mcleod ganj-ing it up

hello lads,

we are currently in the refugee tibetan capital Mcleod ganj again up in the green green mountains, mostly surrounded by clouds, but occasionally clearing so you can see the whole valley. Its amazing up here, not as beautiful as some other hilly places we've been but the tibetan exile culture makes this place really amazing. There's tibetan temples filled with tibetan people in excellent tibetan monk clothes.. tibetan language courses, tibetan food, tibetan healing etc etc etc.
We've been cooking tibetan food and been visiting this amazing charity in the evenings which is educating both tourists and the tibetan refugees that live here. We watched tibetan movies and ate momos with them yesterday, and i went and helped teach some of the monks english this afternoon. I wandered into this funny little room from a huge rainstorm full of male and female monks in blood red robes huddled in small circles with their 'teachers' for the afternoon. I found my own monks to help and sat down with them, drenched from head to foot. The topic of conversation was school, including discussing what was the naughtiest thing i did at school. The australian girl next to me (who had recently shaved her head to raise money for cancer patients) said she used to hit people and lie at school... mental.
This evening we definitely had our most intense interaction with the tibetan exiled community, so far its all been an interesting change in exotic culture for us, although occasionally we'd be confronted with the realities of the tibetan refugees lives (for example our cooking class teacher was forced to walk to india from tibet at the age of 13, taking him three months) .. it was not until we went to a talk made by a tibetan man who had been shot at a protest any of us really grasped what a desperate situation they are in, forced into a foreign country with thier native culture slowly slipping irredemably away in a tide of government building projects and chinese migration. The man spoke to us of his two year journey, from the day he was shot twice at a protest for attempting to protect the body of a 20 year old monk shot that day, to his forced escape into the tibetan forest, to his 12 month battle with his wounds which went without any medical attention... nasty

okay internet shop shutting! love to you all

xxxx