Taj, Rato and Losar

Yesterday was Losar (Tibetan New Year) in Dharmsala, the mountainous city in the far north where I will be staying for the next three weeks. It’s the home of the Dalai Lama and a large community of exiled Tibetans, and the climate is similar to Tibet. I’ve been cold for the first time since I left Taiwan. Because of all the upheaval and killings this year in Lhasa, Tibetans decided not to celebrate openly this year and many of them went on hunger strike instead. Every day, there are marches and protests and pictures of injured Tibetans posted all over town. They even burned down a statue of Wen Jinbao, the Chinese prime minister, the other night and I hear there are plans to erect another one to throw shoes at. My family didn't do the hunger strike, but celebrated quietly with momos (spinach dumplings) and chang, homemade millet beer. There was no singing and dancing this year, which I was a little disappointed about. The Tibetans I live with are not too into protesting, and instead they are following the advice of the Dalai Lama not to be extreme or violent because it upsets India’s relationship with China. They don’t want to “bite the hand that feeds them” because India has been very kind to the Tibetan refugees. I am also discouraged from participating because of my visa restrictions, so I haven’t been too involved. I would have done the hunger strike, but my family was making momos and I wanted to learn how to make them and eat them with spicy sauce, so it never happened. The momos were way too delicious.

View from Dharmsala

Tibetans protesting Chinese dominationThe Hunger Strike

The family I’m staying with is a couple only a few years older than me. We live in a one-room house with a table, two couches which become beds at night, a shrine and a television. They take impeccably good care of me, almost a little too much. I am constantly eating a drinking when I’m around them. As soon as I take a sip of butter tea or chang or whatever, they fill up my cup again. And even though they share only one omlette in the morning, they make two for me. Hopefully their hospitality will calm down after a while. I had this issue with my Japanese host family too, but eventually we fell into a routine we were all comfortable with and they let me make my own decisions about when and how much to eat and what I did with my day. It takes time to get to that point, so for now I am telling my Tibetan family that I have to go study during the day and come home in the evening. Hopefully I can stay sane if I can carve a little time out for myself.

Me, my host "dad," a friend, my host "mom"

Me in traditional dress on Losar

Here's a few pictures from Jaipur and Agra, since I never got a chance to post during those four days:

Group photo of us and the monks at Rato Dramstrag

So yesterday, my host “dad” and his friends played a card game with me where the winner of each hand gets to draw something on the face of the loser, and I was having especially bad luck. Check out the pictures below: