Ray's Blog: Vermont Intercultural Semester in the Himalayas

Here is a message from our friend Thayer MacClay, 18, of Warren, Vermont. Thayer is taking a year off before entering college (Colorado College) to put on 7 League Boots to explore the world and help people at the same time. I thought you would enjoy this. He is spending the fall in Ladakh in the Indian region of Jammu and Kashmir. I wish I were there in those high Himalays on the Tibet border!

Ray

Vermont Intercultural Semesters

Students' Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh

Dear Friends and Family,

A lot has happened since my last update. Now, the VIS ( Vermont Intercultural Semester) group and I are well settled into SECMOL (Student Educational and cultural Movement of Ladak h) and it's way of life. A typical day starts at 6:30 for the Ladakhis. They tend to study in the morning and some milk the cows along with some other chores. Then, at 8:00 there is breakfast. Curd and tea almost always are available, accompanied by teemok (unsweetened, cinnamonless, and greaseless cinnamon buns) or chapatti (thick barley flour tortilla), and lentils

or some other vegetable dish. After washing our own dishes, we hang out in the morning sun until 9:00 when work hour begins.

At this time, everyone does some sort of work for an hour. Some jobs I

have done have included harvesting vegetables from the garden, raking

and storing leaves, digging trash pits, pouring mud to form new walls,

cutting and drying vegetables for the winter, cleaning up storage

rooms, and collecting dried cow dung for the composting toilets. All

of these jobs have been enjoyable as many people are working together

and there seems to be a lot of excitement.

Then, when work hour is over, we head to the main hall at 10:15 for

English speaking class. There, the foreigners sit around the edges of

the room and small groups of Ladakhis (1-3) come and sit by us. The

topic is posed, some including religion, politics, home life,

schooling, festivals, and we begin the conversation. Some Ladakhis

speak English very well were others don't, but all participate and

both foreigners and Ladakhis learn a lot. After a bit, the foreigners

rotate around the room to a new group and repeat the process. Finally,

we all come together in a circle and discuss what we learned and

different words that the Ladakhis may not have understood. Then it is

teatime at 11:15, always a sweet milk chai tea.

Then, the people of the VIS group have their own Ladakhi class where

we learn to speak Ladakhi, a very different and interesting language.

After our class, there is some free time before lunch at 1:00. Lunch

is generally a large pot of rice and then lentils and vegetables to go

on top. Again after lunch, there is free time for us foreigners. In

this time we have also helped with the construction of a solar water

heater that will be used for shower water.

At 5:00 we have responsibility time. Every SECMOL student has been

assigned a responsibility that they must perform in order to keep the

school running. Some include checking on the solar collectors that

power the whole school, and others clean up different parts of the

campus. After this, most of the boys gather on the soccer field, a

dusty grassless expanse that triples as a volleyball court and the

hockey rink as well. Two games to five are played, with much energy

and little finesse, stopping only if the light gets to dim. Then some

more down time until news at 7:00 and dinner at 7:30.

Dinner is one of the longer meals. First, some announcements are made,

and Ladakhis report on the news to the whole school. Then a break for

a bit, eating going on continuously, until it is time to sing the

song. Lyrics are passed out and the whole school sings together.

After, there is a speaker for the night who chooses what he or she

will speak on. Everyone goes. I, for instance, talked about my

hometown and what it is like. Then the speaker is asked questions.

After this, dinner is done, and the room clears.

At 8:30, there is an activity that is optional. Sometimes it is a

dance party or game night, other times it is a movie. After this, the

day is done and everyone heads to sleep.

But I haven't just been staying at SECMOL the whole time, and the days

aren't always the same. We had a few special speakers come. One being

a high lama and important Buddhist leader. He spoke to us on the Three

Jewels of Buddhism and other basic concepts. Another spoke of the

problems of modernization in Ladakh. Pointing to the thousands of

Ladakhis who had recently graduated from higher education that

couldn't get a job. He also spoke on the importance of maintaining the

traditions of Ladakh. And our latest speaker spoke about the history

of Ladakh.

We also went on an excursion to a few regions of Ladakh and have done

another two treks. Jumping into two cars, we headed north and east to

the Changton region of Ladakh, driving over the second highest

motorable pass in the world, a pass peppered with both Buddhist

symbols and prayer flags as well as a military outpost sitting at

17,800 feet above the level of the sea. Driving on, we descended out

of the snow and into a gorgeous valley. We stayed the night in a town

called Shachakul with a SECMOL teacher's family. Then, the next day,

we drove farther away from Leh to the Pangong Lake, a long skinny

beautifully blue lake that extends far into Tibet/China. We ate lunch

there and then headed back to Shachakul for another night, stopping at

a monastery under construction (mainly cement), and a large solar

power plant that supplied power to the surrounding 7 villages.

The next day, we set out for our trek. We drove a little ways back

towards Leh and then a river let us out. We followed the river

drainage for four hours up and up until we reached the village of

Relley this being the only way possible. There we stayed for two days,

exploring the area and tasting yak meat. On our second day there, we

got up early and walked outside to be greeted by several horses. Most

of us mounting up, we began on our way. Many hours later, through

breathtaking landscape, we arrived at the top of the pass which was

covered in snow and quite cold. There we left the horses with the

horseman and continued over the pass and down through snow and rock

fields. A lovely lunch was eaten and prospects of finding snow leopard

tracks followed with one very possible candidate. Down, down, down we

hiked finally arriving at our destination village just before dusk.

Our trek done, and our energy gone, we slept heavily that night.

The next day, we jumped back in cars and drove west across the rocky

and sandy river basin that is the Nubra Valley, a new region. After a

few hours we reached the Diskit monastery and the statue of the future

Buddha that stretched over a hundred feet high to the sky. After the

monastery and lunch we drove to our homestay for the night. On the

way, we stopped the car near some large sand dunes, there among them

stood an immense object, a camel. We ran down to it, slowly edging

closer until finally we touched it. The camel towered with its two

humps, over five feet above me. The next day, we set out for some hot

springs near the China/Tibet border. Finding just a small stream in

which we could do our laundry and splash bath, we returned to our

homestay, stopping right beforehand to ride some camels across the

sandy dunes. Then back to the homestay to drink chang (a sour beer

made from barley) and to make mok moks, a local favorite, similar to

the dumpling. Waking up the next day, we got in the car and began our

way back to Leh and SECMOL, but first we had to climb to 18,380 feet,

with death on either side, and slick snow beneath, to cross the

highest motorable pass in the world. With snap shots taken, bladders

relieved, and more prayer flags gazed upon, we continued on down to

Leh and SECMOL, there my project waited.

Now, back where I can work on my project, I have settled down again,

and begun my tasks. Since arriving in Ladakh, I noticed a lot of

trash in the streets and on our trekking routes. This bothered me and

was also quite peculiar. From what I read and heard about Ladakh, it

was a region where the people created little to no waste. The

traditional farming lifestyle used and reused everything. Nothing was

left to waste, and yet as I walked through the area, I saw a lot of

trash. So, for my project, I decided to figure out why this is

happening and try and address it. So far, I have been to a lot of

NGO's in the area and talked to a lot of people. My goal for my

project is to visit a few schools and present questions to the

students gauging their awareness about trash, from its origins to its

disposal. After looking over their answers, I intend to return to the

same schools and give a presentation about trash along with a bunch of

fun activities. At the end I'll hand our pamphlets to the students,

written in both English and Ladakhi, so that they can educate others

as well. I plan to visit the schools in the coming week.

Three days ago, we left for our third and final trek of the semester.

Crossed the Indus right near SECMOL and headed west and then south to

a small two-house village. There we got out of the cars and began our

trek up a small canyon with a small stream in the center. Shortly

after leaving the cars, our guide, Tashi Angchuck, spotted a rock with

an overhand. He ran up to it, smelled it, and then declared that a

snow leopard had marked the rock about a day ago. Sure enough, there

were cat prints in the sand right under it, and upon smelling, a

strong scent stung the nostrils. A small hole in the sand had been

kicked away by the leopard near by. Earlier in the trip, we had

watched a film in which motion censor cameras had caught snow leopards

doing this very same marking ceremony. Continuing up, we saw a large

golden eagle nest high up on a cliff, some blue sheep, and a flying

golden eagle. After three hours, the canyon opened up and we arrived

at our homestay in Rumbak, a large village. There we stayed the night.

The next day we set out early. Heading east and up valley, we hiked

for several hours. The slope increased and we realized we were going

to head straight over a large ridge ahead of us. Up and up we climbed,

zig zagging back and forth, stopping often. Finally, after much work,

we arrived at the top of the pass, with several more blue sheep

running in front of us. Will and I decided to climb up a crack in a

cliff to get a better view. We stayed at the top for only a half hour,

sitting by some prayer flags, before heading down and finding a nice

spot for lunch. After lunch, we reached a large sandy slope with a

path criss crossing down the hill. Our guide said we should just run

straight down the sandy slope ignoring the path, so we did. Excitement

filled us all as we gallivanted down the hill with great speed. At the

bottom, we continued our walk through more canyons for several more

hours until we arrived at the large village of Stok. There we stayed

the night, making more mok moks, and sleeping well.

And now, we sit and wait as the polls will soon open back home,

planning to find a TV to watch the election as it unfolds.

Pass this on to anyone who is curious about me back home.

Lots of love, Thayer

Comments

Ray, the irony of this blog is that most of your (book) readers are North American, and of the isolationist type(showing very little interest in world matters). The irony is that if you're weren't as adventurous and receptive to other cultures, you wouldn't have been able to write most of the choose your own adventure books, which cover themes from Mexico to Russia, and Ireland to Australia!

Posted by: Timothy | November 13, 2008 at 07:14 AM

I love the House Of Danger I read and read it and the conclusion is ALWAYS different!
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