Hello Everyone,

Joe, Kelli and Sarah have been traveling in Dharamshala, which is still in
the Himalayas but is farther West. It’s a small town, and unlike Leh, the
town itself is hilly, as well as the surroundings. It’s a place where cows
and people live in harmony. We’ve gotten very skilled at looking at
beautiful vistas, scoping out market stalls, and also dodging cow pies on
the street all at the same time. It is the home of the Tibetan government in
exile, the Dalai Lama has his home here. We went to his “home”/monastery and
he was not home, so we did not meet him, but we walked among his foot steps.

Right now, it's a torrential downpour. It's rained every day while we've
been here, sometimes pretty hard, sometimes just drizzling. It's pretty
crazy that we went from Leh, which gets 4 inches of rain per year, to
Dharamshala, which gets one inch of rain a DAY during July! Today it's
pretty hard, and constant. The other day that it rained like this was the
day we chose to walk to the Tibetan Children's Village, about 3 miles away.
Every time I tell someone about it, I sound like a crotchety old lady - "We
walked three miles in the pouring rain across a mountain..." The Village is
a residential school for refugee Tibetan children. Most have crossed the
Himalayas without their parents, because their parents sent them to the
village, but the parents remained behind. The students learn "regular"
subjects, following the Indian curriculum, and they also learn Tibetan
language and culture, so that the culture doesn't die out. We brought them
the school supplies -- markers, pens, pencils, cute erasers, etc. By the
time we got to the school, the bag the supplies were in had broken, and we
were drenched. The people in the office felt so sorry for us that they
asked us to have tea. We literally made puddles on the floor under the
benches where we sat. And, of course, we all ended up sponsoring a child,
which you can do for $30/month. Joe and Kelli sponsor a small boy, and
Sarah sponsors his cousin, a girl. They both just arrived from Tibet in
April, and don't know much English. We got to meet them and take photos.
They're so cute! I'm sure they were very confused about these funny looking
people who were dripping all over the floor and smiling at them.

We've also seen the Norbulingka Institute, which is another place that keeps
the Tibetan culture alive. It's almost like a vocational college, but
people (mostly Tibetans) go to learn traditional Tibetan arts. So, they
have tailoring, thangka painting, wood carving, metal work, etc. The work
they do there is pretty amazing. They make huge statues out of brass and
gold, all done by eye and hammered out, not pressed. And the thangkas that
they create are amazing. Thangkas (tonk-as) are traditional Tibetan
Buddhist paintings. We were able to talk to one of the thangka painters for
quite a while, and he showed us the work he was doing, which was incredible.
He also showed us an example of the minerals they use to create the
paints. All the paints they use are vegetable and mineral based, no
chemicals. It's pretty impressive the rich colors they can get just from a
rock or plant! The painter we talked to was creating a thangka of one of
the past Dalai Lamas. The thangka has a pig picture in the center of the
Dalai Lama, and then around that, small, very detailed depictions of
important events in the DL's life. I wish I could describe how intricate
and perfect and detailed and small they are, although the painting itself is
large, as a whole. Apparently, there's to be a big celebration next
September, and the Institute is creating thangkas depicting the life of each
of the Dalai Lamas. Some Dalai Lamas get more than one, also. I think he
said there are three DL's that are considered the greatest, and they get
more thangkas. The present one is one of them, because he's the first Dalai
Lama to leave Tibet and talk to other countries. He gets 4 thangkas all of
him!

We also tried to get our Tibetan horoscope done, with the Dalai Lama's
horoscope office. However, it costs $50, and takes 11 months! We decided
we didn't need to know what we'd been in a past life that badly. It might
just depress us anyway. We might have been a slug or something, or a very
enlightened prince who screwed everything up and now we have to start all
over. Who knows.

We've done a lot of shopping and eating here. We even took a cooking class
to learn how to make the delicious Tibetan momos, which are a lot like
stuffed dumplings. The food here has been yummy lots of noodle soups and
fried stuffed dough items that have kept us content during the rains.

We take the bus out tonight at 6pm or so, and travel 12 hours overnight to
Delhi. Then, Kelli and Joe will have pretty much the whole day in Delhi,
and go to the airport at 11:30pm or so at night to fly home. Sarah is staying
in Delhi for a few days and then she is off to Cambodia with Mark.

Take Care,
Joe, Kelli and Sarah

Journal Entry Dharmasala Posted On: 7/27/2005