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 t
he 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment