It is a very interesting culture and religion that we have learned a lot about during our stay. From here we will travel north further into the Himalayas before leaving for Thailand but, for the time being, we were happy to unpack our bags and glad to not be spending long hours on cramped buses and trains!
We found a nice room off the main road with few other tourists. It has a lot of windows where we can see mountains from our bed (when it's not raining), a nice kitchen that we hope to cook our own meals in, and a clean bathroom with a HUGE but friendly spider. However, after our friendly spider took the liberty to invite friends (each one getting bigger and bigger), We have promptly chased them all out after a (human) friend told us that "they are only deadly a few days out of the year"... so the rest of the year they just hurt really bad?!?!?!
Other than our unwelcome friends we are really enjoying our stay in Dharamsala and everything here is going really well. Dharamsala was a lot to take in at first as it is much more westernized and tourist than the other parts of India we have been in so far... it is so weird to complain that because we too are tourists but it just felt weird coming from an area where it was hard to get around in and where we would go days without seeing other westerners to a city where everything was catered to westerners and it seems there might be more white people here than Tibetans. But now that we have found our grove we love it and think it will be hard to say good bye!
We are staying busy with various projects, too busy sometimes as we are having a hard time meeting our goals. It is worth it though because we are able to learn so much more from the people we have met working on the projects than we could have planned on. Both of us are really organized - sometimes to the point of being a bit anal - so it is a good lesson to learn to recognize and take full advantage of more meaningful experiences when they arise. As far as being busy... we like it....
Michele is teaching a beginner computer class every day (M-F) from 3-5pm. There are about 6 students in the class, and they range from knowing how to open a chat program but nothing else about computers to students who want to learn HTML (which she can't teach them) It's challenging to find a way to teach files and folders to someone who only knows basic English while teaching myself advanced programs like Pagemaker to keep the others busy as well.
Jason stays busy teaching an intermediate/advanced English class every day (M-F) from 3-4pm. There are about 30 students in the class, and they range from knowing hello/goodbye to asking me about the meaning of cynic. It's tough to know how much is getting through, it seems to be going pretty well.
Immediately after class there is "English conversation" which consists of brave tourists coming to face a Tibetan question firing squad. This is a really great experience, because you just talk for an hour and can talk about anything you'd like. Whenever we have a question about something we pose it in conversation class and have learned so much from the answers. Many people came up to us and asked us to tutor them in English and there are many non-profits in the area offering English classes. So in one of the classes we asked why it is that so many people want to learn English; there answers were: lack of jobs so there is nothing else better to do with spare time, want to share plight with others and English is often needed to do this, and the desire to move to the US (one child in the US can support the whole family in Tibet). They are not shy about asking us whatever is on their mind either... we have talked about gun control and poverty in America or why we think communism has offered less economic opportunities for its citizens than democratic countries do. I challenge you to try and explain your answer in simple English!
The people are just incredible, and the differences between our lives to date make it feel like we live on entirely different planets. Definitely a learning experience! We'll talk to people our age about their escape over the Himalayas and how they left their entire family behind (most people we met have no family in India and traveled here in their teens) and can't go back for fear of being thrown in jail (the Chinese government is afraid they have ties to the Dalai Lama)...and then they'll offer us tea or ask if we want to sing a song. For people who have met so many adversities in their lives one would imagine that they have become pessimistic about life or consumed with anger at the Chinese but they are the most genuinely kind, compassionate, and optimistic culture I have ever had contact with; never complaining and not thinking twice about offering everything they have.
There are two girls in that we met in class who have started inviting us to their home (one room with two beds and a stove top - toilet next door) after the class. They have hearts that we can't comprehend and that sometimes overwhelm our western boundaries - a very good lesson! They have shared with us their stories of the life they left in Tibet and their travels to India. One girl was 14 when she made her first attempt and, after finding a picture of the Dalai Lama on one of the girls traveling with her, was thrown into a Chinese prison for 14 days to interrogate her... 2 years later she tried again. The other girl is quiet but, when you listen carefully, has such a deep heart. In Tibet her cousin is worshiped as a Lama (a re-incarnated enlightened person). We could never have learned so much about Tibet from reading our Intro to Buddhism books!
In addition we are also working with some Tibetans one-on-one and our main commitment is doing random tasks for an organization that trains Tibetans in painting traditional thangkas and sells the final product in the states (detailed paintings of gods commonly scene on the inside of temples - www.tibetanpaintings.com). At first we felt like there was so many other things to do with our time because we had just come from the plains of India where the poverty is so intense that we had to debrief at the end of some days to working on the same types of tasks an entry level position would have in the US and for a family who economically, visibly does not need our help. Although, at first we felt we were not needed we realized that our work here helped to preserve a traditional Tibetan art that, other than this school and one other, is pretty much lost... we learned that that's really important as well. The woman we worked with welcomed us into her home and really made us comfortable. We have throughly enjoyed our conversations with her; she taught us a lot about the Indian culture that we would not have otherwise learned.
We were planning on leaving last weekend but found out the Dalai Lama will be speaking this week - so of course we postponed and most of this week we will spend talking with our new friends, starting to work on some of our goals, and hopefully learning form the Dalai Lama's wisdom - he's a pretty amazing man.
Our Friend Jem:
Our Friends Tashi and Palsto:
Two Tibetan woman at Temple
The Green Tara - a painting made by the studio we work for:
Pictures from around Dharamsala:
Pictures from Thangde Gatsal (the thangka paintings):
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