake and we followed their lead, sliding and skating on the ice. Norphel gave us a talk on the engineering behind it, but most of the students were most excited about climbing the retaining wall, a massive sloping masterpiece of stones held together with metal fencing, about three person's high. We spent the day there, had a picnic lunch on the north side until the bitter cold forced us back, and took some great photos for SECMOL. All in all a really fun and educational field trip.

Thikste Monastary Festival

2008-11-15T15:35:00.000-08:00

SECMOL students & VISpas took a trip to the Thikste Monastary Festival this weekend. Millions of steps, crowds of people, red blessing bracelets, white kautuks, beautiful colors all around. The most spectacular display of all was the Oracle, and it was forbidden to photograph him. Climbing up steep stairs we came to a door that had an english translation: "No women allowed." This was where the oracle lived. We waited with the thronging crowd for 30 minutes, sticking close to the SECMOL students that had come with us, not understanding anything that was said.

Finally, the oracle emerged, all multicolored robes and motion, swirling, bells and clattering chimes, silver and gold ribbons, red and purple fabrics trailing after him as he ran through the crowd and leapt onto the parapet of the monastary. He ran along the edge and hearing someone say he was blind, I looked at his eyes, which were cloudy crystal blue. He was indeed blind, but ran along the edges of this monastary built into the cliffs at breakneck speed, whirling around to whisper answers to the questions people asked him. Ladakhis pushed their way through the crowd trying to get near him to whisper urgent questions they wanted to know the answers to.

The oracle swirled a bottle of chang, the Ladakhi alcoholic beverage, made from fermented barley, and intermittenly splashed it onto the crowd, who all pushed closer to have it rain down on their heads. (I on the other hand, usually run in the opposite direction when alcohol is flying through the air) Some of it splashed on our heads, hair, jackets. Tsetan pulled me through the crowd to try to get close enough to ask him a question, but never got her chance. All in all, it was a bizarre but beautiful experience.

Obama!

2008-11-12T00:37:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned before the remoteness of SECMOL Campus, the fact that we sometimes have working internet, sometimes not, and phone calls require a hike up to the roof of the main building, and even then, most calls get crossed or dropped. We'd planned to watch the election from the town of Leh, but later realized that at 9am India time (7pm U.S. time, the day before) the power probably wouldn't be on. Arriving back from Stok we found that SECMOL campus had decided to get satellite tv! Completely unexpected, but wonderful nonetheless. I put on CNN in the dining hall at 5am and by 5:30 had plenty of company. All of campus pretty much was glued to the tv as the votes rolled in, and all the VIS students fielded questions about the electoral college from the Ladakhis, who understandably, find our system bizarre. Lots of cheers when it was announced that McCain would give a concession speech, and even louder ones when Obama took the stage. The Ladakhi students were probably as excited as we were, most of them have been following the election and have also been hoping for an Obama victory. We made dinner for the whole campus in celebration.

Stok Trek

2008-11-12T00:34:00.000-08:00

Despite the late date, winter seems to be holding off, and with the pass clear, our guide Tashi decided we could squeeze in one more trek, so last weekend we headed up to Stok, a 2 day trek, hiking to Rumbuk first, a bitterly cold but beautiful mountain town, in the shadow of the pass. Over breakfast the next morning I asked our host if she had ever been up over the famous pass literally in her backyard. She smiled and laughed--no, no, too far and too difficult, she had no desire to go over. Hmm. It was indeed a long and difficult day but possibly the most beautiful scenary thus far, prayer flags whipping in the wind as we crossed the pass, the landscape halting abruptly from crumbling brown sand to staggering snowcapped peaks unfolding before us, then a few hours of ridgeline hiking down the spine. Close to the end of the day sand blanketed a steep bowl and the VIS group decided to slide down, felt just like snow, we flew down the mountain like we had skis! We made it into Stok late in the afternoon, spent the night, and headed back to SECMOL in time for the election. A short but sweet weekend trip.

Presentations

2008-10-31T00:28:00.000-07:00

The past week SECMOL students have been preparing for Presentations, a night of presenting their work on their "responsibilities." Responsibilities are shared by Ladakhi students and as VIS students and range from "electricity responsibility"--making sure the solar panels are rotated everyday and maintaining the batteries to "garden"--weeding and harvesting, tomatoes, potatoes, etc. to "cow"--milking the cow every morning, and everything else involved in running a school--keeping order in the dining hall, paying the bills, cleaning the bathrooms, shopping for food and other supplies, shelving books in the library. SECMOL students practiced their presentation speeches (in English) with us, including "funnies," little jokes about things that made their jobs difficult, and made posters detailing finances, improvements to be made, and what they had accomplished.

Last night they presented before the rest of the school as well as the SECMOL director and office staff, SECMOL alumni, and some special guests. To make it less boring, in between presentations the Ladakhi students did songs and dances. The senior boys had borrowed military uniforms from the nearby base and did a great song and dance number, changing the words to a popular song to reflect SECMOL culture. VIS students had been rehearsing a song and dance number too--Bohemian Rhapsody, complete with James on the keyboards, Howie on air guitar, Thayer on kazoo, Sooner on the ipod, Will and Kayla doing solos, and Katy, Kayla and Ellen performing the dance they'd choreographed. It was pretty hilarious. After dinner the festivities continued with everyone dancing until way too late.

Now we're preparing for Halloween, making pizza for all the Ladakhi students for dinner tonight, and getting ready to go hiking this weekend, over Stok pass, a beautiful snowy mountain pass overlooking Leh. Everyone's excited for the election, which we'll be watching on tv from Tashi's house in town, early on the morning of November 5th, due to the time difference. Crossing my fingers and hoping for Obama!

Nubra Trek

2008-10-20T02:49:00.001-07:00

The past week we headed up north to Nubra to get in one last big trip before cold weather and snow makes hiking impossible. First we drove towards the Eastern border of Ladakh and went out to Pangong Lake, an enormous saltwater/freshwater lake right on the Tibetan-Indian border. Will and Thayer jumped in the freezing water, just as Tenzing, the Ladakhi student who came along for fun (and translation purposes!) told them that the lake is sacred and swimming is strictly forbidden! You have to appreciate a culture that views beautiful places as sacred and therefore off limits, versus the typical U.S. mindset: how can we best utilize this resource?

After two nights in Chakaskool, the hometown of Kunzes, our Ladakhi teacher, we hiked 6 hours from Durbuk to Relly, the hometown of a few SECMOL students. Relly was beautiful, and we spent 2 nights there waiting to go over the Meg-bon La pass. We hired horses in Relly to shorten our long day, and rode for about 4 hours, up the pass. As the snow deepened, and slope steepened however, our horses decided they wanted no further part in our adventure and we spent a frustrating half hour or so coaxing them up only to have them turn right back around. Finally we decided to go up the rest of the way on foot. Windy and frigid, we slogged through the snowpack, crossed the pass at around 16,200 feet, and then traversed across the steep backside of the pass before breaking out trashbags and sliding our way down! Reaching the bottom we had a well-deserved snack before hiking another 6 hours to the town of Tangyar.

After a good night’s sleep in Tangyar we drove north to Hundar. with a stop at the Diskit Monastary. In Hundar we spent a day at the hot springs near the Northern Ladakh border, the disputed Pakistan-India Line of Control. Then came quite possibly the highlight of the whole Nubra trip…driving past the sand dunes our guide Tashi spotted a camel! Nubra is known for their Bacterian Camels, two-humped camels introduced to the area hundreds of years ago by traders traveling through the desert. (Ellen, incidentally, had stated earlier that it was one of her lifetime goals to ride a camel)We found a man there who offered camel rides, and all of us went on a ride through the desert, Himalayas rising behind us, sun setting in front of us. Might have been the highlight of the whole Nubra Trip.

Now we’re back at SECMOL campus, happy to be back and sleeping in our own beds. It’s amazing how quickly SECMOL has begun to feel like home! Coming back to a pile of mail was pretty exciting, especially my absentee ballot! (And the cookies Mom!) The weather is starting to change here, suddenly it really feels like late Fall.

Ladakhi Education

2008-10-09T03:43:00.000-07:00

VIS students and Ladakhi students have English Conversation Class every morning, taught by James, Becky or I, which is basically a chance for the Grade 10 Ladakhi students to practice their English with us before the big Grade 10 exam. This exam is the be all, end all for Ladakhi students’ futures, and covers all the usual subjects, math, history, science, etc. The only thing is, it’s in English! Imagine for a second that you have to take the SATs (or GREs, or LSATs, etc) in your second or third language. Then imagine that your third language has a completely different alphabet. So now imagine taking an algebra test, only the directions and word problems are all written in Chinese characters. And you only started studying Chinese two years ago. That is more or less what the Ladakhi students face, and one of the reasons for the existence of the SECMOL campus.

During our English conversation class on the topic of education, I asked two Ladakhi students about what they liked best about studying at SECMOL, as opposed to earlier primary and secondary schools in the hometowns. “SECMOL is better, because the teachers don’t beat students here,” one said. I’d heard before that many of the teachers sent to faraway Ladakh by the government to teach students so culturally different than themselves often hit their students when they answered incorrectly, but still, the surprise on my face was evident. “In the United States, do they hit you if you get an answer wrong?” Angmo asked.

Ladakhis speak Ladakhi as their mother tongue, then learn the written form of Ladakhi, called Bodyik, which is similar to Tibetan script, in school. Depending on where they are from, many speak Urdu as a second language, which is what schools usually teach in up until the schools switch to teaching in English in Grade 8. English is a third or actually more often a fourth language, since most Ladakhis also speak Hindi, the language most Indians know. One teacher explained that in the past year, the government decided that primary schools would now teach in Hindi, instead of Urdu, which she explained was difficult for her, because she spoke only basic Hindi, whereas she was fluent in Urdu and had done all of her teaching certification work in Urdu. Yet now she would be teaching her students math and science and history in Hindi. With the patchwork system of languages in place it’s no wonder that many Ladakhi students fail their Grade 10 exam, which then effectively bars them from higher education and better paying jobs. Definitely makes me feel lucky to have been born into a country where the native language is the same as the language you need to master for the best opportunities and jobs.

SECMOL

2008-10-04T00:33:00.000-07:00

We arrived at SECMOL, our home base for the rest of the semester one week ago. SECMOL is a beautiful campus, mud brick buildings built to use passive solar heating to stay warm in the winter, cold in the summer, with large south-facing windows, wood floors, black trim that collects heat. A main building houses the main meeting hall where VIS students and Ladakhi students get together for English conversation in the mornings, and in the evenings the perfect space for hanging out and dancing! Down the hall on the main floor is the VIS office and classroom, where the keyboard my co-teacher James lugged all the way over here is now residing, and James has started giving piano lessons to interested students.

The second floor houses the girl's dorm, VIS students and Ladakhi's, as well as a beautiful sunny library. All the buildings have electricity, thanks to solar electricity and photovoltaic panels. Next door is a small bathhouse, where VIS students will be constructing a solar water heater in the hopes of one day having a hot shower! The next building over houses the dining hall space where we meet for dinner, and the boy's dorm. Just below this building, carved into the hillside down some stairs is the kitchen, and a smaller dining room where we eat breakfast. To the left of the kitchen is a greenhouse bordered on one side by the women teachers' rooms, where I live, and to the right another greenhouse bordered on the hillside by the male teachers' rooms, where James lives.

On the flat plain out front there are two more greenhouses, a garden, and volleyball courts, where Ladakhi students and sometimes VIS students spend evenings playing some very serious volleyball! We're settling into a routine here, with breakfast followed by work hour--everything from chopping vegetables for that night's dinner to small building projects, we'll be starting work on the solar water heater soon. After work hour we have English Conversation, where we partner with grade 10 Ladakhi students and they practice their English in preparation for the infamously difficult Grade 10 exam. Following a tea break, VIS students have Ladakhi Language lesson, taught by Kunzes. We've moved beyond "jul-ley" (the Ladakhi word for hello, goodbye, thank you, etc.) and are tackling the pleasantries like: Timo jumpo rak-le! (Smells good!) and Gongzen chi duk? (What is for dinner?)

Afternoons are flexible with most students starting to work on their projects, the occasional guest speaker, or group meetings and activities. Evening is dinner in the big dining hall followed by someone speaking on life in Ladakh or the U.S., and sometimes evening activity, either a movie or singing & dancing. We're enjoying getting to know Ladakhi students over English conversation, tea time, meals, and volleyball. It's been nice to settle into one place and start making friends here. The other highlight has been getting MAIL!! Thanks to everyone who sent me mail (or an amazing care package!), it makes my day when there's something in the mailbox for me.
Jul-ley,
Amy

Prayer Wheels

2008-09-29T23:13:00.000-07:00

One of the most unique things about Buddhist towns is the presence of prayer wheels everywhere. Often they're small and built into a wall, so as you walk along you ring 3 or 4 of them as you pass by. The belief is that by spinning the wheel you send prayers out into the world. The same belief holds true for prayer flags, the motion of the wind sends prayers off. Usually the wheels are brightly colored and beautifully designed, with a bell ringing as they spin. In the center of towns though, there is usually a wheel, and often a pull off to the left for vehicles to go out of their way to drive around them. In smaller towns the prayer wheel structure is usually where everyone seems to hang out at the end of the day. This video is of a few kids in Takmachik spinning around on the wheel, like a merry-go-round.

Homestays

2008-09-24T02:21:00.000-07:00

Kargil
We've arrived at our final destination, the city of Leh, capitol of Leh District, in western Ladakh. The past week and a half was spent driving through eastern Ladakh, Kargil District, and stopping at a few homes along the way. The drive up to Kargil was a beautiful one, we drove over Pensi La pass, at 13,950ft, and then stopped at the Rangdum Monastary. The following day we drove through Kargil, a primarily Muslim town right on the Line of Control--this is where India's army is stationed, the disputed Pakistan-India border. Kargil was an interesting place, you could almost feel the tension of being a border town just walking down its streets, unlike most cities where people are friendly and try to cajole you into small shops people here just stared at us, not saying a word. You could feel their curiosity though, teenagers and young men would walk bizarrely close to us, pausing midstep to stare, then dashing away. Though we were dressed conservatively, none of the women in our group wore headscarves, which set us apart dramatically from the local population, and probably contributed to the stares. Hard to imagine what they thought of us.

Mulbekh
Leaving Kargil behind, we drove to the Mulbekh Nunnery, where we spent the night. An incredible place! Beautiful and aloft, nestled into rock, we had dinner on a patio overlooking the mountains. The Buddhist nuns let us sit in the kitchen as they chopped vegetables and pounded dough, listening to their singing. It was a quiet day for them, as most of the nuns in training had gone home to visit their families, but we soon noticed a few little girls sneaking peeks at us. We met Llamo, Nyndon, and Kumchuk, three girls about 7 to 12 in age whose families lived too far away for them to go home and visit. To our surprise, they spoke some English, as they study it in the school there. They sang us a few favorite songs (Twinkle twinkle and Old MacDonald)and we spent the rest of the evening naming things in Ladakhi and English. The next morning they gave us a tour of the nunnery, beautiful sunlit rooms housing books and shrines, old maps on the walls, a tiny schoolhouse, walls covered in drawings which the girls pointed out theirs. What an amazing place.

Chigtan
We then drove on to Chigtan, our guide Tashi's hometown. We spent two days enjoying Tashi's beautiful home and his family's delicious cooking. One afternoon while playing impromptu baseball in his backyard with apricots right off the trees and a stick, we noticed the neighbors climbing the high stonewall to sneak peeks at us. Very few tourists venture up this way, as it is off of the main road, so aside from Tashi's groups, they have very little exposure to Westerners. Will and I went out on the street and a crowd of children formed around us, just staring at us. Little girls wearing headscarves shyly peeked out at us and then turned their backs to us yet remained only a foot away. Assif, a young man who spoke excellent English, offered to show us the schools, and like a comet gathering a tail, a crowd of children chased after us, remaining a respectful distance away after Assif said some harsh words to them in Urdu. We saw the new school they were building, and it looks like it will be beautiful.

Takmachik
Our final stop was for a week long homestay in Takmachik, where the fall harvest is in full swing. Golden barley overflowed fields, red and pink buckwheat flowered, apricots just picked lay drying in the sun, on roofs, on bedroom floors, on every surface, and walnuts fell from the sky, bright green balls knocked loose by our sticks, cracking open on the ground, and releasing brown walnuts which roll by with startling velocity. Staying in groups of 2 or 3 to a family we all got into the rhythm of harvesting, 6am starts, working at a leisurely pace until late afternoon, with tea and lunch breaks in the field. In the family I stayed with, the mother, Stanzin, carried her small 5 month old son in a basket on her back while we harvested wheat. When he grew fussy his great-grandfather would take a break from harvesting and rock the basket in the shade of an apricot tree, talking nonsense words and singing to him. Both grandparents helped with the harvest, Aba-ley (grandfather) climbed high into the walnut tree to shake loose the nuts, which rained down on me and Ama-Ley (Grandma), who instructed me to cover my head with the bucket and keep picking. Evenings were spent preparing traditional Ladakhi dinners, everyone in the kitchen, the radio on in the background.

Now we have finished our journey and are in Leh! We're transitioning from our nomadic lifestyle into a more permanant one this week as we settle into the SECMOL campus. I'll have internet regularly now and can finally post some pictures. Thanks for all the wonderful emails, and a belated happy 83rd birthday Papa!
Jullay,
Amy

Also, you can see more pictures at http://picasaweb.google.co.in/Amy.k.higgins

Zanskar Trek

2008-09-12T02:53:00.000-07:00

We've now completed the first half of our journey into Ladakh, a 2 week trek through the Zanskar region. From Darcha we headed out on foot, travelling through snowy mountain passes and high desert, finally arriving in the town of Padum.

Most days had an early start, the cold made more bearable by bed tea--exactly what you would imagine it is, hot tea magically appearing at 6am, while still in our sleeping bags. Definitely the way to start a long day! I should mention that this trek is a bit different from most of the hiking I've done. Tashi, our guide, arranged the logistics of 12 horses, horsemen, and cooks for our group. This means horses haul the majority of our stuff--tents, clothing, food--and all we have to do is drag ourselves over the Himalayas with a little daypack. (And med kit. And sat phone.) This seems to be the norm for Himalayan expeditions and I could definitely get used to it!

After packing up camp each day, we'd set off on the days trek, anywhere from a 4 hour day to a 9 hour one. Most days were around 12 km, though the altitude makes everything harder. Our group did really well with acclimatizing, this was mostly thanks to the planning and prepping on Curtis and Ashley's side of things--talks with Dr. Dave about which medicine for HAPE versus HACE, talks with Ashley about what to do when someone starts having difficulty breathing. We had one person get a little sick at about 12,000 feet, so we rested an extra day at about 14,000 ft. which I think made all the difference in everyone being healthy enough for the crossing, and then finally crossed the Shingo-La pass (16,732ft) with no problems. Definitely tough to breathe at 16,000 feet, but everyone managed ok, even when a snowstorm really complicated our crossing!

Where to begin with the scenary? I'll have to post some pictures later when I get a chance. Beautiful snowcapped mountains, snow ice crusting in swirls like ribbon candy, small shrubs in an array of oranges and reds, trees exploding in yellows and greens, blue sky meeting sandy colored rock.

Other highlights from the trek were:
-A visit to the Sun School, a solar powered school near Lhakang on September 7th. The school is in it's final phase of construction, high on a hillside, solar panels on the roof, glass in the greenhouse, almost ready for the kids to inhabit it. We also had dinner the night before with the Czech architect who created the whole project.

-Phukthai Monastary on September 9th, an incredible sight, following a two hour hike along a winding canyon, we crossed a suspension bridge and were met with the sight of the monastary rising out of the rock walls. We toured the monastary, an incredible vast endless string of rooms, staircases leading higher up the rock walls. While holding the bathroom door shut for one of our group, I was standing in the hallway when a young monk about 10 or 11 came tearing down the stairs, eating a candy bar. He spotted me and slowed to a walk, shoved the candy bar into his robes, and gave me a solemn nod and a polite "jullay" as he passed.

-Kalbok, a small village where we helped to harvest the barley growing in the fields where our tents were. James and Tashi gave a lesson on Ladakhi numbers while we harvested alongside the villagers from Kalbok.

-Purni, on September 8th, where Tashi arranged for us to have a traditional tea in a family's home in the evening. The overpriced showers (50 rupees!) made some some of our group very, very happy. Kit Kat bars at the store were also a big hit and Sooner and Howie stocked up on Coke and Sprite for the rest of our trek.

Currently we are in the town of Padum, checking internet, during the brief periods of the day when the power is turned on--we're not sure, but we think they may turn it on when all 10 of us turn up at the internet cafe--and taking a rest day. Tomorrow we head off on the second part of our journey, a winding road trip through the Zanskar mountains, up to Kargil, then heading east to Tashi's village for a few days, and finally, in about a week and a half to two weeks, winding up at our home base for the rest of the semester, SECMOL, located just outside the city of Leh.

Send me some emails, I'll have more regular internet access now that we're driving and staying in small towns and love to get news. Especially election news!

Manali

2008-08-30T06:52:00.001-07:00

Today was a long day. We left Delhi last night on a 16 hour overnight bus. It was one long rough ride. After a Bollywood movie (that also featured Snoop Dog in the ending credits) we tried to get some sleep, between frequent stops, frequent blasts from the horn as we headed around blind corners, and the Indian music playing on repeat on the speakers overhead.

We all averaged a couple hours I think, it was a long night. Day break brought some amazing sights though. I woke around 6 to see nothing but white fog, hills and trees outlined in it. A beautiful sight after such a long night. The scenery only improved as we wound up through lush hills and mountains. Monkeys watched our bus from rooftops and scrambled along bridge railings.

Several hours of hairpin turns later, some of our group were a little queasy, so we were relieved when the bus finally stopped at a roadside cafe for tea. Continuing on, our driver stopped at a roadside shrine, an enormous 8 foot tall orange statue. Driving along these mountainous roads definitely makes you want to pray!

Many, many hours later we finally crossed a bridge and drove seemingly straight uphill through the crowded streets of Manali. Manali is a cool little town of 45 degree angle streets crowded with shops, and very popular with the hippy crowd. We got settled in at our hotel in the old part of town and then Tashi led us down the steep streets to find a place to eat. A little shopping and exploring and we're calling it an early night. We decided to take one more day to rest in Manali tomorrow to let the group catch up on sleep before heading to Darcha, (a 6 hour bus ride) where we'll begin trekking from. That's the plan for the next few days. Thanks for all the emails guys!

Delhi

2008-08-28T23:11:00.000-07:00

We arrived after a 12 hour flight into New Delhi, via Newark. The flight wasn't bad, surprisingly pleasant, lots of movies to watch and not too crowded. Arrived around 8pm, another hour and half in baggage and customs, and then we met our guide, Tashi. Loading up bags onto two taxis was a bit hectic, especially considering the keyboard, guitar and accordian! James, my co-teacher, taught the Spring '08 high school semester in Ladakh and wanted to incorporate more music into life at SECMOL. He did some fundraising and amazingly enough was able to buy a brand new keyboard plus the guitar, accordian, and some harmonicas.

After loading the taxis, we made our way through the streets of Delhi, quite the experience. No one uses blinkers, everyone uses horns. Every type of vehicle imaginable crowds the roads, from slow moving trucks to mopeds to bikes to cars to rickshaws. At one point a large oxen in the fast lane caused everyone to shift over lanes to avoid running it down!

Arriving at the Tibetan Refuge Colony, we had a quick group meeting and headed to bed. This morning after a breakfast of tea and toast we took a walk through the streets of the colony. The colony is all Tibetan refugees, and gated, however it is anything but temporary, all the structures are multi-storied and families have been here for at least one generation. We visited a temple and browsed a few shops.

Now we are headed to Manali, which is where we'll do shopping for our trek supplies from, at about 8,000 feet. Excited to get out of the heat! I won't be in touch much for the next 3 weeks as we begin trekking, we'll be carrying a sat phone to update Vermont Intercultural Semesters on our journey, but won't be encountering too many internet cafes in the Himalayas.

Namaste, (as they say here in Delhi, which means hello, goodbye, and welcome in Hindi)
Amy

Leaving on a jet plane

2008-08-26T21:55:00.000-07:00

Hi friends and family,

Here's my attempt to stay in touch for the upcoming year, hopefully a bit easier than sending out mass emails every couple weeks. Vermont Intercultural Semesters runs a program called Himalayan Intercultural Program, which sends groups of high school students and gap years to study and learn in a pretty amazing classroom. Fall Semester '08 is a gap year program, geared towards recent high school grads looking to take some time off before college. It's a lot less academic than the Spring Semester, which is an accredited high school program for high school juniors and seniors. Both semesters are education-based though, with lots of time for experiential learning, field trips, guest speakers, homestays, and trekking. You can read more on their website, www.vermontis.org.

At the moment I am in Vermont wrapping up all the odds and ends before flying to India in the morning. My first 3 weeks will be a whirlwind, as we arrive in Delhi, and then begin our trek to Ley. We'll take a few days to acclimatize and then begin trekking, stopping in small villages some nights and camping most nights. I'm attaching our itinerary below:

Vermont Intercultural Semesters Zanskar Trek 2008

Day 1: Drive Delhi-Manali (8,202ft) 9-10hrs by bus

Day 2: Rest in Manali

Manali is a wonderful town situated in the foothills of the Himalaya, home to famous ancient Hindu temples, as well as a large Tibetan refugee population.

Day 3: Drive Manali to Darcha (10,990ft) 6-7hrs

Darcha marks the entry point into the Zanskar Valley of Ladakh. It is a small village in the Lahul region of Himachal Pradesh. Here we will pass over the Rhotung pass and enter the barren high mountain landscapes characteristic of Ladakh. Here we will set up camp for

the evening.

Day 4: Start trek Darcha to Pal Lhamo (11,646ft) 5-6hrs

Day 5: Pal Lhamo to Zangskar Sumdo (12,467ft) 4-5hrs

*Consider an extra day here for acclimation
Day 6: Zangskar Sumdo to Chumik Nakpo (14,980 ft) 5-6hrs

Day 7: Chumik Nakpo to Lakong (14,202ft) via Shingo La (16,732 ft) 6-7hrs

Day 8: Lakong to Kargyak (13,320ft) 5-6hrs

Kargyak is the first village of the Zanskar region and one of the highest settled villages in the world.
Day 9: Kargyak to Purne (12,530ft) 6-7hrs

Day 10: Rest in Purne, day excursion to Phuktal monastery

Phuktal is a spectacular sight. One of the oldest Gelukpa monastaries in Ladakh, it is dramatically situated high in a cliff-side around a sacred spring coming from a deep cave.
Day 11: Purne to Raru (12,100ft) 7-8 hrs

Day 12: Raru to Padum/Karsha (11,843ft) 6hrs

Day 13: Rest day Karsha

Karsha is a picturesque Zanskari village clustered high on a hillside, overlooking the Padum plain and south across to the main Himalayan range. Here we will stay in traditional homes and get a flavor for life in this remote region.
Day 14: Drive Karsha to Kargil via Pensi La (13,950ft) 10-12hrs/ 300km

This drive is a spectacular journey alongside the main Himalayan range and we will enter into the Suru Valley a relatively lush area of Ladakh, marked by the impressive massifs of Nun and Kun, the highest mountains in the region of just over 23,000ft. The Suru valley is predominately Muslim, as it was converted to Islam around the middle of the 16th century. It will give you a sense of the ethnic and religious diversity comprising Ladakh.
Day 16: Kargil to Leh (11,600ft) 8hrs

En route we will have the chance to visit Mulbekh and Lamayuru monastary, famous Buddhist sights in the region of Ladakh.

Kind of gives you an idea of what I'll be up to for the next 3 weeks! I won't be checking email much, but when we arrive in Ley, the town nearest the SECMOL campus I'll have email access, and will for the rest of the semester, so definitely send me some email! Over and out.