My Wonderful Tibetan Hosts!
It's incredible how quickly living in this Tibetan camp has become my new normal. Though I still can't navigate the windy streets (I've tried, several times), the sights and sounds are starting to be my new baseline. Living in the flat has also become more natural, and I can even help with cooking and cleaning now that I know how everything works. And to my delight (knock on wood), aside from my cold and cough, haven't gotten sick yet from food or water =)
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The morning was spent trying to sort out card business. I had my first coffee (ah, Americano!) this week while having one of the most patience-testing conversations of my life over Skype with TD bank. Think distorted robot noises with intermittent screeching coming through the phone while trying to communicate numbers, postal codes, and spellings of foreign city names.
But, it seems my replacement Visa card is being processed as I write, and should arrive by the end of the week. Though the person on the line was very reassuring that she had all the information she needed, I harbour a bit of skepticism as to whether this package will ever make it to the camp. I may be underestimating things, but the idea that anything could be delivered to an address here is a bit incredible. Houses have numbers, but are not in any particular order. 'Streets', as I've mentioned, are impossibly windy and full of backalleys. There are of course, no mailboxes to speak of. I remain in the hopes of being proven wrong.
My next attempt was to try to wire myself some money through Western Union, which was completely unsuccessful, though I thought it would be clever. However, I feel myself gently settling into the pace of life here. I woke up impatient, but somewhere through the course of the day, I noticed how Makyil and Kunsang were spending their time. No rush about anything. Do things as they come up. Go if you need to go, but no stress about that either. I have gotten into the habit of asking Kunsang, who is on a one month vacation from school before he returns to Dharmasala in March to commence studies in Tibetan medicine, how he will spend his day each morning. And each morning he responds with an amused, or sheepish smile, 'Nothing planned,'.And he will take time reading, helping with chores, running errands for Makyil and Kelsang (and occasionally me =) ), talking about Tibetan philosophy, watching TV, and tagging along on site visits or everyday adventures.
Kunsang is like an endless encyclopedia of knowledge about Tibetan and Indian history. While visiting the Red Fort (a World Heritage site), we went into a museum of the history of Indian resistance against British colonialism, and at every plaque or display, Kunsang had something to tell me. I occasionally throw random questions at him ("Kunsang, how do homeless people become homeless?"), and I usually get a very well thought-out response from him. Though his face bears an older age, or perhaps the lines of someone who has seen a lot, he tells me he is only 22. It is clear though, that residing in Dharmasala, Kunsang is much less a city person than Makyil and Kelsang (and at times, even me). Today while walking through Kalkaji Mandir, one of the more impoverished parts of the city, where it literally seems like the entire community is comprised of homeless people lining the streets, two children, around 4 years old start tailing us. One of them walks alongside me for quite some time, tugging at my clothes, begging for money. The other goes for Kunsang (we are the only non-Indians around). I keep walking, looking ahead. Cold, but there are too many of them to stop. The boy following me sees he won't be getting anything from me and drops behind to Kunsang. I turn around to see where he is, and Kunsang is half-laughing, and half trying to run away from the two insistent four-year olds. The scene is both comical and heartbreaking. His half-hearted attempts to shake them aren't any use and they continue to follow him, until an Indian man walking ahead of us sees what is happening, and waves them back with a sharp word. They stop immediately.
***
I've been slowly getting the details of everyone's stories about their escapes into exile. All three of them have left their families behind in Tibet, though they have siblings either in India, or abroad. The stories follow the general theme of: they are chosen to be the ones to go of all the children in the family because they are still too young to have household responsibilities. A truck comes for them at night, and they are transported in a small group to close to the Indian-Tibet border, where they somehow avoid the Chinese border guards, and cross the border by foot. Many then go to Nepal for sometime to avoid capture in India. The tales are all not easy to hear. They all left between the ages of 6 and 10, and were subsequently assigned to Tibetan boarding schools around India where they are taught their language and history. Tibetans have been fleeing Tibet since 1959, when artillery was fired at the Dalai Lama's home by the Chinese army, and he went into exile for fear of his life. The story is of course more complicated than that, and I don't understand it all yet.
What is striking about these Tibetans is the clarity of their sense of identity. I can ask any of them what Tibetans believe about such and such issue, and they will give me a congruent answer. The solidarity about them is most impressive.
With all of this in mind, I am quite excited to head North to Dharmasala in March. The Dalai Lama will be giving a teaching there, so there will surely be an enormous number of travelers during that time. What an opportunity!
Makyil (middle) and Kelsang (right) are indomitable. Lining up for tickets to enter the Red Fort, I stick out like a sore tourist thumb and one of the line guards comes up to me and demands 'Country?'
Without thinking, I reply 'Canada', and the guard motions me to another line. Turns out foreigners pay 250 rps to enter, while locals pay 15 rps. Makyil says she was about to tell him I was from Himachal Pradesh, a northern region of India where there are lots of Tibetans. I do a mental self ass-kick. Next time I'll keep my mouth shut. Without even pausing, Kelsang dives into the fray of the line-up for me, somehow squeezing through a queue of at least fifty people, and produces a shiny foreigner ticket for me in mere minutes, with a big smile.
On our way out of the Fort, a group of Indian men pass by and one of them shouts at us 'Chinky!'. I don't even notice, but Makyil spins around and shouts 'Bihari!'. She turns back and tells me this is one of the worst things you can call an Indian, as the region of Bihar is considered one of the most undesirable in India.
Both Makyil and Kelsang are fluent in Hindi, Kunsang less so. It is quite a sight to watch them banter around in Hindi with shopkeepers, and then switch right back into Tibetan with each other, and then into English with me.
Kunsang's Tibetan writing homework. The more elegant the handwriting, the better is considered one's knowledge of Tibetan. Kunsang is to fill an entire book with practice sentences, but he lets me in on his secret: he writes big and with lots of spaces in between. I guess we've all got that one up our sleeves... ;)