4 week report

Finally the new supplies arrived. Flour, beans, dal (lentils), milk, cheese, fresh vegetables and fruit but more importantly new text books for all classes. You should have seen the joyful faces of the children while receiving the new books. They immediately started exploring them, full of curiosity and desire to learn new things. It was a pleasure to see them! The supplies arrived with Topjar, one of the Tibetan school teachers. So now we are again 3 at the school: me, Yega and Topjar. With him, also Passang came back to school with her new look: new glasses that will definitely help to improve her school performance. It has been an hard week, with a lot of work not only with the teaching (which is always a pleasure) but also with the improvements of the playground for the children. Thanks to the help of Kargyak and Shin parents, we were able to almost double the size of the courtyard and plant 100 trees in 4 days of work. This is a big “revolution” for the school. But a good one, that will allow all children to play in better and safer conditions. Now it is only missing to transplant 400 square meters of grass from the river. It will be great when all will be finished, and the children will finally be able to roll on the ground without becoming white from the dust. :-) The summer is finally arriving. The days are getting warmer and the nights mild. The roaring of the river becomes incredibly loud by the middle of the day. It sizes almost doubles, and the color changes from a gentle blue to a violent brown. At night, if you close your eyes you can almost imagine that you have the vastness of Atlantic ocean with its big waves in front of you. The nomad camp of shepperd women is now on the other side of the river. The camp (named Doxa) has roughly 9 tents, with people from Kargyak and Shyn village. Their work is to take care of the yaks and sheep of the village, collecting the milk every evening, and preparing cheese and the delicious Jo (yogurt). The end of the day at the camp if full of life. Not only are the nomad women, but also relatives and all the children from the villages. One hour before sunset, all yaks and sheep are back in the camp, and it is time carry the sheep to the fenced area where they will stay during the night. Each tent/ family as its one fenced area and for 30 minutes everyone is running, including the children. They are running after a sheep that are escaping, or running with a sheep or goat by the horns to carry to the correct fenced area. The first action of all this procedure is to place the greatest amount of sheep possible in fenced areas. The second one, is to discover where the sheep are and take to the owners fenced area. Even the children (that seem to be the ones having more fun) help with the task of taking the sheep to the correct place. Of course sometimes they end up in the floor getting drag by the sheep (much stronger then them). But for them this is only an extra reason to laugh and have fun. Finally, with all the sheep in the correct place, they slowly start milking them followed later by the yaks. Having the camp so close by the village (only 15 minutes walk) allowed us to have fresh milk and yogurt everyday. Something I will miss now that the camp will again be changed to near Gomporangen sacred mountain at 5 km from the village. On the other side it will be a good excuse for a weekend treek :-)

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