The power of digestion.

I CAN EAT AGAIN! Woohooo!! Not that I wasn't eating.. just not as much as I wanted to..

But now I seem to have full control of my gastro-intenstinal tract once again, therefore the celebratory cafe-crawls are in full force!

Today has been a typical day. I awoke around 8am, left the house in search of fodder, and decided upon the Peace Cafe just up the hill. Two pieces of toast with butter, honey and jam, and one hot chocolate later I was ready to face the day. And the day needed some preparing to face - a pleasant zero degrees celsius in the sun!! Rain, all day. I rugged up in the normal million layers and covered my face with a scarf before trying to walk as fast as I could towards any kind of shelter.

Next port in the storm was Lha, the volunteer offices through whom I am volunteering. I found my co-ordinator, who introduced me to a pleasant 13 year girl whos name I have written down somewhere but cannot pronounce. She was to be my first pupil! She took me to her home and introduced me to her 'older sister' - who I am not sure is actually her sister. But they live in the same apartment, although I think this is common with all the broken families coming from Tibet in refuge. Your family is whoever is there. We all worked together on sentence structure and grammar - It's dificult enough understand where to use the correct past and present tense when English is your first language, let alone your second! Keep in mind that these girls are currently on school holidays - their willingness to learn has them doing extra work all the time! They were super pleasant and once we got over the awkwardness of trying to find things to talk about, I really enjoyed my time with them. I am meeting with them again at 1pm tomorrow.

I then made my way to my 'favourite' (changes everyday!) cafe, Rogpa, where I got a banana slice to take home with me, and I then stopped in at another cafe near my hotel, to have a cup of tea, because the weather had be frozen the 200m between eateries! The power was out, though, so could get no food, no nothing, the only option was to go back to my room and hop into bed. Keeping in mind no power means no hot water, no nothing! My room was an ice block! Luckily my urn still had some hot water in it, so I was able to fill up my extra plastic drink bottles and put them in my bed to keep me from dying of cold - real hot water bottles! I climbed into bed wearing 2 sets of thermals, a jumper, socks and a scarf, in a sleeping bag, a wool blanket and a doona, with my two hot water bottles. I proceeded to read for a little while, and eat my slice, before settling in for a nice afternoon nap :)

Upon waking, the power was back & so was my appetite! I made my way to a lovely cafe called Carpe Diem, where I ordered too much against my better judgement - Kashmiri Kofta with steamed rice and cucumber raita, with a hot ginger lemon honey drink. After trying in vain to get my journal up-to-date, It was time to leave and do join in the English conversation class at Lha, which runs from 4pm until 5pm daily.
Imagine a group of 15-30 year old Tibetan refugees, all eager to learn, and even eager to learn with the western female volunteer, all clambouring for your attention when you enter a tiny, cushion-strewn room! It can be confronting, but I just smile and nod a lot until we start talking. We don't have much in common that we can converse in regard to, but once people find out I have recently been in Tibet they usually have a lot of questions which I can generally answer. One of the young boys wants me to help him with his English on Wednesday, so I feel like I am finally doing some good, because it is too easy to get caught up in the slow pace of life here and feel like perhaps I am wasting my time where I could be traveling to newer places. Everyone I have met has been nothing but lovely, and so friendly. No invitations to attend family dinners yet, but I am keeping my fingers crossed! Also keeping my fingers crossed they don't serve me yak.

Time for another meal! I was still definitely feeling my Indian food, but wasn't about to give up an opportunity to eat (that would be crazy!) so I decided to keep it simple and go to my most frequented haunt, the Four Seasons cafe, for a dinner of waffles, banana and ice cream!
"No sorry madam, that is not available."
Okaaaaay... I'll try for the apple crumble instead.
"No sorry madam, that is not available."
DAMN IT. So I had to have pasta. And milk tea, and a honey lemon ginger tea while I finally got my journal almost up-to-date, and met some nice Germans.

Tomorrow I am meeting Rabsel at 9am to see some of the nearby areas, then tutoring, then English class, so I have a full day. I am feeling at home here, today I was able to help aforementioned Germans decipher the Tibetan menus, and I gave another foreigner directions to TWO different places he can have his water bottle filled. Even walking at dark it's not that scary - and if it gets scary, there's plenty of loyal dogs that will protect me! Hopefully also from the monkeys, if it ever comes to that. Which I hope it doesn't.

If you actually got all the way through that, I'm sorry. I'm just happy I can eat!
Maybe photos next time?

Keep well xx

One month too late.

I can hear you all now - what a waste of time!
Why are you starting a blog NOW instead of on day one?!
Why wait until you had a month's worth of happenings to share until you decided to begin?!

There are many answers - all of which I will not go into, considering, as stated, I do have ONE MONTH worth of tales to tell - from Beijing to Lhasa, from Varanasi to Dharamsala.

Look, to be honest, I'm not going to get very far today. It's late, it's even later in Australia, where I assume most of my avid followers reside, and I can barely remember what happened last week, let alone on January 10 when I boarded plane number one.

But I'll give you a quick catch up later. For now, let's concentrate on the present!

I am currently in Upper Dharamsala, or McLeod Ganj, as it is also known. High up in the mountains, overlooking snowy peaks and rubbish-filled valleys, where monkeys steal from everywhere. It is the home of the Dalai Lama, and of Tibetan refugees who have fled their own country -walking over the Himalayas (WALKING over the HIMALAYAS!!!) - to find a kind of peace in India. The peace that comes from knowing you're kind-of free. You can be as political as you want, without fear of death, but you do so without your family, or your language, or much of your heritage. The Tibetan community here is tight-knit and thriving, with all Tibetan people I have met possessing a belief that they will one day be able to live in their own country without fear of Chinese oppression.

I have arrived here during a politically tense time, coming into March which is the anniversary of the 2008 Tibetan demonstrations & uprising, and also at the sad anniversary recognising that 20 Tibetans living in thier motherland have killed themselves by self-immolation in the last year, in a bid to draw more global attention towards their suffering. I was blessed enough to attend a candlelight vigil in the matyr's honour at the Dalai Lama's temple; it was beautiful, heartbreaking and inspiring.

I was also lucky enough to attend a celebration hosted by the Dalai Lama yesterday, honouring their special guest, South African arch-bishop Desmond Tutu - a fellow Nobel Peace Prize winner. The majority was in Tibetan so all I gained was joy from watching his Holiness wobble his head around like a dashboard toy, rather than Buddhist enlightenment, but I feel that this was enough.

McLeod caters to it's foreign guests with a zest yet unseen during my travels, with restaurants and cafe's offering Western choices and wi-fi, and English spoken by most. There are a few travelers here, many of whom are doing some form of volunteer work, as I am myself. There are hills everywhere - I am only ever walking up or down! I am staying in a dear little hotel called the Ladies Hotel Venture - strangely run only by men. My room is pink, everything is pink, but cosy, and it is so nice to have somewhere to call home for a short while. The weather is COLD - just two days ago it snowed in town, and thermals are a must, 24/7. As well as ponchos, scarves, gloves - the lot!

I have been sick, which seems to be my favourite thing to do in a new place, so haven't been helping out much, but come Monday I hope to be a daily fixture in the English conversation classes at Lha (the volunteer organisation I arranged my trip through), as well as available for one-on-one tutoring. I will be staying here another two weeks, leaving just after Losar, the Tibetan New Year celebrations.

There are a delightful number of stray dogs for me to take under my wing, but only in the daytime - during the night, they have territory wars to rival the cultural revolution itself. (No, don't repeat that, it's in poor taste!) The trucks are loud and beep at everything, think people, animals, rubbish, bends in the road, a slight wind, EVERYTHING. Luckily they have melodic horns that go for a few seconds, so you can really get their point. I seem to spend most of my days (that I am well, at least - fingers crossed for here on out!) wandering the streets, reading, buying presents and repacking my belongings. I am afraid to say that my journal updates are slack, and that I have not done any hiking or anything adventurous - yet!

Okay - that's enough for now. Maybe tomorrow I can tell some stories from the other places I have been?!
Or bore you with how self-aware and self-dependent I am now, spending all this time with myself?!
Look, I'll probably just list what I eat, that's my favourite thing to talk about.

Hope everyone is well and I send all my love - especially to Rafi, of course!

xx