Katherine's volunteer work included teaching English at Cross-Cultural Solutions

The final two weeks of my trip were a whirlwind of activity as I tried to finish my research, do some last minute sight-seeing, and say goodbye to friends. As I had hoped, staying in upper Dharamsala made it much easier to work on my Departmental Honors research. I met some Tibetan women through my host mother and made other contacts on my own. I found myself running from one restaurant or cafe to another and drinking six to seven cups of tea a day because that was the easiest way to initiate conversations without arranging formal interviews. On my second day in upper Dharamsala, I went on a picnic to a nearby town with my host mom and some of her friends. I expected it to be a low-key affair with some sandwiches and chips, but I definitely underestimated the event. We left home in the morning, loaded down with backpacks filled with cookware, meat, vegetables, bread, firewood, blankets, and thermoses of hot tea. When we chose a clearing for our picnic, we made a fire and then cooked and ate all day long. I felt like our short hike had taken us from India to Tibet, and the experience reminded me that the women who now live and cook in apartments in upper Dharamsala were raised as nomads and herders in the mountains of Tibet.

Some mornings during my week in upper Dharamsala, I woke up early to go to the temple with my host mom, after which she would buy warm Tibetan bread at a stand outside the temple, and we would sit in a nearby coffee shop to eat it and drink some tea. A couple days the weather was especially bad, and we stayed home instead, wrapping up in blankets and drinking hot water to compensate for the lack of central heating. Most of upper Dharamsala lost power on those days, transforming ordinary cafs into candlelit diners and making me reluctant to brave the weather to meet people. All in all, though, it was a very enjoyable and productive week. On Saturday, I spent the day with a young Tibetan woman who I met through a mutual friend earlier in the week. She took me to Dolma Ling Nunnery, where her cousin lives, and we ate lunch with some of the nuns there. After that, we went to see His Holiness the Karmapa, the highest lama of the Kagyu Buddhist sect. We brought white cloths used for blessings, and the Karmapa placed the cloths over our necks, along with a necklace made of red string. After seeing the Karmapa, we stayed in the monastery there for a short while to visit a monk who my friend knows from her village in Tibet.

Saturday evening, I re-immersed myself in Indian culture as I moved to Khaniyara village for my last week in India. When I arrived, it was dark and cold, so I sat by the fire stove to stay warm. The family made tea and cooked dinner, and shortly after we all went to bed. The next morning, we had hot tea in bed before going into the kitchen for breakfast. In the kitchen, we all sat on mats on the floor, surrounding a small gas burner for cooking and warmth. While the women were cutting up vegetables, I tried to roll out the dough for chapati, a staple Indian food that resembles a tortilla, but I wasn’t very efficient at the task. The women were busy with household chores all morning and most of the afternoon. They told me we were going to visit a Gurudwara, a holy place for people of the Sikh religion, later that day, and though I wasn’t sure exactly where it was, they said it was far. In the late afternoon, we left Khaniyara in a taxi owned by one of the family members, and I learned then that we were going to Punjab, a state that borders Himachal Pradesh, where Dharamsala is located. The taxi had five seats, but we managed to fit ten people inside, along with some bags and blankets. Late that night, we reached our destination, which was a free hostel for pilgrims to the nearby Gurudwara. It was run by Nihang Singhs (similar to monks) who served us dinner and hot tea. We all slept in one open room on a row of mats on the floor. The next day, we walked to the Gurudwara, stayed for some time, and ate a late breakfast there. Like the Hindu temples I have visited in the past, the Gurudwara served food at no cost, and we sat to eat with many other visitors on the floor of a large room. After that, we drove back into Himachal Pradesh and stopped for a while at another Gurudwara there. We reached Khaniyara that evening, very tired from the trip.

I spent the rest of the week in the village, making one trip back to upper Dharamsala to tie up loose ends for my project and say some final goodbyes. I hope my goodbyes will be temporary, and I’m already trying to think of an excuse to visit again before too long. It amazes me how quickly strangers become friends here. I know I will miss the place and the people who have made me feel so at home on the other side of the world.

The apartment where Katherine stayed during her week in upper Dharamsala.

Katherine's host mother cooking dinner on a picnic to a nearby town.

Picnicking with friends from upper Dharamsala.

A hint of snow on the mountains behind the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives.

One of the women from Katherine's women's group cooking fried chapatis for breakfast in Khaniyara village.

Katherine took an overnight trip to Punjab with the family she was living with in Khaniyara village. This is one Gurudwara, or Sikh temple, they visited.

A Sikh temple in Himachal Pradesh that Katherine visited with her host family from Khaniyara village.

Shopping in the market.

Katherine enjoying a view of Dharamsala valley with Saja, a Tibetan monk who lives about a 45-minute walk up the mountain from Mcleod Ganj.

Though it’s hard to believe how fast the time has gone, I’ve already said a few of my goodbyes and am now beginning the next chapter of my trip. Thursday was my last day to volunteer with Cross-Cultural Solutions, so I will no longer be leading the women’s group during the week. I will, however, see the women from Khaniyara again because one of them has invited me to live with her family for my last week in India. Until then, I am staying in upper Dharamsala to finish interviews for my Departmental Honors project.

For my time in upper Dharamsala, I initially planned to rent a room at the guest house of the Geden Choeling Nunnery, but an opportunity arose for me to do a home stay with a Tibetan woman, which will be an invaluable asset to my research. The woman is a single mother, and her two children and niece attend a residential branch of the Tibetan Children’s Village in Dharamsala. Her flat consists of one small room and a tiny kitchen, but it’s more than adequate for the two of us. She moved here from Tibet in 1997 and her family is nomadic, so she never received a formal education. Thus, finding profitable work in Dharamsala is difficult, and she is currently unemployed. She goes to the Dalai Lama’s temple every morning to do prostrations and circumambulate the temple complex, and I’m looking forward to sharing part of her daily routine.

Last weekend, I went to the Tibetan craft home for children with disabilities one last time to play soccer with the students and tell everyone goodbye. Since the school is in a town just outside of lower Dharamsala and I’m now living even further away, I decided it would be too difficult to keep going three afternoons a week. The staff and students gave me a warm send off with tea and cookies, and the director of the school put a white cloth around my neck, which is the traditional custom for giving a blessing. The director also set aside a generous amount of time to talk with me about my research, and her comments were insightful. She has worked with the Tibetan Women’s Association and the Tibetan Children’s Villages in the past and currently serves as an elected member of the Tibetan Parliament in Exile.

Katherine visited Kangra Fort, a landmark near Dharamsala, during her last week with Cross-Cultural Solutions.

As for the conclusion to my work with the women’s group, we spent the last couple weeks testing our luck at writing a grant proposal. When I first began volunteering with the group, the women indicated an interest in starting an income-generating project, and we brainstormed ideas for start-up funds and long-term sustainability. We encountered some obstacles along the way, and it was a great exercise in patience-building because everything here moves twice as slowly as it seems like it should. No one is in any particular hurry. It turned out for the best, though, because the women have decided they want to focus on non-profit work instead. Since their main goal is to promote women’s empowerment, they plan to concentrate their energy on initiating new women’s groups in other villages instead of generating a non-essential, supplementary income for themselves. Their vision is to expand their work from its current sphere of seven villages into a total of twenty area villages to provide young women with technical training, educate them about their legal rights, and build their confidence in the face of prevailing gender inequalities. In response to national concerns such as the declining gender ratio and trends of female infanticide and neglect, the women want to reverse the perception that girls are a liability instead of an asset to the family. Since it’s difficult to change ingrained ideologies, they hope to first change the practical circumstances of young women by equipping them with the skills they need to succeed.

Though their ideas are admirable and well-developed, they cannot be implemented without funding for transportation, workshops, and educational materials. I did some research on a few grant-providing institutions the women suggested, told them what information I thought we would need to provide in an application, and initiated discussions about their objectives for the project. Beyond that, the women compiled all the information and wrote everything in Hindi. They talked with me during our class time and explained what the Hindi version said so I could take notes in English and then re-phrase and format the proposal. I wanted the ideas to come directly from them so they feel like it’s their project, not mine. Though they needed help polishing the English version, they didn’t require any assistance in generating the core ideas they wanted the proposal to express. Though I won’t be with them to see the results of the proposal, I hope they will enjoy a return from their efforts.

As I prepare to leave for home in a couple weeks, I know I could never be here long enough to experience everything India has to offer. Even so, I’m thankful for the time I’ve had and have no regrets about my decision to spend a semester abroad. I find that I usually have a greater appreciation for a trip when I get home and consider it in retrospect, but here, I am daily struck by how extraordinary and irreplaceable every experience is. I try to appreciate even the most awkward situations as just a few more cultural experiences that I wouldn’t really want to miss. I’ve found that my days here hardly ever go as planned, but in the end, the spontaneity is always more rewarding than the schedule.

Katherine at Kangra Fort

Bringing a bit of home to India with Halloween decorations at the Cross-Cultural Solutions volunteer house.

Nyingtob Ling, a Tibetan craft home for children with disabilities, where Katherine volunteered three afternoons a week.

Entrance to the Dolma Ling Buddhist Institute of Dialectics in Sidhpur, a town just outside of Dharamsala.

On Diwali, the Cross-Cultural Solutions staff and volunteers decorated our house with rangoli (designs made of colored powder).

Upper Dharamsala was bustling with activity last week as local Tibetans and international tourists gathered to welcome His Holiness the Dalai Lama home from his latest travels. Thanks to some holidays on the Indian calendar, I had a couple days off from volunteering and was able to attend a few of the Dalai Lama’s public teachings. On the days of the teachings, my friends and I went to the temple in the morning and waded through rows of seat cushions until we found a few unclaimed spots on the floor. We added our cushions to the mix and tuned our FM radios to the station providing English translation. Our neighbors included an assortment of Tibetan laypeople, monks and nuns, and fellow tourists. The energy in the air was almost tangible, especially among the locals. I could tell they were looking so forward to having His Holiness back home for a brief while.

Shortly after the Dalai Lama began teaching, monks made their way through the audience with metal pails full of Tibetan bread, which they distributed among everyone in attendance. Other monks carrying large teapots followed behind them and served us butter tea in cups we brought from home. During each two-hour session, the Dalai Lama read passages from various Buddhist texts and then discussed their meanings in detail. The teachings were difficult to follow since the texts were unfamiliar and the subject matter was tailored for a scholarly Buddhist audience, but the experience as a whole was entirely worthwhile.

Using a needle, thread, and marigold blossoms from our yard, we made strands of flowers to decorate the windows and doorways of the volunteer house for Diwali.

Diwali, one of the biggest festivals in India, also fell during the time of the Dalai Lama’s teachings, making for a busy but exciting weekend. Diwali is known as a festival of lights, and strands of lights hanging from everyone’s homes illuminated the neighborhood in the evenings leading up to the holiday. People repainted their houses and splurged on new household and clothing items from the market. On the morning of the festival, the Cross-Cultural Solutions staff and volunteers decorated our house with strings of marigolds and designs made of colored sand. That night, we joined the rest of the town in setting off fireworks. Almost every house was having its own fireworks show, and I could hear the noise continue late into the night and start up again early the next morning.

The weekend before Diwali, I spent Saturday morning with the women’s group in Khaniyara village. One of the other Cross-Cultural Solutions volunteers came to give a presentation on women’s health and hygiene, and about fifteen women from the village attended. Since it was a success, we plan to host a follow-up presentation to discuss other concerns related to women’s health, which is an under-addressed topic throughout the country.

The next day, I met one of my Tibetan friends in upper Dharamsala, and from there we took a rickshaw to the Tibetan Children’s Village, where her son and niece live. She had packed a picnic lunch of momos (a popular Tibetan dish) and fruit for all of us to share. We spread out a blanket on the grass and enjoyed the meal, then ordered some tea from the cafeteria. Sundays are holidays from class, so some of the children were watching television in their dormitories when we arrived, and others were playing basketball or visiting with their parents. We stayed for nearly three hours before walking back down, and I learned a lot through our casual conversation. On our way back to Mcleod, we passed a monk who my friend knew and found out that he was going in the same direction I was. I wasn’t familiar with the bus routes that far up the mountain, so I followed the monk to a nearby village, where we took a jeep to the Dharamsala market and a bus from there to our destination. Though the monk’s English was as basic as my Tibetan, and our conversation was hopelessly broken, I said goodbye that afternoon feeling like I had made a new friend.

I came to Dharamsala hoping to get to know the town and the people, and I feel like I have accomplished that. Coming to a place far from home and knowing no one makes branching out and meeting people both necessary and natural. I am still amazed at how much I learn by simply being open to people’s stories and making time to listen.

Offerings of sweets and flowers to Laxmi, goddess of wealth, who is worshiped during Diwali.

Katherine in front of the Diwali shrine.

Katherine's hand decorated with henna for Diwali. After the henna dries, it is covered with lemon juice and sugar and then left on the hand overnight to ensure a dark design on the skin when it is washed off the following morning.

Cross-Cultural Solutions staff members making a rangoli decoration at the entrance to the volunteer house. The swastika is an auspicious symbol in Hinduism, having ties to the sun and the god Vishnu.

A Buddhist temple located in the middle of the Mcleod Ganj market. Locals often walk around the temple after work, turning the prayer wheels before heading home for the evening.

Upper Dharamsala, otherwise known as Mcleod Ganj, is a medium for cross-cultural communication unlike anything I’ve encountered on previous travels. With its deep Indian roots, unmistakable Tibetan flare, and recent Western influence, it induces a disorienting but delightful cultural whiplash. It’s not uncommon for me to find myself wearing an Indian outfit, complete with bindi and bangle, studying Tibetan and befriending Buddhist monks and nuns, all the while sitting in a western-style coffee shop with a familiar Beatles’ song playing in the background. The diverse cultures do not mesh seamlessly by any means, but they coexist in a delicate balance that is fascinating to observe.

I’m spending more time in Mcleod now as I try to get a better sense of the Tibetan presence there. I’ve become more comfortable in the area and have been fortunate to meet some fellow tourists who have provided helpful contacts for my research. One evening as I was walking down the mountain from Mcleod to lower Dharamsala for dinner, I met an American woman whose involvement in human rights law concerning Tibet has brought her to the area. She’s done a good deal of local research and was interested to hear about my project. From her, I learned about an organization called Learning and Ideas for Tibet (L.I.T). It was started by a former Gu-Chu-Sum student for the purpose of teaching Tibetans and Western tourists about Tibetan culture in an open atmosphere that fosters positive interaction between East and West.

Upon returning home that evening, I did some further research on the organization and corresponded with one of their current volunteers via e-mail. I stopped by their office Wednesday afternoon and stayed for part of an English conversation class, in which we discussed the eleventh Panchen Lama, who Tibetans consider their youngest political prisoner. He ranks immediately below the Dalai Lama in importance and traditionally plays an instrumental role in naming the next Dalai Lama. There was a good turnout for the class, and several of the attendees were lay women, so I enjoyed learning a bit about their lives in the time before our formal discussion began. While there, I met another woman who, like my friend from Tibetan class, has children who stay in one of the residential Tibetan Children’s Villages even though she lives in the area. I’m hoping to find out if such cases are exceptions or norms in the exile community.

Merchandise at a vendor's stall in Mcleod. Bob Marley is afforded a prestigious spot beside the Hindu deity Ganesa and Om, a sacred syllable in both Hinduism and Buddhism. The unlikely combination nicely summarizes the diverse cultural atmosphere of upper Dharamsala.

Through L.I.T., I also learned about Contact, a locally-based, monthly publication that covers various issues related to the Tibetan community in Dharamsala. It includes useful listings of restaurants, attractions, classes, and volunteer opportunities for people visiting the area. I spoke with the girl who coordinates the magazine, and she is sending me some rough material to edit for the next publication. I’m looking forward to getting involved and meeting some of the local contributors, who are enthusiastic about sharing their stories and opinions on the situation in Tibet.

I’m currently working on setting up some formal interviews for my research project and am hoping to make some more contacts over the upcoming weekend. I recently went to a shop in Dharamsala to get some basic business cards made, listing my name, e-mail address, and local cell phone number. Exchanging cards with interviewees as well as fellow visitors to the area has helped me network more effectively within the community. I’m hoping to maintain some of my contacts even after I return to the States, as I continue to piece together information for my final research report.

Geden Choeling Nunnery in Mcleod. Katherine is staying in Dharamsala for two weeks after her volunteering with Cross-Cultural Solutions ends, and she hopes to stay in the guest house at the nunnery.

Apartments decorated with Tibetan prayer flags on the road connecting upper and lower Dharamsala.

People sitting on mats for lunch at the temple in Khaniyara, waiting for the server to bring vegetables to mix with the rice. The village came together to celebrate Dussehra festival.

Festivals have a unique ability to blur boundaries and unite people in a spirit of excitement and celebration. Monday was Dussehra, which celebrates the triumph of good over evil in the form of Lord Rama’s defeat of the demon king Ravana. I had the day off from volunteering, but I went to Khaniyara village anyway to have lunch with the women’s group. In celebration of the holiday, everyone gathered at the village temple to share a meal. The temple provided food at no cost, and the open invitation drew quite a crowd. Irrespective of social status, everyone came together and sat side-by-side to enjoy the meal.

When we arrived, we added our shoes to the growing pile at the edge of the temple grounds, then found a spot to sit on the mats that were spread in rows across the floor. The temple is outside, so there were fabric canopies to provide a bit of shade. When we sat down, someone gave us plates made of leaves sewn together with grass. Soon after, a man came around with a large basket of rice and used his hand to throw a serving onto each plate. Various dals and vegetable dishes were then ladled on top of the rice in quick succession as servers walked up and down the rows with pots of steaming food. I had a hard time keeping up with the pace of the seven-course meal. For dessert, we ate a small serving of sweet rice. As we rose from our places on the mats, another wave of people sat down to eat.

In the evening, I went with the other volunteers to a local Dussehra celebration in Dharamsala. The community gathered in a large, open field where there were huge, paper maché effigies of the evil king Ravana and his brother and son. Music blared on loud speakers as children ran around with fake swords and bows and arrows, pretending to be Rama and Ravana dueling. Fireworks were in abundance, even before the sun set. The field was very close to the Tibetan Children’s Village, and uniformed students were running around enjoying the show just as much as everyone else. When we first arrived, there were probably more Tibetans than Indians in attendance for the popular Hindu festival. At dark, costumed actors came onto the field with shimmering gold headdresses and painted faces to reenact the infamous battle between Rama and Ravana. When Rama’s forces won, the actors lit the paper effigies on fire to symbolize the final victory. The effigies were stuffed with firecrackers and created an impressive explosion, accompanied by the cheers of all in attendance.

Festival decorations for Dussehra at the temple in Khaniyara village.

Before Monday’s holiday excitement, I enjoyed a restful weekend in Dharamsala. On Saturday, I met the Tibetan woman who used to attend my morning language class at her flat in Mcleod. We shared some tea, and I learned about her family in Tibet and her life in India. Our conversation eventually shifted to the Tibetan class I’m taking, and I mentioned that the nun who teaches it is going out of town for a couple weeks to visit family. I was concerned about how well I could teach myself while she’s away. My friend said she was interested in getting some more practice with reading and writing the script, and she knew of a monk who might be willing to help us. She called him, and we met at a nearby coffee shop to discuss creating an informal class. He agreed to meet us three afternoons a week in Mcleod, so I’m going to try that for a while and see how it goes. Our first meeting was Wednesday, and it was a nice opportunity to practice reading and learn some useful conversational phrases. The monk is from Amdo province, so his pronunciation is a bit different than what I’m used to hearing, but his Tibetan is still understandable, and the script is the same.

I spent all of Saturday in Mcleod and enjoyed stopping in some local cafes and restaurants. I introduced myself to a Tibetan woman who runs one of the cafes and joined a game of dice she and some friends were playing. That evening, I went to Gu-Chu-Sum, the association of ex-political prisoners from Tibet, and conversed with a young man whose poetry about the Dalai Lama resulted in his imprisonment. He is now in India studying English and hoping for a future career in journalism. I find that when I talk to people at Gu-Chu-Sum about their lives in Tibet versus in India, I learn a lot about what kinds of questions I should be asking in regards to my project. Even when I’m not talking to lay women, I’m still gaining a much better understanding of the positive and negative aspects of the refugee situation. In some ways, the refugees have created an impressively authentic mini-Tibet in India, but in other ways, India is not and will never be Tibet.

An effigy of the demon king Ravana, who was defeated by Lord Rama's forces in a battle commemorated by the Dussehra festival.

The effigies of Ravana and his brother and son are burned to symbolize the final victory of Lord Rama during the Dussehra celebration.

Chamunda temple, a well-known Hindu temple within a short bus ride of Dharamsala.

A dragon paddle boat in the pond behind Chamunda temple. Katherine and the women's group visited the temple and rode the paddle boats in lieu of class one day.

Delicious Indian ice cream, served on a leaf.

Shelves of beautifully bound Tibetan manuscripts in the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives.

As home to the Tibetan Government in Exile and the Dalai Lama’s monastery, Dharamsala attracts a unique combination of scholars, activists, tourists, nomads, and spiritual seekers. It is intriguing and exciting to be part of the mix and to witness a small piece of Tibet’s struggle for a free state. Last Saturday, I was spending some time in the reading room of the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives, enjoying a book on the exile community in Dharamsala. After only a few pages, I was startled by a déjà vu sensation as the author related experiences that came eerily close to my own. He mentioned staying in a hotel I pass quite regularly and frequenting a cafe I recently stopped in for a cup of tea during an unexpected rain shower. I recognized the street names and could supplement the text with my own memories of sights, smells, and sounds. I then began reading a chapter about the author’s time working in the very reading room where I was sitting. He described the students absorbed in their books, as I was at the time, and the people circling the outside of the library building, carrying their prayer beads and chanting mantras. Through the open window, I could see and hear those very things. The experience was a poignant reminder that people and places I now consider a routine part of my day are in fact extraordinary parts of Tibet’s ever-evolving history.

People resting, talking, and studying in the Dalai Lama's temple in Upper Dharamsala.

I had a similar realization while participating in a conversational English exercise at Gu-Chu-Sum, an association of ex-political prisoners from Tibet. Six afternoons a week, the Gu-Chu-Sum organization hosts anyone who wishes to join ex-political prisoners and their families to facilitate informal English practice since they have been barred from educational opportunities in Tibet. During my latest visit, I spoke with a nun who related in broken English the story of her monastery’s desecration, her pleas to the Chinese government for relief, her subsequent imprisonment, and finally her escape to India. She and another nun spent nearly a month walking across the snowy Himalayas until they crossed the border into Nepal and received assistance from the Tibetan refugee community there. Though the facts were not new to me, helping the nun put her narrative into a second language as she struggled to pronounce the unfamiliar sounds of her all-too-familiar story brought the experience to life in a way no book or film could.

I sympathized with the nun’s frustration when she mispronounced the foreign consonant and vowel combinations of English. On several occasions, she had to spell a word for me before I could understand its meaning, but when I said the word aloud, she couldn’t tell that I was pronouncing it any differently than she had been. My Tibetan language class evokes the same confusion for me because there are so many letters that sound almost the same, except for tiny tonal variations that make all the difference. My teacher keeps telling me that my tongue isn’t far enough back on the roof of my mouth to make a few of the sounds, but I’m fairly certain it’s touching my tonsils! I’ve made significant progress in reading and writing the script, but a basic greeting in Tibetan exhausts my conversational ability. Unfortunately, the example sentences in my textbook tend to involve yaks, yak butter, and snow mountains – none of which arise as topics of discussion in my day-to-day activities here. I’m hoping to diversify my vocabulary a bit soon, but even now, I’ve found that a smile and Tibetan greeting go a long way in putting people at ease when I need to approach them for my project.

After my Tibetan class Monday morning, I saw one of my former classmates in a cafe near the nun’s home. She is a local and already speaks Tibetan fluently but is taking classes to learn to read and write it. She’s also very anxious to improve her English. We talked for a bit and decided to meet at the cafe again Saturday morning so I can teach her some more English, and perhaps we can include some Tibetan conversation as well for a nice linguistic exchange. Her son lives in the Tibetan Children’s Village here, and she invited me to visit him with her on Sunday, which will be a great step forward as I delve a bit further into my Departmental Honors research. The Tibetan diaspora has developed several residential schools in India, and they seem to be instrumental in passing on Tibetan culture to future generations of children born outside of Tibet. In light of my research thesis, I am very interested to learn the role of mothers in this context since the children live and study outside the home.

The Library of Tibetan Works and Archives

The Wheel of Dharma depicted on the ceiling of the entrance to the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives.

A monkey resting on a beam at the Dalai Lama's temple complex

A house in Khaniyara village, with cornfield in the foreground

This week, I celebrated the festival of Sair with the women’s group in Khaniyara village. We took a holiday from class on Wednesday, and I visited the houses of a couple of the women. Sair is a harvest festival in which the villagers offer up their first fruits in thanksgiving and pray for continued blessings on their crops. As part of the celebration, they invite friends into their homes to share a meal. At both houses I visited, the women insisted on serving me hot tea and some food in accordance with the hospitable tradition.

The custom here is to eat with one’s hands, but I tend to fall back on utensils when they’re available. For my meals in Khaniyara, that wasn’t an option, so I tried my best to imitate the precise method of eating I have observed so many times. There is a definite technique to mixing the various soup-like foods into the rice in just the right amounts to create a dense ball that is easy to pick up and guide into one’s mouth without shedding pieces of rice everywhere along the way. I was moderately successful.

One of the Cross Cultural Solutions staff members drives me to Khaniyara each morning during the week for the women’s group. The road is extremely steep in parts and varies in quality from worn pavement to mud and gravel. Despite the constant bouncing as the car battles the potholes, I look forward to the drive. The road crosses the river a couple times and provides a closer view of the mountains along the way. The river swells dramatically after heavy rains, and it takes on a brown color from the mud washing down its banks. Once the rain stops, the river filters itself to a clear color once more, and the women of the area can be seen washing clothes and then spreading them on the rocks to dry. It makes for a brilliant collage of color.

Inder and Jitender, the two women who coordinate the Khaniyara women's group. They are sisters, and they both speak English well, so they help translate during lessons.

The driver drops me off where the road ends, and from there I walk a short distance to the house where the women’s group meets. I usually arrive a bit early, so I remove my shoes at the door and wait in the front room until the women arrive. We then move into the back room and sit on the bed for the lesson. On rainy days when it’s chilly inside, we wrap up in blankets, drink hot tea, and sometimes eat a hot snack.

The group lasts from 11:00 to 1:00, which is relatively short, but it has been a challenge to prepare material for the entire time and make it interesting enough to keep everyone’s attention. With practice, I’m getting better at planning lessons with a variety of different exercises and enough hands-on activities to keep people engaged. Magazine cut-outs are always effective in sparking discussion, and word games such as Hangman, crossword puzzles, and B-I-N-G-O have proven very popular.

Though the language barrier is still frustrating at times, I am getting to know the women better each week. In my time with them thus far, I have been very impressed by their strength and character. They tend to duties in the home before and after our classes, and most of them have not traveled far from their village. At the same time, they are very well-informed and up-to-date on happenings within India. They often surprise me by sharing well-developed opinions that are not always in support of Indian cultural norms.

The women’s group has been my primary focus this week due to some holidays in the Buddhist community that have stalled my research progress a bit. I have made a few new contacts with whom I’m hoping to speak this weekend, though, and I’m still very much enjoying my Tibetan language class and my volunteer work at the home for Tibetans with disabilities. My next goal is to find a female translator, which is proving to be a challenge, who can help me talk to the non-English-speaking shopkeepers in Mcleod Ganj, the upper part of Dharamsala where many Tibetan families have settled.

Some of the women in the group stand in front of Jitender's home

A view of the river that runs through Dharamsala

A view of the Himalayas at sunset from the porch of Katherine's home in Dharamsala.

From previous attempts to converse with locals, I have realized the challenge of gaining insight into my research topic without first establishing a relationship with my interviewees. Naturally, people are hesitant to talk to me if I approach them with no familiar context and introduce myself as a student doing research. Further, my project seems a bit odd compared to what locals have encountered from other researchers in the past. Firstly, instead of studying the present situation in Tibet, I am more interested in the present situation in exile. Secondly, my research values lay opinions over monastic scholarship. Thirdly, I am singling out the role of women.

Tibetan prayer flags at the Norbulingka Institute

After making some new contacts last weekend, I have begun volunteering three afternoons a week at a craft home for Tibetan children with mental and physical disabilities in Sidhpur, a town about twenty minutes from my home in Dharamsala. I took a taxi Sunday afternoon for my first day of volunteer work, and upon meeting the twenty or thirty residents who live at the home, I was surprised to discover that most of them are my age or older. Since Sundays are holidays, there were no classes and few staff members when I arrived, so I was concerned about how I would get people out of the cafeteria area and encourage them to participate in games without even the slightest knowledge of Tibetan. Thankfully, some of the residents came to my aid and encouraged their friends to participate in “catch-catch,” which seems to be a version of tag, and a few other games they made up as they went along. I returned again Tuesday and led some activities using a soccer ball, trying to keep everyone engaged and active because the staff asked me to encourage physical exercise.

Norbulinka Institute in Sidhpur provides extensive training in traditional Tibetan arts to Tibetans in exile, with the goal of preserving the culture and skills for future generations.

My other new venture is a Tibetan language class taught by a nun in her home, near the Tibetan Library of Works and Archives. It begins at 8:00 every morning except Sundays, and when the weather is nice, I walk both ways to save taxi fare. I follow the road from my home to the market and then halfway up the mountain to the Tibetan government headquarters. I’m learning a few shortcuts, but any path that takes me up the mountain more quickly is inevitably twice as steep. The trek up takes about forty minutes at a steady pace, and I can usually make it back down in thirty, giving me the hour from 9:30 to 10:30 to recover and finish any last-minute preparations for the women’s group in Khaniyara. There are four other members in the class, and we all sit on cushions on the floor of the nun’s house, drink hot ginger tea, and struggle through drills of Tibetan script and pronunciation for an hour. It’s a surprisingly pleasant way to start off the day, and I’m making some connections in the community through my fellow classmates.

All in all, I’m developing a busy but enjoyable routine, a rigorous exercise regimen, and a better sense of the Tibetan community in exile. I’m hoping for as much success in the coming week!

A mural at the Norbulinka Insititute

The center of the Tibetan government in exile's headquarters

Katherine traveled to Amritsar in the neighboring state of Punjab, where she visited the Golden Temple, a popular Sikh pilgrimage site.

I arrived in Delhi on the evening of August 15, India’s independence day. After a weekend of orientation with Cross Cultural Solutions, the organization facilitating my volunteer work, I took a domestic flight to Dharamsala, a city located in the Himalayas of northern Indian, where I will be staying through the end of November.

My study abroad experience differs from most in that I am not enrolled in a university in India. Instead, I am registered for a full load of courses at UTC: three independent studies courses that comply with the requirements of my major, and one 3-hour research credit toward my Departmental Honors Thesis. The flexibility offered by my Humanities: International Studies major allows me to construct a semester abroad in which I can fulfill personal travel goals while simultaneously making progress toward my degree.

India has always captured my imagination and interest in an academic setting, and I wanted to experience it outside the classroom as a temporary resident, living and working among the locals. Though at times my agenda will be that of a tourist, my primary goal for this trip is to become part of the community and learn how people in Dharamsala and its surrounding villages live on day-to-day basis. There are certainly challenges to this goal because blending in as a Westerner in a small Indian city is nearly impossible. On the other hand, after dispelling the initial awkwardness and creating a basis for trust, I have found that people are exceptionally hospitable.

Part of the temple of Jawalamukhi, goddess of light. Located about an hour and a half from Dharamsala, the temple boasts an eternally burning natural flame. Katherine visited the temple with a few of the other volunteers.

My initial arrival in India was a bit of a whirlwind, even from the minute I left the airport and encountered the streets. No matter how much you are prepped for the foreign culture that is Indian driving, it has a way of taking you off guard. The horns are constant, but instead of honking impatiently at red lights and slow pedestrians, most drivers here seem to honk out of basic necessity. In the absence of lanes, the driver must honk to announce his presence on the road, thus warning neighboring vehicles and carving out a small chance of survival while maneuvering through the traffic.

Dharamsala’s traffic isn’t nearly as heavy, but the honking continues and the adventure intensifies along the steep, winding, and narrow roads. The scenery is beautiful, and the Himalayas provide a stunning backdrop. They never look the same twice because the fog and cloud cover conceal them at times and then suddenly reveal them at others. The air in Dharamsala is cool and refreshing, especially in comparison to Delhi.

This photo of Katherine was taken at a nearby temple to the god Shiva. There is a path that leads from the back of the temple grounds down to the river.

My volunteer work is going well so far. The women are so friendly and willing to learn. Though I have only been working with them for a few weeks, they have welcomed me like family and eagerly invite me to participate in their lives. Aside from teaching them English, they have asked me to help them with a small business venture in which they hope to generate some income by selling their handiwork. I am excited about the possibilities, and I’m sure the project will be as much of a learning experience for me as it will be for them.

As for my Departmental Honors research, it is coming along slowly as I work to find my niche and develop a relationship with members of the Tibetan exile community. This is a very different style of research from anything I have attempted in the past, so making my initial contacts and establishing trust with members of the refugee settlement here is largely a trial-and-error process. I have conducted two formal interviews with Tibetan women so far and have spoken with numerous other women on an informal basis. I’m still in the brainstorming stages and am hoping to make some headway soon. I expect this to be one of the most difficult stages of my research this semester. Meeting people in a natural way that does not put them on guard or make them suspicious is difficult, but once I discover the best way to accomplish that, I think the pieces will begin to come together.

I’m certain this semester will be an ongoing exercise in stretching past the limits of my comfort, getting accustomed to being the odd one out, and bridging the gap between the culture I’m borrowing for a semester and the culture I’ve lived my entire life.

Guards opening and closing the gate which separates India from Pakistan during the changing of the guards ceremony. The border is about an hour's drive from Amritsar, where Katherine visited.

The god Ganesh depicted on a door at the Sri Durgiana, nicknamed the Silver Temple, in Amritsar.

Katherine toured the village of Khaniyara with the women's group last week. This photo was taken on the way to one of the houses Katherine was visiting.