I had a good day yesterday, and I often don't write till ages after
things have happened so I thought I'd write about my day yesterday
now. Maybe it's interesting.. maybe it's not.. but it just goes to show that you never know what you'll end up doing when you wake up in the morning.
It started about
8.30 am when I got up and did some clothes washing. Not very exciting
- but necessary. I generally wash my clothes local style in a bucket
in the bathroom, occassionally if I am feeling lazy I give them to the
laundry.
After laundry I sat on the balcony of my hotel
restuarant and had breakfast. It was one of those beautiful moments
when you really appreciate where you are. The balcony overlooks a
valley and there where eagles soaring in the sky and buddhist prayer
flags blowing in the wind and I couldn't imagine being anywhere else.
After breakfast I strolled up the road to a cafe run by some trendy
young tibetan guys which does a real cappucino! Yes! A relaxing coffee and read of the paper. Pretty relaxing morning, hey!
I
then met up with my companions from the weekend to sort out expenses
(and of course have more chai..). Something pretty great happened
then. I mentioned that our Indian friend - Deepak, owned a Thanka
shop. While we where looking through them earlier I found one that I
really loved and was umming and ahhing about buying. Anyway, I decided
I couldn't afford it. But he insisted, that it was mine, and that I
take it and send him the money later when I had it. I know! It sounds
like I'm making it up right! Indian shop keepers are always trying to
sell, sell, sell. But I have NEVER heard of one just letting someone
take something and pay for it later. Deepak truly is an amazing person.
So
Emma and I left the shop, me in a very happy mood, in possesion of my
new thanka. We went walking down the hill to Dharamsala in search of a
Tibetan Astrology place. As often happens here, we where on a bit of a
mission to nowhere and never ended up finding the place, but we did
find the Tibetan Goverment in Exile. As I have said before, you can't
get to attached to where you think you are going, or what you think you
are going to do here, because you always end up somewhere different.
We
continued on to Dharamsala for lunch where a lovely Punjabi woman, with
no English kept suggesting dishes other than the ones we ordered. We
politely declined and placed our order. She smiled, patted Emma on the
shoulder, and came back with the dishes she thought we should have,
ummm.. not the ones we thought we should have. It turns out her
selections were delicious, so we smiled, gave in and ate what she
served us.
After our delicious 'surprise' lunch, Emma went to check in with the office where she was to start volunteering and I tagged along out of interest. She is volunteering in a slum school and they basically sent her straight down there for the afternoon and let me join also. I had never been in a slum before and you had to walk right through it to the school. It is extremely confronting and discomforting to see people living in these conditions. They have nothing, they live in shelters made of sticks and plastic, no sanitation and running water for only 2 hours a day.
I sat at the back of the class just watching, but it wasn't long before the teacher asked if I would help, of course I said yes. So he handed me an alphabet chart and a group of 3-4 year olds that spoke virtually no english... and so I started reciting with the alphabet with them. Your heart just can't help but go out to them. I did intend to do some volunteering on this trip, but the travelling seems to have taken over. But spending the afternoon here has made me determined to come back soon and do a proper volunteer stint.
The evening, back in Mcleod was again great, being a tourist hub, there are many great restuarants and we ate at one of them, along with my Israeli roommate Eran. Which just reinforces how easy we have things, when you think about the people down in the slum.
It was an interesting and eye opening day, and not the one I thought I was going to have when I woke up in the morning.
