Week 4: The Picnic

31/05/09

One of the great things about Lamdon School is their inter-house competitiveness. On the last school day of the week they dedicate the afternoon to inter-house games. On Friday we arrived just before lunch to see the I.T. teacher and a group of students chalking out the last of the basketball court lines - the court was being prepared for the first ever Lamdon inter-house basketball competition. After lunch all the students from class 6 to 12 sat around the court in their respective houses to watch the event. It was great fun to watch and there were plenty of ‘ooohs’ and ‘aaahs’ from the crowd. Basketball has become a very popular sport at the school since it started there a year ago and especially after school the students always like Tom to play with them so they can improve. I also join in sometimes which is fun but still tiring at this altitude! During P.E. time and after school the girls hostel students like to come and talk with me and this week a few of them have told me about their home villages and places which we should see in Ladakh before we leave. A few of the girls are from Nubra which is where we’re hoping to go and Tsiring is from Biama, a town at lower altitude than Leh were lots of fruits grow and where the ladies are known to wear a lot of beautiful jewellery. We have been to a few trekking agencies and have found that one of the easier treks from Likir to Temisgam is about an hour away from Biama by bus so we might be able to visit Biama if we decide to take that route.

At the hostels we decided to see how the students would do with making up a short play instead of doing debating all the time. We split them into groups of four or five and gave them two topics to choose from: honesty or jealousy. The boys thought it was a great idea and immediately got into animated discussion within their groups and came up with some great skits – they have become less shy around us and aren’t afraid to try using new language. After this success we were very surprised the next day when the girls cringed at the idea and said they would rather do debates!

On Saturday we planned to go for a day walk to Sabu, a small town just to the east of Leh. However, at dinner on Friday Mr. Tundup asked us if we’d like to join a picnic with all the teachers to celebrate the most recent Lamdon School graduates’ good exam results. Not wanting to miss out on the opportunity, we got in the jeep after breakfast and tea the next morning with Yung Chen, Lamdon’s dentist-in-training and Jason who is in Leh for 5 weeks to give her training. Once out of Leh we travelled south through 15 minutes of grubby edge-of-city settlements on the way to Choglamsar. I was wondering where, among the lengths of road-side mechanic shops and general stores we’d find a pleasant picnic spot when we turned into a narrow dusty road with a sign to the Indus Hotel. A little way down the road we came to large grassy courtyard surrounded by the empty rooms of the Indus Hotel. At the far end was an embankment, beyond which was a stunning view of the braiding, glacial Indus River, lined with tall green poplar trees. On the far side of the river was a grand mosque and the ever-present breath-taking mountain backdrop. To the right of the courtyard was a forest of poplar trees, in front of which the picnic had been set up – sitting carpets, music system and all – enclosed on two sides by brightly coloured cloth strung between the trees. It was a beautiful sunny day and it was the perfect picnic spot. We spent the day sitting on the embankment looking over the river playing cards with Jason, skimming stones on the Indus, drinking tea, eating, dancing and playing karem – a game I saw in Nepal once which involves a 1m2 wooden board with pockets in the four corners into which you have to shoot round chips by flicking them.

When we’d been at the picnic for about an hour Yung Chen asked us if we’d like to visit the monastery over the wall to the left of the courtyard. Of course we said yes so us and about ten others literally went over the wall and jumped down into a large open expanse of land, at the river edge of which was an empty monastery with a small one-person speech tower in front of it. This is the place where the Dalai Lama comes once a year to give a speech to tens of thousands of devote Buddhist Ladakhis. In fact his next visit is scheduled on 6th July for the celebration of his birthday. Walking to the other end of the large field we reached another wall – this time with a gate which we went through. We were surprised to find that it was only half-heartedly kept shut by a loosely slung rope because it led to the compound of the Dalai Lama’s Ladakhi summer home! He wasn’t there at the time so we followed Yung Chen into the compound. On the left was a yellow-painted block where the monks – who look after the place – live, and on the right, beyond an open gate and a rough garden full of trees, was the summer house. It was quite modest in size but of course had all the necessary golden trimmings and decorations. To our surprise Yung Chen told us we could have a look inside so we followed her and the rest of the group through the front door where they all immediately performed their blessings to the set up of statues and other ornaments and pictures in the hallway. We went into a room to the right which was like a waiting room and had yet another shrine. Along one wall was a long glass cabinet full of photos of the Dalai Lama, dolls and more ornaments. Along the bottom ledge of the cabinet was a long row of silver bowls which are constantly kept full of water by the monks as offerings to the gods. Visitors had also placed 10 rupee notes all along the ledge and, as in the rest of the house, everything was covered in white silk scarves which are gifts of respect. Upstairs was a study and at the top of the house a room with a huge central cabinet full of carefully wrapped Buddhist scripts. We walked back to the picnic via eight huge chortens, reflecting on how lucky we had been not only to have seen the Dalai Lama’s Ladakhi summer house but to have had a look inside.

About an hour before the picnic ended, Mr. Tundup rounded everyone up to come and sit in a large square in the picnic area. One of the teachers, who had been teaching Montessori at Lamdon School for 23 years, was leaving and so he and a few other people gave a speech and gifts were handed over to her. After the speech she was showered with white scarves by all her colleagues – in the end she had so many around her neck that you could hardly see her face! At 5 o’clock a convoy of picnickers drove to her house (this time about 15 minutes south-west outside of Leh) where everyone was ushered into the living room where we sat around the edge of the room on carpet-covered mats with snacks of dried apricots, nuts, fruit and biscuits – and our 7th cup of tea for the day – served on the same small beautifully painted tables as in Mr. Tundup’s living room. A typical Ladakhi tradition is to do dzangs – insincere refusal – which we found entertaining to watch. It’s considered polite for the guest to refuse what the host offers at least 2 or 3 times before accepting. Although we were getting pretty tired (and full of tea) by this point we really enjoyed the atmosphere and the experience of Ladakhi hospitality – something they’re particularly good at!

Week 3: Lamdonites and seasonability

24/05/09

This week we really got into the work at Lamdon; we have started having informal debates/discussions with the hostel students as a constructive way of practicing English. We started with some fairly easy topics such as “Is it good to have uniforms in school?” and the students, especially the boys, seem to really enjoy practicing their English this way. We have also started planning some other activities designed to help the students develop their English in a fun way. These include moral dramas and group activities where they need to design and build something such as a board game conducted strictly in English. The students get very involved with the discussion which is really impressive since they come to us after a full day of school. As in Cambodia when the students are enthusiastic it's really easy for us to keep things going. Unfortunately we have had a few topics we have had to quickly amend since the students were not particularly interested in them. For example the grade 7 and 8 students in the girl's hostel were not at all interested in the uniform topic. We have overcome this problem though and have plenty of alternative topics if the groups we are working with are not very excited about the one we have chosen. We rarely have this problem with the older students as their English is at a level where they can come up with interesting points on almost all the topics we can think of.

We have been trying to find something to do with our mornings since we only start at the hostel at 4:30 and so have started joining in with the sports that run all day with different students. Of course I have been spending almost all my time playing basketball and Joss has been joining in with the volleyball although she has now started to really enjoy basketball as well. Some of the students understand basketball to an extent but it's a little frustrating that the P.E. teacher, the only person at school who speaks no English, doesn't understand the game completely. For example he called some students offside in a game a few days ago! It's strange, because all the teachers who attended school in Tibet or even bits of Ladakh understand the game really well but the P.E. teacher makes it difficult for them to pass any knowledge onto the students. The students all really enjoy playing basketball and hopefully the other teachers will have some input in the future.


Since we have been here for three weeks already we thought it was time we started investigating trips and treks. One trip that we are particularly interested in is travelling to the Nubra Valley north of Leh. In order to get to the Nubra Valley one must get a permit and travel over the second highest motorable road in the world (5603m) which goes over the Khar-Dung-La mountain pass. When you reach the top of the pass you are apparently 100m above Mt. Everest base camp! This sounded a little scary at first since there are apparently gutted corpses of Jeeps that tried to speed over the pass and went over the edge but after asking around we found out that this doesn't happen anymore and it is now considered “safe…well, quite safe!” Amo-le told us that the Nubra valley has “something of everything - from glaciers to deserts!” Joss is also particularly excited about the prospect of riding a camel across portions of the desert there.

The weather in Leh has suddenly changed completely! When we arrived it was still quite chilly and we rarely had a day without a significant number of clouds. The trees also seemed to be in a state of autumn with everything gold and brown. Now there is rarely a cloud in the sky and all of the trees have burst into vibrant shades of green. The fields that were bare and brown when we arrived have since had various crops planted in them and already they are bright green as well! In less than two weeks it seems like the whole of Leh has changed colour. This has also coincided with the arrival of many more travelers and tourists and therefore all the businesses and restaurants that were shut when we have arrived have started opening. Really Leh seems to be waking up as a town and the trees and fields seem to be waking up as well.

Tom Kemeny

Week 2: Life in Leh

17/05/09

It’s come to the end of a second wonderful week in Leh and by now I reckon we pretty much know our way around. It’s quite an easy town to get to grips with because, although it is the capital of Ladakh, it really only consists of three main streets. However, particularly in contrast to Chamcar Bei there are lots of restaurants and little shops and services (especially trekking agencies) which will make our stay here quite different to that in Cambodia. Since Wednesday was Election Day, and therefore a public holiday, Mr. Tundup suggested that we didn’t start our work at Lamdon School until Thursday. So we spent most of our days this week doing some more exploring of Leh and learning Ladakhi from our new phrasebooks.

So far we haven’t been disappointed with any of the food here – we’ve found lots of good, cheap Tibetan restaurants and have been enjoying trying out the local food such as momos, thokey and thukpa. Ladakhis are also very big on their tea and I’ve managed to drink a different type of tea every time we’ve been out to lunch. And of course if there’s one thing Ladakh is known for it’s the (in)famous butter tea, sometimes known as gur gur cha – onomatopoeically named because it is made in a long, decorated wooden tube (called a gur gur) which makes a ‘gur gur’ sound when you prepare the butter in it. It’s usually drunk in winter time to keep you warm but Mr. Tundup’s wife (ama-amo) made some for us to try this week. It had a very strange taste - naturally very buttery - and was more like soup than tea. I wouldn’t exactly say we got addicted to it the first time but I’ve heard it’s an acquired taste so I would try it again.

We had the choice of staying in a different family/guest house right next to the school but Mr. Tundup also said that we could stay at his guest house if we wanted to. We decided to stay where we are because although it’s a 20-30 minute uphill walk to the school it’s much closer to the town (about 10 minutes walk away). Also, the walk to school is quite nice so we don’t really mind it. Mr. Tundup and his family are all very nice – there is his wife, amo ama-le (sister mother), his daughter, amo (sister) and his niece, amo-chuen (little sister). They’ve made us feel very welcome and always invite us to eat with them. They have an extension to their guesthouse which they use as a living room during the winter but rent it out during the summer months. When we first arrived we ate with them in there. Like in most Ladakhi houses the floor is covered in traditional rugs and sitting mattresses are placed along the edge of the room. In front of the sitting places are a number of low tables on which you eat. They are painted red with blue and green flower patterns and are also traditional of Ladakhi households. At dinner time they like to watch Hindi soaps which are entertaining to watch. Although we have no idea what they’re saying we can follow the general plot by their dramatic facial expressions. However, now we eat breakfast outside under a sunny blue sky and dinner in their other smaller living room.

On the Election Day itself, we walked up the road away from town to test our acclimatization by walking up the 554 steps to Shanti Stupa. Stupas, found all over Ladakh, are domed Buddhist monuments which used to be used for holding remains of the Buddha. Now they rarely do but are still deeply symbolic icons representing the five elements Earth (the square base), water (the spherical centre), fire (the spire), air and space (the sun and moon atop the spire). Shanti Stupa was opened in 1985 as part of the legacy of Japanese Fujii Guruji who built many temples and pagodas all over the world in a mission to promote world peace. We had to rest a few times on the way up but once at the top we got a fantastic view over Leh surrounded by the snow-capped mountains which was well worth the effort.

On Thursday we went to Lamdon School after lunch in time to watch the grade 6-8 English debate about whether television is useful for students. All the grade 6-8 students crowded into the Hall and sat down in their respective Houses. The debate started and we were immediately very impressed by their fluency in English and confidence. There was some very intense discussion and some very good points were made. Television is quite a topic of discussion in Ladakh at the moment. Ladakh opened up to visitors as recently as 1974 and since then it has been increasingly exposed to the Western world. Many Ladakhis as well as culture and ecology experts are worried about the effects it will have on this previously relatively undisturbed culture. Television is one of the main sources of information about the West and many young Ladakhis are becoming increasingly attracted to the biased positive images of Western culture and life – in particular materialism which was previously non-prevalent in Ladakh. When the debating was finished Tom and I were asked if we’d like to give our opinions about the topic so I went up and said something about it. One of the things we may be helping the students with is their debating.

After the debate (which lasted for 2 hours!) we went to the girls’ hostel and met the grade 9, 10 and 12’s to talk about how we could help them with their English (and perhaps other subjects too). They were very eager to talk to us and had lots and lots of questions about us and Singapore and our school etc. A lot of the students in the hostel are supported by sponsors and most of their families live outside Leh, although some of them are orphans. Lamdon has a number of branches outside Leh and the best students from each branch get a place in Lamdon at Leh. One of the most interesting hostel students was a student who had just arrived to start grade 9 in 2008. She is 22 years old but has spent the last 6 years studying Buddhism and is now a nun. Previously nuns and monks in Ladakh could not go to school unless they were very highly ranked. It was very interesting to hear her talking about her outlook on life and we'd both like to get to know her better as I'm sure there's a lot we can learn from her. Her mother died when she was young, she rarely sees her father and she is losing her eyesight in one eye. However, she is such a confident, happy person and she told us with a smile that despite her problems she is happy to have the freedom to get an education at Lamdon and hopefully to become a philosopher of Ladakhi and Western culture.

The next day, we went to eat lunch at the girls’ hostel and then, before going to visit the boy’s hostel in the late afternoon we visited the Ecology Centre. There is a book called ‘Ancient Futures’ which is all about development in Ladakh and how Western influence and development may disintegrate the local culture and traditions. It talks a lot about solutions and promoting nature-based, sustainable alternatives to energy-based economic types of development in Ladakh. Among other things the Ecology Centre had lots of examples of this on display as well as a set-up of a traditional Ladakhi household and lifestyle and a library with loads of books about sustainable development and agriculture. Later on at the boys’ hostel we found they were a bit shyer than the girls which made it difficult to keep conversation going but hopefully that will change when they get to know us better.

The students at Lamdon also have school on Saturday although after lunch they have Inter-House Games rather than lessons. We arrived before lunch and played high-altitude basketball with some of the older students during their P.E. lesson. As you can imagine we were pretty exhausted afterwards! After lunch the students grouped into their Houses and we watched the younger students play cricket and the older students play a game we’d never seen before. The two opposing teams stood on either side of a small court drawn in the sand and they took it in terms for one person from each team to go over to the other team and I think they had to tag an opposition and run back without getting caught.

In spite of aching legs we’re off in to town again now to hunt down some sunglasses and yak-hair shoes.

Week 1: Reporting from 12,000ft

10/05/09

The trip from Singapore to Leh was eventful to say the least. I managed to get sick half way and if any of you readers have ever been through Delhi International Airport then you know it’s not an easy or pleasant experience at the best of times. Delhi was tiring before we even got off the plane since everybody decided to jump up and start rushing for the exits as soon as we touched down. This sense of unnecessary urgency continued into the airport with porters accosting us and WHO employees yelling incomprehensible questions at the general populous.

When we finally got out of Delhi the flight was much calmer as everybody travelling on to Leh seemed so much more relaxed. The landing in Leh is the exciting part of the journey as you suddenly drop through the clouds and into the Himalayas. The Leh valley is totally obscured by the mountains around it so there is no view of it until you begin a very sharp decent into the airport. The Himalayan mountains are unbelievably majestic and barren which serves to accentuate the beautifully green and lush Leh valley when you suddenly drop into it.

Upon arriving in Leh airport you couldn’t imagine a starker contrast with the Delhi International Airport. For one thing it was about 25^o C cooler, but the main difference is the attitude of everybody from the moment you step off the plane. We really noticed the difference when we got inside the terminal building. Visitors have to report to a foreign registration desk and by the time we had reached this point I was really not feeling good. Seeing this, the officials kindly told me to sit down and directed the questions to Joss. When Joss told them I was sick they kindly asked us to inform our host Mr. Tundup (principal of Lamdon School and very well known in the area). I always expect staff at such desks to move you on as quickly as possible but they talked to us and helped Joss fill out the forms like there was all the time in the world. Everything in the airport everything seemed unbelievably calm and placid compared to the usual chaos expected of any airport.

We were met at the airport by a driver and taken straight to Mr. Tundup’s house. As well as being the principal of Lamdon School, Mr. Tundup runs a small guesthouse (left) above his house where he lives with his wife, daughter and niece. We dutifully told our host I had been ill on the flight over and they immediately got a doctor to come to the house and examine me. He gave me some broad-spectrum antibiotics and a few days later I was absolutely fine!

Our first dinner at Mr. Tundup’s house was a lot of fun as Bill Kite, the UWCSEA Ladakh-trip organiser in Leh, came over with some of his staff. It was especially nice because one of the staff members he brought with him had been a guide on the Ladakh trip I went on in 2005. We had a great home-cooked dinner of rice, dahl, potatoes and veg and Bill told us all about the dentistry project he has been pioneering at schools around Ladakh. After dinner Joss and I went to bed totally exhausted despite having slept all day. We spent the next few days, on Mr. Tundup’s orders, taking it very easy so as to acclimatize well to the altitude (12,000 ft) and did a little gentle exploring of Leh. Although most of the shops and restaurants are closed at the moment since the tourist season hasn’t started yet, there are still several establishments that are open anyway. We had some great lunches at a place called the Wok Tibetan including a great dumpling called a momo – filled with spinach and cheese - that people repeatedly told us to try. Momos actually look a lot like dumplings you get in Singapore but they taste totally different because the dough is made of wheat rather than rice. We also had some amazing apricot juice since apricots are one of the major crops here and also one of the only local sweet foods. After several attempts we found the Leh polo ground which had two games of cricket going on. We were a little less successful finding the Buddhist mani walls and finding the path up to the palace. Although they seemed to be marked clearly on the map, I think we need to get detailed directions from our host.

Leh is a really nice town with a lot of character about it. We are staying in an area in the north-west of Leh called Chanspa which is very peaceful and has fantastic views of the mountains and plots of land which are busily being plowed by dzo – a mix between a cow and a yak – for the wheat to be sown. The centre of town is about ten minute’s walk downhill. There are two major streets which are lined with shops and small eateries with strings of prayer flags overhead like Christmas lights. There are also several smaller shopping alleys branching off Leh Main Market street. To the east of the main town, below the palace, is the old town which looks exactly like it sounds – small one-storey mud and stone buildings on either side of a narrow zig-zagging cobblestone pavement. The whole town seems really lovely, with the hustle and bustle around the high street and the quiet areas like Chanspa all ringed in by immense, snow-capped mountains.

Everybody here is just as friendly as in Chamcar Bei, always smiling at us and saying “Ju-le!” which is one of the only Ladakhi words we have picked up so far. Ju-le is a good word to know since it can mean hello, goodbye, please or thank you. We have invested in a few books for learning the Ladakhi language but it seems to be much harder than Khmer. We provoked huge amounts of laughter in Mr. Tundup and his family over dinner one evening when we spoke the only phrases we have learnt so far:

Joss: For how much will you give me these cauliflowers per kilo?
Tom: They cost three rupees per kilo!

I don’t know if it was the accents or the shock of us trying and tripping over our tongues but we all spent a few minutes laughing afterward.

Mr. Tundup also gave us the grand tour of Lamdon School where we will be teaching. We knew the school would be far better established than CLC but the size was still shocking. There are 1300 students! Still more surprising was the hostel in which the boys from faraway villages stay. The girls recently had a new hostel built so they are about six to a room but the boys live in tiny rooms with up to 12 of them jammed into tiny bunk beds. Thankfully a new, bigger boys hostel is undergoing construction and should be ready by this September. Despite the confined living quarters the school is really quite impressive. They have teachers from India and Nepal as well as local Ladakhi teachers. It’s situated just outside Leh – to the north-east – and is about 30 minutes’ walk from Mr. Tundup’s house and 20 minutes from the centre of town. In the morning we walked there with Mr Tundup, along paths weaving between houses and beside streams and plots of land ready for plowing. We watched the senior children’s morning assembly which was totally organized by students and included prayers, singing, poetry reading, news headlines and a short play. It was great to watch the teachers sit back and let the older students take initiative. The school also offers several extra-curricular activities such as a budding music department and sports such as cricket, football and basketball. Although most of our work will be done after school hours helping the students with their English in the hostels, we are both looking forward to working in a school that is so well-established. It was a great experience in Cambodia helping to develop education from scratch but it will be nice to just jump straight in here.

Mr. Tundup has made it clear that our schedules will be totally flexible so that if we want to go on a couple of treks that is absolutely fine. He also told us that we can spend a few weeks working at one or two of Lamdon’s satellite schools and living in a rural household in a more remote village which we are both eager to do.

We’ve been making the most of our cold-weather clothes as the climate is taking a bit of getting used to, especially at night. Having said that, we had a little sleet at about midday yesterday! However, the sun is much too strong for anything to settle on the ground and it seems to be warming up slowly so hopefully the weather will be a bit more temperate by the time we decide to do some trekking!