It has warmed up here a little bit

Well, it’s been a while since you heard from me. The most important event of course was appearing of Pepa on the Kargyak scene. We, here in the village, are very happy to have some fresh blood among us. Pepa enthusiastically hurled himself into teaching and thrilled the kids immediately by his entertaining and energetic approach to the lessons. The initial curiosity of the kids “what actually is this new teacher?” gradually and naturally turned into enjoying and looking forward to Pepa’s lessons. As I write this during the lunch time, I have a great chance to watch the happy bustle of kids and teachers in front of the school where the sun is shining again after a long time. I’m watching them not knowing if teachers and kids are those who went crazy or if it’s the dogs or me or maybe all of us? No doubt there’s a change in the air. Spring is in the air. So, after all, the frolic in front of the school is perfectly in accordance with the season. And it has really warmed up here a little bit. The temperature doesn’t go under -25 °C during the night. I of course took advantage of that and grabbed my sleeping bag and tent to spend a night on the roof. I’m still enjoying the good feeling it has stirred up, what an idea! In short, there’s nothing better than sleeping in the fresh air. It was just fantastic! Parties in the village have slowed down a little bit in the past few days which gave us a time to fully recover. But probably only until tomorrow when the Tibetan Losar begins. During that time Lopsang has transformed from a king of parties into a determined reader of prayer books and worker so diligent that we have to control him at times. However his ever-smiling face is uplifting for every single person here in the village.

The puppies from Dolma have grown a bit as well and they made it up the hill from the village to the school for the first time today. Oh boy, they’re such cuddly doggies! Pepa had a chance to see what a Kargyak party is like for the first time yesterday. Moreover it was ladies-only-party. I think that he coped with it bravely and as our bellies and mouths still hurt from laughing I believe we all had a great time. After the obligatory tea, the local ladies started with their shrill (it wasn’t me who wrote this:) songs. After a while we succumbed to the rhythm moving our arms in Zanskarian rhythm but then we decide to show the locals how we dance in the Czech Republic. In the blink of an eye we cleared out the area around stove and started up the polka. We were hop-step-close-stepping before the astonished local girls and I’m hundred percent positive that the village hasn’t stopped laughing yet. Well, never mind. Based on this experience we decided to set up an evening school of dancing.

The week is almost over again and we’re going to go with the Tibetan teachers and the locals tomorrow to Phuktal where the ceremony celebrating the Tibetan Losar takes place. It also means that we have a one week holiday. Hooray!

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