Summer in New York

The plane ride home was...just kind of delightful. Nothing really went wrong except that Dickyi got her knife confiscated in kuwait. It felt like a really short journey back. In new york, we just got out and hopped in a cab and we were back. as soon as we got back we went to Dickyi's brother's apartment, but no one was home so we dropped our stuff off at a neighbor's place across the hall.

Entering this neighbor's apartment was my first encounter with a western home after being away for awhile and it struck me as freakishly clean. I mean, it was clean, even by western standards. But to me it was so glorious. I kept saying how clean it was, how clean it was. I think they were semi weirded out.

After we got back to the apartment (and discovered that in fact there was someone home) we went, on my request, to go to laundry. I mean I just brought my entire duffel to the laundromat. Why not. I could have stood there and watched my clothes get tossed and turned in that glorious way in which clothes get cleaned. I was like that's right rinse cycle, you mix those up real nice. That's right, you sud those up and subsequently throw them around the machine and then drain out that dirt. You drain that dirt right out. Is this making anyone uncomfortable? I could have stayed there for the whole cycle, but we walked around instead and got snacks and icecream. We caught the last part of the washing and the drying, which was also glorious because I love dryer-fresh clothes.

While I was folding my clean, clean clothes, dickyi was like "look at your ridiculous face" because I was beaming with laundry-induced joy.

wow. Ok, the next day we rested and watched friends and walked around manhattan. The next day we found out I couldn't attend action camp as previously planned because I 1) have never been to action camp before 2) am not protesting at the beijing olympics. So i had to find somewhere else to stay for three nights. I know a handful of people in the city, but I wanted to see my friend sheel, so I called him up. The bonus is that his apartment is right in manhattan at 96th and 3rd. That's right by the park and right by the shopping on madison and fifth and and right by the met and other museums. So i got to hang out with sheel and ivan, and ivan's friend dave who i'm really glad I met and, by default, sheel's other, incredibly white roommate and his incredibly white girlfriend. So white I thought about asking them if they also attended prep school in connecticut.

I got to go shopping and to the met, which was really amazing. I really enjoyed it and i think that means i'm growing up because I found museums pretty boring before. sweet. I met up with like everyone--amy and I saw danny and peter ross and peter's girlfriend one night randomly when i went with sheel to dinner with them at peter's place. Me and amy met up with danny and sheel one night for hookah and ended up in williamsburg at this harvard guy's place. random, but cool to see williamsburg.

I met up with sumi and tom, sumi's boyfriend and his friends one night for drinks and then sumi and i had dinner with doug, another hotchkiss friend. Great to see them. I saw sumi and doug again on saturday night at 230 fifth, this really nice rooftop bar. that night i went out with sheel, ivan, dave, and savi and we first went to this bar taj which was really beautiful and packed with harvardies.

Met up with jennifer one night for dinner and then the next day i met up with sarah and jennifer in the east village for brunch at 5A, which was good and cheap and apparently frequented by the hot guy from entourage. We went back to Jennifer's place and talked about people in middle school who have gone crazy.

Who else...I got to see Tim and Lindsay and Justine one day at brunch and that was great. We were supposed to see more of them, but it just never happened.

Hm what else...hit up the natural history museum on monday, which was great. Oh,sunday after the east village I went to lincoln center to meet up with sumi and tom to see a movie about a coke lord, but it was all sold out so instead we decided to go out to dinner. Tom knows this friend who is a huge foodie and can pretty much navigate you to a good restaurant from anywhere. So we found this restaurant called "Mozart" and the food was AMAZING. Really delicious. Afterwards, I went to Union square and met up with dickyi at the sft office for an sft party. it wasn't really a party for me since I was falling asleep, but the sleep was good.

All in all ny was such an awesome time and I felt good because sometimes it's hard to meet up with people you haven't seen in a long time..it's really draining. But I saw everyone I had intended to and had a good time with everyone. all the friends I've kept in touch with have kept it real so it's not all awkward like it is when someone tries to be cool or whatever.

i feel like I multifisted new york such that each of its orafices contained a corresponding one of my appendage. What I don't feel good about was that I totally forgot my sisters birthday whilst all this multifisting was going on. I felt like such a douche. Also when I was on the phone and realized it (because my mom told me) i couldn't even talk for a long time because the elevator had come and we were going out. douchey. then I talked to my cousin when she came to pick me up from the airport and she said that she forgot my sister's birthday too. Apparently the day before they were hanging out with my mom and my mom was like "i have to go get noodles for tomorrow" and erica was like wow I guess yeeyee just has a hankering for some noodles. didn't pick it up. Didn't pick it up when my sister called her twice on June 23rd and was like "hey erica, feel free to come over for some noodles". Finally erica answers the phone and is like alright i guess i'll come over. She saunters in like it's a fast food joint and proceeds to shovel noodles in her mouth, asking for seconds and thirds and also drinking all amounts of soda and intermittently consuming dumplings. Finally after she sauntered into the bedroom, she realized, from the giant bouquet of flowers, that it was emilie's birthday. my poor sister. we're going to make it up to her.

boston was great--got to hang out with dave, ryan, jackie, and of course, the last of dickyi :(. It was sad saying bye to dickyi and I am really going to miss her..have gotten used to her company and I feel like Ive gotten to know her so much better and I just feel miles closer to her than I felt before, which is pretty damn close. We agree that it'll be easy to stay good friends after this. I hope so. The good news is that I'm not afraid to stalk my friends and force them to keep in touch with me. I feel so lucky to have found someone so chill at Harvard. In the cab ride to the airport we were like how did two such chill (translation:ass-lazy like nobody's bi-ness) end up meeting each other and befriending each other at a school like harvard? pretty sure we're lazier than like 98 percent of the general population.

I'm back in toronto now, and I'm just waiting now to meet up with Tanaz, who's coming back from a cottage visit. I'll spend tonight with her and then tomorrow I'll head to ottawa to be with the fam.

I remember when we were driving

I left work on Friday and got to the bus depot where the car usually drops me. Tenam was already there and Dickyi was there too. It was funny because we hadn't officially made plans but I guess we all just kind of fell into the routine. We went to Western Union to get money for Dickyi, where the guys were kind of assholic and refusing to give her any American money, but I guess that's the policy. While she was waiting for the money me and Tenam went to get the Mandala. Again, it was awesome being with a local because he knew this little hole in the wall where they sold them for a reasonable price and we would know that they were hand-drawn. His dad is also a high lama so he can tell if the mandalas are complete or not. I was happy because I was planning to give it to my dad.

We split up after that and me and Dickyi went to her momo's house for the last time. We also went to visit Dickyi's friend, a fellow teacher she met in Tibet. Then we went to Tenam's house so he could take us to Dharamcode on his bike. The weather was perfect for going--we drove up and then walked for fifteen or so to a restaurant that is good for pizza. We had this yummy cake and pizza and while we were eating Khewang called and said he was in Dharamsala (he came to take us to Bir the next day) and he joined us. T and K spent awhile trying to decide where to sleep, again because 10 random people were at T's house just hanging out and playing playstation. You see how nice people are in this kind of situation...I proposed that he just tell them to get out because he needed to get sleep and that statement was met with horrified eyes. Apparently you can't just tell someone to get out. They slept at someone else's house that night. After dinner they dropped us off at Hotel Tibet, because Tenkyi was there with a bunch of people she did not want to hang out with and we had to come and get her. Again, too nice to not hang out. Dickyi was on an important call, so I hung out with Tenkyi and pretended I had to take her away. Dickyi was still on the phone so me and Tenkyi just walked and talked and we went to Last Chance and just talked and hung out. It was really fun and I was glad I could hang out with Tenkyi.

The next day was so amazing. We got up early, around 6:30 or something, and met Khewang and Tenam downstairs. I was riding with Tenam and Dickyi with Khewang. There are seriously no words for the trip. It was totally amazing. It was awesome to be driving so fast on a bike and the mountain roads were incredibly beautiful. The trees and the rivers all looked so pristine and kind of sublime. I thought I would be scared, but I wasn't at all. I had a helmet on, and Tenam is a really experienced driver, who is used to biking around in Delhi, and I really expected to be more worried than I was, which was not at all. Even on the curvy, narrow mountain roads or when we were passing trucks that were centimeters from us. I was surprised, since I am usually much lamer and scared. The drive was about two and a half hours to chauntara and it felt like two seconds. The weather was perfect, sometimes threatening rain but for the most part sunny and cool, and the scenery was really beautiful--more beautiful than Dharamsala and less spoiled somehow. We saw winding rivers lined with smooth gray stones, mountaintops fringed with trees, beautiful tea gardens, rice paddies, and all of it was gorgeous and we were going so fast and the weather was so beautiful. And the breeze felt so good. Khewang is a bit less experienced than Tenam so my job was to make sure they were sitll behind us, until it got a little exhausting and we just rode behind them. When we got to Chauntara, we went to Tenam's house and met his family and ate breakfast. Tenam's house was huge--pink and the biggest I've seen yet in India. They are well-off because his dad is a high lama. It was cool to meet his dad, and Dickyi got her prayer beads blessed. Tenam's older brother was there and he is so funny--he's the opposite of Tenam. He's kind of a thug and wears shirts that say things like "hustle 2 get paid 4 life" and doesn't work and just kind of hangs out. Apparently everyone loves him though--Tenam says he is very popular. He was just very funny. They took us to a big monastery there and it was really cool--we got to see thousands of little stupas in the making. Kunjodorje met us there and we all hung out for a bit. We also went to Khewang's house, which is at a TCV nearby. His mom works there and has worked there for 30 years, teaching Tibetan.

Khewang has a very sad story--his father died around three years back. Tenkyi and Dickyi say that Khewang's parents' marriage was the best they had seen among their friends. Their parents were very much in love and Khewang absolutely adored his dad. K went to Delhi U also and every break, he would go and be with his Dad, who was a high ranking army officer, wherever he was stationed. Three years ago, K had a break from school and wanted to go visit his dad, but his dad was like no, you stay in Delhi and do your school shopping. During that break, there was an accident and K's dad's car fell off the edge of a cliff. K told Dickyi that if he had gone to visit his dad, he would have died too, since he always went everywhere his dad went.

Anyway, Khewang's mom is so nice and loves Dickyi and Tenkyi and she loves her teaching job. She's worried about Khewang right now, because I think he has kidney problems and he also has had recent problems with his stomach and feeling sick. Before we left I left him the Tums I brought along with me, in case those help. When we were there, she was all in a tizzy because the next day was the school fair and she had to run a pancake selling booth.

We left K's house after a short time to go to Pandoh, which takes about 2 and 1/2-3 hours to get to. Pandoh has a Tibetan settlement in it/is a Tibetan settlement (not sure)and we were going so that Dickyi could visit her grandfather on her dad's side and Khewang has some family there. Me and Tenam had no business there whatsoever, but just went along. The ride was, as always, amazing. They said that our bottoms would hurt from sitting on the bike and that our legs would cramp up, but nothing of the sort happened. I think it was around this time that we decided (or the boys decided) that it would be best to stay a night in Chauntara and head back in the morning in time for our bus to Delhi, since it would be too hard to drive all the way back. We would stay at Khewang's house.

When we got to Pandoh, it was kind of hot and kind of in the middle of nowhere. The community was walled and contained. It took us awhile to find Dickyi's grandfather's house, but it was such a small settlement you could just ask around. We weren't planning on spending a whole lot of time in Pandoh and we didn't--probably around an hour and a half. We visited Dickyi's grandad for about 30 minutes, some aunt and uncle for 20 minutes, and then Khewang's relatives for like 20 minutes. Then we hit the road back to Chauntara.

The ride back was CRAZY. It started raining/mnnsooning incredibly heavily and we were kind of run off the road. One minute we were driving along and the next we were soaking wet and couldn't see anything. It was too dangerous to drive that way. We found this little shelter thing on the roadside to wait in until the weather cleared up, which happened pretty fast. While we were waiting we ate Maggi and I thought of that poem, "When it Rains in Dharamsala". We got back on the road, thanking god that Tenam's brother gave us raincoats to take along, and made it back to Chauntara, but I was still freezing. We stopped at this roadside place close to Tenam's house and had tea and paranthas. I've never been so glad to have chai before. Me and Dickyi and Khewang then went to Khewang's house and then met up with Kunjodorje and Tenam for dinner at this roadside place where the food was pretty gross and there were incredibly huge bugs of an incredibly gross nature landing on you every couple seconds. Didn't really have much of an appetite. Dickyi hung out with Kunjodorje after that and me and Tenam and Khewang went back to Khewang's house and hung out with his mom and watched TV. Tenam went home and me and Khewang went to sleep. At around 1:30 I let Dickyi back in the house and we went to sleep--it was a good sleep.

In the morning we woke up early and helped Khewang's mom make paranthas. Tenam came over and after we ate breakfast, we went back to Dharamsala. The ride was beautiful but the air hung with a bit of sadness because we were leaving that day. When we got back to Dharamasala, we visited some people and rested and packed. When we headed to the bus depot, all Dickyi's relatives were swarming around helping us with our stuff. Tenkyi, Khewang, Japan, Tenam, and this other friend of Dickyi's were all there and everyone was giving us white scarves, that are supposed to make the journey safe. It was really sad, but no one cried except for Dickyi's cousin. I was reminded again of how kind everyone was. The goodbye was especially sad because it lasted about an hour and a half--the bus was late in leaving and it was just a very prolonged departure.

The bus ride started out horribly. The roads were very curvy and very bumpy and I threw up out the window within the first twenty minutes. I had to suffer through Lower Dharamsala without throwing up because I didn't want to throw up on anyone. As soon as there was a clear spot with noone around I would hurl. But I went to sleep right after that and woke up 11 hours later! Someone had to wake us up in Delhi because we both slept right through everything. It rained in Delhi that morning so it was nice and cool. We hung out with Youdon, Neema, Tum Din, and some other people in Delhi. The main thing we did was see Fantastic Four--we didn't do too much else. Tum Din's friend has a car, so they took us to the airport.

Last day at work and incredibly bored

Cathy--bikes are motorbikes..sorry.

It is officially monsoon season. It rained yesterday on and off, and it was raining at 5, which meant hellish traffic getting back up to McLeod and also several death scares. After work we went with Tenkyi, her cousin, and like 18 of her cousin's friends to Hotel Tibet, my least favorite restaurant here. The food was pretty good. Then we walked her cousin's friends back down to Ghangyi, which was also marked by several death scares. Me and Dickyi went to the Jungle Hut, which is this cool restaurant by Last Chance that is on a cliff's edge. Really good pakoras. Unfortunately we were harrassed by Punjabi tourists, who wanted to take our "snap" and subsequently got into a physical fight in the restaurant. It was kind of scary, since we were the only other people in the restaurant, but kind of interesting. We got home at 10 but it felt like 3 am. I had to do some work on my report, so I settled down with it in bed and fell asleep in like two minutes. We set the alarm for 6:15 because we wanted to go for Koras this morning before work. at 6:15, it was absolutely pouring so we went back to bed.

When it rains here, there's no way to describe how gross it makes me feel. Everything feels damp. The clothes you hung don't dry properly, your skin always feels moist, everything is just wet, wet, wet and sticky. Shudder.

This morning I finished my report and handed it in. I hope it is not a piece of crap, which I kind of feel like it is. I got permission to go to the library so I went and poked around the reading rooms and the museum. In the museum, there was a group of girls from Tulane. Tourists always look at me twice because I look Tibetan but I dress Western and if I'm with Dickyi or other Tibetans they're even more confused. These girls cracked me up. They kind of poked around the museum a little bit, not really looking at anything in particular, and then stood in a huddle talking about how long their mothers took in labor with them and childbirth in general. Unusual. At lunch I met up with Tenam and he took me to go see his office, which he shares with this white lady who is working here temporarily. They're both contract workers for the library. Tenam just finished proofreading this long book about I don't even know what. I was annoyed to have to go back to work because I obviously have nothing to do, but I have to wait for my letter from the director.

Today we're going to go buy a painting of a mandala for my dad and then who knows, maybe Dharamcode. Tomorrow we will leave EARLY for bir, chandigar, and now we're going to this one other place where Dickyi's grandad live and khewang is from. Sunday we'll leave for Delhi and then back to NY.

Approaching the End

We are very fast approaching the end of our stay in Dharamsala and it feels sad. Yesterday we bought our tickets for the bus back to Delhi on Sunday. My last day of work will be Friday--me and Tenam took leave on Saturday so that we can all go to Bir. They have work here on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays. My work is going quite well and I am just proofreading and adding bits to my report. I've enjoyed it.

Looking back on my blog, I realize that I left out something that has been great during our time here, which is that Dickyi has been kind of involved with someone during our stay here--a very good friend of her brother's who is a doctor in Dharamsala. Anyways, I won't say too much more because I don't want to embarrass anyone, except that I think everyone involved was glad that it happened. But that kind of thing makes it even harder to leave.

Yesterday I ate lunch in the office, like I do everyday, and they had this dish that looked like green beans and tomatoes and onions. I took a little and ate what I thought were a couple beans. Turns out they were very hot chillies. I eat lunch quickly and then I go to the cafe in Ghangyi (I think that's the right spelling) to hang out with Tenam and sometimes Dickyi. Tenam's friend was there. He works in parliament full-time and he was cracking everyone up. He just had really funny mannerisms. I am seriously amused by certain mannerisms here. The other day we were hanging out with SFT people, and the head of SFT here, Chou Ying (sp), who is such a cool person, turned to me and said "You know, music is a particular passion of mine", dead serious. It really wasn't that kind of conversation and it was just really funny because it seemed like he was taking himself so incredibly seriously. Also I'm pretty sure that music is a particular passion of everyone's. Chou Ying has a Canadian girlfriend who is going to U of T also next year. She's nice and we're going to see both of them at SFT camp when we get back to NY.

Me and Tenam made plans to go to Dharamcode (sp)with Dickyi yesterday, which is apparently very beautiful, but it started raining at around 4:40 and just kind of kept going, on and off. Dickyi, who had spent the day with someone who had come up especially from Bir to see her ahem just missed the rain when she came to pick me up from work and it wasn't raining when we walked home. The walk back is long and steep and kind of like mountain climbing and Dickyi was tired, but we had a lot to talk about so it was fun. When we got up to McLeod we shopped around a little bit and then went home. Last night, we made dinner for the family. It was almost a disaster and the power went off a few times, but it turned out well in the end. After dinner, we met up with Tenam and Japan and Tenkyi at Mcllo, which is like the cool restaurant to hang out in here. It was raining while we were inside, but it was like as soon as we stepped out, the sky cleared. Crazy. The bad thing about Mcllo is that it is kind of sketchy because it is where Tibetan guys go to try to pick up injees, or foreigners. I had Gulab Jamun which is so very good there because they heat it up.

Everyone here assumes that if you are foreign, you are a slut. Apparently lots of foreign girls come here and have affairs with Tibetan guys. It's fine for Dickyi because she is Tibetan, but everyone knows I am injee so I have to be paranoid about what people think and it's a bit annoying because Dickyi said people think things immediately if you even talk to a guy. I have to turn down perfectly good bike rides to and from work from Tenam because I don't want people to think that we are more than just friends. I've ridden his bike other times, not to and from work, though, and it is really really fun. I've never ridden anyone else's bike except for Japan's last night, but Dickyi is addicted to bike rides and rides on anyone's bike (jk, but not really), but it is OK for her because she is Tibetan. Anyways, there's a reason I was talking about bike rides and it is this: last night, after mcllo, japan and dickyi wanted to go swimming so we decided we would go to bhagsunad, the pool. japan and tenam both had their bikes but tenam had to go back and get something so japan gave me and dickyi a ride back to the house to pick up dickyi's swim stuff. No sooner had we turned the corner from Mcllo than we were stopped by indian police officers. Japan, like all Tibetans in Dharamsala, is fluent in Hindi so we watched him talk his way out of a ticket for having three people on a bike. He was dropping names, he was really working it. The police officers not only let us go, but said that we could all ride on the bike. Apparently the restaurant that Japan's family owns, which is like one of the top restaurants in Mcllo, is landlorded by this very powerful Indian guy so all Japan had to do was keep dropping his name and talking about how they were very good friends.

We all went to the pool and D and J went swimming, which was crazy because the water was way too cold. Afterwards they were of course freezing, so we tried to find somewhere that was still open to have tea. We went to one place, but it was closed. We went to another place and I am telling you I could not believe my eyes. It was an outside cafe jam packed with rasta foreigners beating drums in a circle and dancing like tribal African dances. WTF. This Israeli looking guy was outside, welcoming us, telling us to have a seat and relax. Me and Dickyi just burst out laughing--it was too funny. I don't know where these people come from and how they think it is ok to be so ridiculous in a public place. I also don't know how this place hasn't been burnt down by the neglected, lit ends of joints. So we left and went to this other place that was also for rasta foreigners but not as much. I avoided eating anything there as it was probably laced with hash. I was so sleepy by this point because it was 1 and I was falling asleep at the table. We left soon after and I almost fell asleep on the bike ride back, except that it was such a beautiful night and I was kind of scared that someone would come up behind me from the pitch blackness. Shiver.

One interesting thing happened last night. As we were leaving the cafe, Dickyi and Tenam and Japan were talking animatedly about something to do with Indians and Tibetans. I couldn't understand, but when me and Dickyi got back, I asked her about it. She said that Japan was talking about how Indians are so rude here, and how at his restaurant, Tibetans always say "Thank-you" when you give them their food and Indians never do. Dickyi pointed out that Tibetans only do that to other Tibetans and not to Indians. Tenam said that Indians don't say thank-you to other Indians either. This dynamic between Tibetans and Indians is very weird here. Tenam says that although Tibetans have more money in general (in Dharamsala at least), Indians have the legal advantage because they are passport carrying citizens. It is hard for Tibetans to get an Indian passport here because of the race factor. The best place to get one is Shillong or Dharjeeling, which is where Japan got his. This is because these areas are in the Northeast, so people look asian, and also because many of the natives there have Tibetan names because they are Buddhist. Japan says that he has a very hard time with his Indian passport because of his looks. People give him trouble. Japan seems really affected by racism by Indians towards Tibetans while being racist against Indians himself. Mysteres et boules de gomme.

Anyways, it looks like the monsoon season has started early here and that is what everyone is saying. That makes it a little bit easier to leave.

Ghosts and apples and leopards, oh my!

I am so relieved that I wrote that long entry and now I can go into a bit more detail about things that happen. I wanted to write about the nunnery Dickyi and I went to visit because it was very touching. We went there because Dickyi had a specific nun that she had been very close to as a child. We asked all around for her when we arrived at the nunnery and we waited on one of the walkways in the nunnery compound for her to come out. When she came out, she was so happy to see Dickyi, but sad somehow, maybe because Dickyi couldn't stay for long. She was crying and I wondered what her life is like there, at the nunnery. And I wondered what her life was like before that--if it had been soaked in sorrow and what it was like now. Dickyi told me later that she had had a hard life and didn't have a family. I wondered if entering the nunnery was one of many choices for her or if it was her only choice. Another nun was very sad because she missed Dickyi's father, who used to run the nunnery. She said she couldn't eat because of it. While we were there they gave us mountain dews and bowls of vegetable with rolls that are ubiquitous in northern Chinese cuisine as well.

The food here in McLeod Ganj is different from in the rest of India. At TCHRD, they have a cook that makes everyone lunch. We always have dal and rice, some kind of salad made from cucumbers or onions, and either a potato or a meat dish. They often use turnips in their cooking, like us, but their spices are different. A Tibetan dish that I've had few times is this noodle soup. The noodles are shaped like flat nuggets and there are vegetables or meat in the stew. It's pretty good. Dickyi's cousin cooks at home and she cooks really well. The only thing is that I can't eat onions or too many beans, which kind of limits the food I can eat. I also stay away from curd and raw foods. Some things I really like here are the breads--I love Tibetan bread which comes round and flat but not without yeast--it is a very simple bread, but very good. I like the parathas, especially those made by Dickyi's cousin. Again, though, the parathas tend to have onions in with the potatoes. I really love the momos, or dumplings, here. That's probably my favorite. They have potato momos which are delicious and of course the meat momos are really good. The other thing I always get here is hot honey lemon ginger tea. It is the tourist drink because it's good for your throat but it's really good.

Sometimes Dharamsala feels kind of ghostly. There is one murder story in particular about three Punjabis that were beheaded at this hotel that is right by Last Chance. This actually happened not too long ago. Apparently the girl who was beheaded (along with two guys) was a prostitute. And there are a lot of ghost stories here that were, I guess, spread among the kids in boarding schools. There are a lot of stories here in general. People really like telling stories about how they got in trouble as kids and what kinds of beatings they were given and it's pretty interesting. Kunjodorje (sp), Dickyi's brother's best friend, told us a story about when he was small at TCV (the boarding school here that everyone goes to). There was an apple orchard near them where they used to go pick apples illegally all the time as young boys. One time, he and his friend went to go steal some apples and the owner of the orchard ran after them. K. kept running, but realized he lost his friend when he got back to the school. He was missing during class and at the meeting. The teachers kept asking K. where he was, but he didn't say anything. Finally, at night, I guess he told the teachers and K. and a couple of the teachers went back to the apple orchard. And strapped around a big tree in the middle of the orchard was K.'s friend. He had been there the whole time. Some punishments I heard of are literally picking you up by your feet and hitting you every which way, making you rub stinging (REALLY stinging--I know because I was stung) nettles all over your body. People were beaten arbitrarily for playing marbles outside or something ridiculously innocent. Nowadays, they say that there are nowhere near the number of beatings there used to be. But you kind of get a sense of how these people were brought up and why they are so like whatever and rarely surprised or pained by things.

But back to ghost stories--A couple days ago we went to the waterfall and after that me and Dickyi went to buy momos and noodles to take to Tenam's house to eat while we watched Pirates 3. T. made shakes and we just watched the movie. Then afterwards we were sitting outside and we were telling ghost stories. Tenam had like 900 ghost stories at the ready. He told this one story that is from a Korean horror movie he saw where this guy has a pain on his neck and no one can figure out what it is except when someone takes a picture of him and there's this like freakin scary looking girl all in white crouched on his neck all the time. There's another one they used to tell in boarding school about a teacher at the school who walked down the road and saw a student crying. He shook the student and asked why he was crying and when the student raised his head, the teacher saw that he didn't have a face. The teacher ran away as fast as he could to the gate of the school. He was so relieved when he reached the gate and he told the gatekeeper about it. When the gatekeeper looked up, he didn't have a face too! I was totally freaked out. There's one more--the story is that someone is walking down athe road and stops in at this house. While he's eating dinner, the lady of the house sits down and she starts telling this story about a lady who died and was buried. Her husband, for one reason or the other, dug up the grave and cut off her finger with her marriage ring on it and then threw her into a well. The person listening to the story realizes that the lady is dripping water and missing a finger and the lady grabs you (the person telling the story grabs you here) and is like "why did you take my ring?" There was this other story where a guy gets out of bed at night to go to the bathroom and when he gets back, there is someone in the bed and it's himself. Then we started imagining what would happen if you were walking down the road at night and saw yourself. Needless to say I was totally freaked out by this point.

Then Dickyi suggested we all take a walk and that it was light enough not to have a flashlight. Meanwhilst it was pitch black. And the walk was kind of scary, but it was ok. When we got back Tenam gave us a ride back to our house and we were like omg what if you were all alone on the bike in the dead of night on these mountain roads and you turned around and there was someone on the bike behind you?

It was surprising that I could sleep at all that night, but I slept fine.

Yesterday I met up with Rinzin to walk down to work and in the middle of the morning it started raining so heavily it was crazy, but it really cleared the air because it had been oppressive. We were a little disappointed because we were going to go to the waterfall yesterday after work. We left work fifteen minutes early. I didn't know why we left work so early, but I was told later that someone died in Ghanki yesterday so all the governmental offices got the afternoon off. After work I met up with Tso mo, Dickyi and Japan at a cafe but I was tired even after drinking tea so I went back to rest, but instead decided to do all my laundry. So let me just describe the layout of the house. Our floor, like all the floors has a little balcony where there's a clothesline. We face a little ravine and a small hill. After the small hill there is a road and then a continuation of the hill, which is where Tenam's house is. This whole area is a bit bizarre because in the middle of all this trash and stuff in the middle of the hill is this old Indian guy's like shanty house, where he's always banging around on pots or something. It's odd. That road below Tenam's house is the most dangerous one, he says, in McLeod. And one night, I heard all this commotion outside. There's always commotion because there are giant packs of wild dogs all by our house, but this was human commotion. Dickyi wasn't in so I was scared to go out and check, but when I peeked out, I thought I saw people in a fight. The next day I asked Tenam and he said that actually someone on a motorbike had fallen down the hill. He wasn't injured, but he was very worried about his bike. Typical. Ok, anyways, this Indian guy has a little shack and a little makeshift fence that I guess encloses a kind of backyard in the ghettoist sense of the word. So i was wringing out clothes over the balcony when I saw A LEOPARD prowling around this guy's backyard. I think it was a leopard. It was a sandy color and its spots weren't totally bright, but they were there. It was not a dog, but more like a cat. But it was like nothing I've ever seen. It was the size of a large dog, but flatter and longer. It was stealthy, oh it was stealthy. I was totally excited and ran into the room to get my camera. Of course it was out of batteries. When I ran back outside, the leopard wasn't in the backyard anymore and I thought I had imagined the whole thing. I was tired and I hadn't taken a nap like I was supposed to. But then I saw it again! It was winding up the hill in its stealthy fashion. I ran downstairs and told Dickyi and we tried to see it again but couldn't. Momo wasn't sure it was a leopard because there were dogs nearby and they hadn't run away, but Tenam said that leopards come down here sometimes and if they are very quiet, the dogs don't know they're there.

When It Rains in Dharamsala

This is a poem by Tenzin Tsundue, a pretty famous Tibetan youth freedom struggle leader. Dickyi is good friends with him and I've met him several times.

When it Rains in Dharamsala

When it rains in Dharamsala
raindrops wear boxing gloves,
thousands of them
come crashing down
and beat my room.
Under its tin roof
my room cries from inside
and wets my bed, my papers.

Sometimes the clever rain comes
from behind my room,
the treacherous walls lift
their heels and allow
a small flood into my room.

I sit on my island-nation bed
and watch my country in flood,
notes on freedom,
memoirs of my prison days,
letters from college friends,
crumbs of bread
and Maggi noodles
rise sprightly to the surface
like a sudden recovery
of a forgotten memory.

Three months of torture,
monsoon in the needle leafed pines
Himalaya rinsed clean
glistens in the evening sun.
Until the rain calms down
and stops beating my room


I need to console my tin roof
who has been on duty
from the British Raj.
This room has sheltered many homeless people.

Now captured by mongooses
and mice, lizards and spiders,
and partly rented by me.
A rented room for home
is a humbling existence.

My Kashmiri landlady
at eighty cannot return home.
We often compete for beauty
Kashmir or Tibet.

Every evening,
I return to my rented room;
but I am not going to die this way.
There has got to be some way out of here.
I cannot cry like my room
I have cried enough
in prisons and
in small moments of despair.

There has got to be
some way out of here.
I cannot cry,
my room is wet enough.

Dharamsala

I’m here in Dharamsala and I’m not quite certain I ever want to leave. But let me start from where I left off. We boarded the bus for Delhi with our Uncle chips, water, candied hibiscus flowers (courtesy of Trader Joe’s), melty chocolate bars and I-pods. Just before we had left we had walked in the heat around Janpath once more and then to a Tibetan market to buy a watch for Dickyi and a torch for Dharamsala nights because there are few street lights on those twisty mountain roads. The Tibetan market was a little ways away from the major bus terminal in Delhi and a lot aways from the metro stop, or so it seemed to me. I could not breathe on the walk—everytime I tried to take a deep breath, nothing but thick, hot air, exhaust, and pungent odor filled my nostrils and seemed to stop before it could get to my lungs. Man, I was glad to board that bus because I was half unconscious the whole time we were in Delhi. The bus was like a greyhound bus from the 60s that has seen better days. No AC of course, but at least the windows opened.

It was the best bus ride I can remember, and Dickyi agrees. I slept for the first couple hours and woke to find it dark outside and time to take our first bus stop. We stopped at a roadside cookhouse and Dickyi bought snacks for us to eat—she ate dahl and chapatti, but I thought I would stick with packaged foods. Ah, the return of the delightful bourbon biscuit. As soon as we sat down, I guess the tones of our English carried throughout the rest stop because almost immediately, the three empty tables around us filled with white people dressed in rucksacks and hemp. I mean, to each his own and everything but I’m a little taken aback by that breed of American/French/Isreali/German/British who, dread-locked within an inch of his or her life, feels the need to wear a full on rucksack layered over some kind of lungi (sp?) with a sari scarf draped about their shoulders whilst talking loudly about how comfortable he/she is eating Indian food. It’s especially interesting when all the Tibetans and Indians around us are dressed in jeans and t-shirts that say “Boston University” or “A & F” on them. People get really into the culture, and I guess it’s good but I don’t think I could change everything about how I dress or talk or eat so easily.

I was dazed at the bus stop, but regained a bit of consciousness and Dickyi and I listened to music and talked when we re-boarded the bus. We would sleep intermittently and always would wake up at the same time. But there are no words to describe the beauty of the moment when I was roused from hot, dreamless sleep, with my clothes stuck to every inch of my body to a cool, light breeze. It felt actually unreal and had I not been looking forward to that moment for 24 hours I think I would have thought I was dreaming. The breeze blew through me and it smelled woody and smoky and it felt like nothing else I’ve ever felt. Because usually when I go somewhere it is on a plane and as you move from A to B, flying above the weather, no change can be felt because by the time you step off at B, you’ve forgotten what A feels like. And so little wonder can ever be mustered. Although I, who ought to have by now grown blasé about traveling, will never stop feeling the really very simple feeling of being elsewhere, being not where you were. Or thinking the even simpler thought that “I was there and now I am here and it is different and I am different in it”.

I was very aware that we were passing into Himachel Pradesh from Delhi and Hariyana because you could simply feel it in the air and see it in the landscape, which changed from flat and dusty to bulbous and craggy and moist somehow. And what I thought about it was that it seemed that the land and the air were pushing and pulling on each other, that they necessarily felt the other’s elements and properties and that they would respond accordingly. And it seemed that the land was craning upwards in protestation as the air gave way and waned and thinned. And it seemed that the air, collapsing through itself, breathed and in that breath gave up its molton qualities of fire and heat. The air passed them, so it seemed, to the land. And so the land grew bulbous and craggy, mass upon mass seeping out from under and on top and from places we don’t even know exist, craning and crawing and growing with the properties of heat, as a hot air balloon grows pompous and uppity when it begins to breathe in the hot air. And that’s how the mountains seemed to form as we came into Himachal Pradesh.

It didn’t seem possible that mountains like this can exist, so varied they were in their makeup, some stretches lined with neat steps growing tea or rice or I’m not even sure. And it seems even unlikelier that these mountains, bursting with evergreens and other trees that are so lush they seem drenched in something wet and sweet, can exist here in India which has always been so hot and dry and dusty to me. Apparently these mountains, at the foothills of the Himalayas, are, further up from us, filled with leopards, foxes, panthers, monkeys galore, of course, and other wildlife. I’ve already seen a mongoose, goats, rats, countless monkeys, and you can’t throw a stone here without hitting a dog or three or four of them.

The population of Dharamsala is around 25,000. The vast majority are Tibetans. They are in self-exile and, against the odds, have whittled a life for themselves out of these mountains and in it, they have built a community that is a community in every sense of the word. And as much as the freedom struggle will break your heart, so the kindness of the people here and the way they feel and fulfill their community will fill it to its tipping point. We got off in McLeod Ganj at the depot, which is the square where the three major roads meet. Tenzin Norgay, my contact at TCHRD and Dickyi’s cousin, came to meet us. We would stay with him and this family at their house, which is a three story, three-unit house that they rent out to a few families. Dakpa, Dickyi’s cousin by marriage, and his wife, Yangzhin (sp) gave up their room on the second floor for us, and are staying on the first floor with the rest of their family. Beside us lives a young family—the husband and the wife are very young and beautiful, and they have three little girls. They are always singing and playing with their friends, painting in their coloring books, or running up and down the steps. Dakpa and his wife have a baby, Norzin. They also have the most adorable white puppy called Kartouk. Momo and two Popos live there as well. The three main streets of McLeod are beautiful—they are dripping with bright woolen Tibetan blankets, turquoise and pearl jewelery, chupas, salwar tops, beaded bags, fur-lined vests, carpets, scarves. Even after being here for a week and a half/a couple weeks, I’m always enthralled when we walk along the streets.

Let me talk about work first—I work in Gankhi (I have idea how to spell it, all I know that it is pronounced “Kanki”). The actual address is Top Floor, Narthang Building; Gangchen Kyishong, Dharamsala H.P-176215, India. I’m working at the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy, which is not affiliated with the government, though we are in the government’s International Affairs building. We are on the top floor which means it is HOT and it is even hotter when the power goes out, which happens quite a lot. There are two ex political prisoners here in the office and both of them speak Chinese so we talk in Mandarin. The others can speak English, but speak Tibetan to each other. Norgay was here but he is gone now, in a conference in Switzerland. The director is a short, stout man and very jolly. There are a few young people in the office, and even more when I first started here. Four girls are university students who are my age—they are all Tibetan and they all go to school in Chennai.

These four girls are interesting because they each have something tragic about them. My favorite one, Cho Mo (sp) has the saddest story. She lived in Tibet with her family until she was 11, when she crossed the Himalayas with her cousin, but with a guide and in a larger group. This girl, 11 years old, crossed the Himalayas without telling her parents. She planned it out with her cousin like it was a game and she has not seen her family since. Only a few years ago did she start talking to them on the phone. She misses them, but she can’t go back to Tibet because she has no papers. No one has papers here and many people are desperate to leave. The man who lives with his family on our floor, for example, is unemployed, and his profession is pretty much trying to get to America. He goes and tries for a VISA at every chance he gets. After two consecutive tries, you must wait for a year or two. So this is what he does. His wife is a cook. It is hard to live in your means here, Dickyi says. A normal salary is 10,000-20,000 rupees and food costs are quite high. People rely heavily on relatives or friends in America. Pema, my other friend, has a similar story to Cho Mo’s, except her parents knew she was coming over. The other girl, Rin Zin, was born in India, but her mother is gone and her father is terribly strict with her. She can’t go out after dark at all and she can’t go out on the weekends. The last girl, whose name I can never remember, is quite desperate to go to America. She does not want to get married and settled down. What she wants, it seems, and believes she can only get in the West, is freedom to do what she wants and go where she wants.

Work is good—I am writing about the Regulations on Religious affairs in China and the measures for implementing them in the TAR. I am learning a lot.

I’ve been to a few talks since I have been here. One was a debate on the mining issue in Tibet and how China is bringing in Canadian companies to destroy the mountains and look for resources. It was a massacre because one side (the side that supports mining) was horribly prepared and said things like “there’s no good trying to stop the Chinese”. I was embarrassed the whole time. One was a talk by Tenzin Tsundue who Dickyi is quite good friends with. He was on the cover of Newsweek or something ridiculous like that and he gave a talk at Sara (sp), a school for Tibetan youth to relearn the Tibetan language, culture, and religion. He spoke about youth responsibility and the importance of knowing the Tibetan language so that the culture and the heritage do not die out. The students were incredibly attentive and had lots of questions. Tsundue is a published writer and many students bought his works after the talk. The talk, however, was way too long and I fell asleep. The third talk I went to was a couple days ago. I don’t remember who was speaking, but he is quite a famous Tibetan as well. We went to this talk after spending a whole day in the sun at a pool resort further up from upper TCV (a school) so I was heat-drunk and half unconscious. I fell asleep. Last week, the Dalai Lama gave three talks on three consecutive days to Tibetan students. I went two of the days. I’ve seen the Dalai Lama about four times now.

Now I want to talk about some of the places we go to:

Kanki (sp) is where I work and it is the headquarters of Tibetan Government in exile. It’s essentially a compound with a couple cafes, a huge stupa in the middle, and many many governmental buildings. The library is here too. The prime minister of Tibetan gov. in exile is here too. I walk to Kanki in the morning because it’s a nice walk and there are other girls that walk. We meet at the temple/monastery and walk down

Namgyal temple/monastery—it is at the end of Temple road which is one of the major roads. It is beautiful and huge. We have been quite a few times, once to get blessed by one of the three highest lamas. I’ve seen lots of interesting things there, such as the monks practicing their debating skills, which is awesome (and loud) to watch, with all the belligerent clapping one could hope for. I’ve done the Kora a few mornings, which is basically a holy route around the temple that people do early in the morning while praying. It’s nice.

Lower Dharamsala is very fun, but I’m the only one who seems to think so—it’s like half an hour from Kanki. Being in Lower is like being in India again after being in little Tibet. It reminds me of Saudi a lot—lots of cloth shops, bata, sugarcane juice stands, sweet shops, shops selling kitchen wares etc., fruit stalls.

Norbulinka, which is a drive and a walk from Lower Dharamsala. It’s a beautiful garden with Tibetan flags draped all over the place, a temple, a museum, and a gift shop. The time we went there we timed it badly and could only spend like 10 minutes there but it was ok.

Norbuling is the nunnery that Dickyi’s dad used to run and where Dickyi used to live on holidays. It was truly beautiful—the buildling were clean and had red accents that were really nice. The gardens were beautiful and everything was just very clean. Visiting there was quite sentimental, since the nuns were so happy to see Dickyi again and grew sad when she had to leave.

Forsyth Ganj is about twenty minutes walk from here and there’s not much there except a church, but the mountain roads are beautiful. We’ve been there once or twice.

Last Chance—this is like five minutes from our house and it is a very breathtaking view. Young kids go there in the morning to study and memorize. There are benches and places you can sit further down the mountain. Me and Dickyi like going there.

Bhagsunad (sp)—it’s a kind if Israeli settlement like 15 minutes from us and there is a pool there. Me and Dickyi and Tenam went there one night and Dickyi and Tenam went swimming. Further up is a waterfall that we went to yesterday—it was amazing. It’s a beautiful waterfall and on the weekends all the monks go there to bathe and clean their clothes and play monk games. The water is clean and icy cold and filled with minnows.

TIPA—Tibetan Institute for Performing Arts. I’ve been there a few times. Last night we took a walk there, but I’ve been there for two shows now—one traditional dance and song show that was really good and one concert by a local band, the “Buddha boys”.

Ok, on to the people. Dickyi’s family is amazing and so kind. Her cousin is a great cook—the food is really good. Dakpa, her husband, is so nice as well. He hangs out with us sometimes and snacks and shows us Tibetan music videos. He is always smiling. Momo is Dickyi’s grandma type person and she is in excellent shape. She does three koras every morning. One of the Popos is a monk and prays all the time, and one of them just kind of hangs out. Norgay was so much fun to hang out with and like a complete encyclopedia about everything.

Dickyi has so many friends. Question mark, who got his name because his head is literally shaped like a question mark, Thum Thind (sp), youdon, japan (who got his nickname because he looks like he is Japanese), Palmo, Tenkyi, Khewang, Tenam, Kunjodorje, and so many others. We’ve hung out with them a few times and they are all very nice. QM is kind of bellig and likes to argue, but he does it in Tibetan and about Tibetan independence and Buddhism, so it doesn’t really affect me. Everywhere we go we run into Dickyi’s friends—everywhere.

The two that I hang out with the most are Tenkyi and Tenam. Tenkyi I know well because she stayed with us in Boston for a few weeks--she is really beautiful. I haven’t hung out with her that much because she had a few little cousins here and has to take care of them One of them is very small and speaks Chinese randomly. One of them was a dirty little thing with lice and for the first few days, she was so quiet you would think she was mute. The last time I saw her, though, she was talking a blue streak. The oldest is in high school but looks very young—she is very sweet. Jigme is Tenkyi’s boyfriend and he lives here too and he is really nice. He, like Tenkyi, went to school in the states and his parents and family are there. He left last week to visit Tibet. Tenkyi is awesome because she’s so chill and fun and easy to be around. She works at TWA, the Tibetan Woman’s Association. Dickyi’s helped out there a bit since she has been here. Now, Dickyi goes to Tibetan language classes at the library quite early in the morning and visits people during the day.

Tenam's this guy around our age, and Dickyi and I actually met at the same time. He is Khewang’s very good friend--Khewang is special because he is Dickyi’s very oldest friend in the world. They were babies together and were best friends until middle school or something. Khewang was here for a few days for the Dalai Lama's teachings, but he has gone back to Bir, where both he and Tenam are from. So I haven't seen much of Khewang, but he is very sweet. Tenam is cool and fun to hang around with and pretty much has the in on everything. He has lived here since he finished at DU and kind of knows everything and everyone in Dharamsala. He, like so many locals, do things we would never dream of doing in North America, like strolling into the kitchen to order food straight from the chef and just generally being all up in the thick of things. He speaks really good English because he had lots of friends at Delhi U who were from nagaland or Bhutan or something and that’s what they speak He’s friends with a bunch of dickyi’s friends besides Khewang too, like people from SFT (students for a free Tibet) who we hang out with sometimes. Through him I got to meet people from Nagaland, who look Chinese but they are actually Indian..it’s weird and crazy but very cool. It’s unclear who Tenam lives with--i think he technically lives with one other guy but it seems that the whole neighborhood is always there at his house. His house is like a giant, extended balcony, except for one room and the kitchen that are indoors and there are always like 7 random people hanging out there. We go to his house now and then because he's our neighbor. He also works like one minute from me, in kanki as well. Sometimes me and dickyi will meet him for lunch at this café--let me just talk about this cafe--it's the one that everyone goes to so I have to go, but I'm deathly afraid of it because the woman who runs it looks and acts exactly like Jade Fox from Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and frankly it’s scary.

Let me just talk about the life-style here. I absolutely love it. People just hang out here. They hang out a lot. It’s a very different lifestyle and a very relaxed one. People are chill about work and don’t let it stress them out and at the end of the day it’s just work and they get on with their real jobs, which appears to be hanging out. Everyone knows everyone and you can't walk down the street without seeing someone you know. This goes for me as well and I've been here only like two weeks. Everyone is constantly just hanging out—I can’t stress that enough. I really like Tibetans and their culture—they are just very kind. People are generous with what little they have. One thing that’s odd and takes some getting used to is the class divide here. Tibetan people are very much a higher class than Indians here in Dharamsala—they have more money, in short. Basically it’s all about who has more money. It's weird to see the nicest Tibetan in the world treating an Indian waiter a little bit rudely. But Dickyi said that's just what it is like. Tibetans in general have a lot of complaints about Indian manners and etiquette. I think that is one reason why they feel they can treat them with such little courtesy. Another thing that's strange is that in Tibetan houses, people don’t have couches or chairs really. They have beds or mattresses on the floor in the living room. I’m pretty sure it’s because there are like 12 people crammed into a space at any given time and beds and mattresses give more sitting room than couches.

There have been a few hard things here--one is the incredibly heart-breaking stories. The stories are very very sad and what breaks your heart is that at the end, the person telling it will say "but I'm very lucky" and then you feel ashamed and spoiled and generally just like a bad person because you didn't trek across the Himalayas, away from all your family forever, when you were 11. Another is the fact that I am Chinese and that that part of me won't go away and I wouldn't want it to because I like being Chinese and I am proud of it. I am not proud of how the Chinese government is making its decisions. I feel a little bit guilty but then I get angry because I should not feel that way and I know that. This feeling is compounded by the fact that many things are very political here. People have forged their identities out of the freedom struggle and much conversation and activities center around this. Work, of course, for me, is entirely political and it took some adjusting and some thinking to be able to not take things at all personally. I think I'm there because I haven't felt bad for awhile. That is why I like hanging out with certain people more than others--I like hearing stories about the culture and the lifestyle more than people's thoughts on the freedom struggle, which I think about everyday at work. Another negative thing has been the language barrier, which is lessening everyday. Tenam and Tenkyi are both really comfortable with english and talk english almost entirely around me, which is probably why I enjoy their company so much. I've reached the point, though, where I can kind of tell what's going on by picking up a few words here and there and just knowing the general contexts of situations. It's pretty cool and makes things considerably less isolating.
Another thing that scares me is how happy I am here and why the hell do I have such an itchy foot and a thirst for experiencing communities and cultures of which I am not a part and never will be? I'm really sad that I have to leave so soon. Boo.