Tibet Burning

Good morning everyone,

I promised you a blog post about my first week in Dharamsala, and this is to be that post, but the events I experienced tonight have made me alter the last portion of the post to reflect the incredible, and incredibly horrifying, events of the evening.

Warning: there will be a video of a flag burning; it was not a riot, but might seem like one. Don't worry; I was in no danger.

First, the week until tonight:

The ride into Dharamsala took a little over 11 hours and was bumpy the entire way. Thank goodness we shelled out for the nice bus! I don't want to think what condition the other three types of buses could have been in. For their purposes, though, the drivers were exemplary I thought, and we even received free 1L bottles of water before we set off. Somehow, I managed to sleep most of the way through (aside from the moments I was jerked forward but a massive lurch of the bus).

Dharamsala is absolutely breathtaking. A view from the road I traverse every day:

... and that's not even a picture of the mountains to the east, which are spectacular!

The tent structure that you see on the bottom left of the bottom picture is the Dalai Lama's temple complex, and just past that is his residence. Part of me still can't believe that I'm living here. It's crazy.

I walk up and down steep hills multiple times a day, so I'm certainly getting my exercise and have already lost some weight. The people here are very friendly, and Mcleod Ganj is a very small town so it doesn't  take long to get places. In some ways, it is very similar to Delhi. There is still rampant trash everywhere, dogs are everywhere and a few cows straggle around too. In many other respects, it's completely different: the air is much, much cleaner, the moisture on the ground is more often rainwater than urine, and the population is dominated by Tibetans and Buddhist monks in red robes. We are staying with Dawa's cousin, who is married and has a 12/13 yr. old son named Balin (most likely not how it's spelled, but it's pronounced 'Buh-lin' and the LoTR dwarf Balin popped into my head as a wonderful pnemonic device) and a 2 1/2 month old terror named Jordan, who loves to throw things and shoot at you with cards. They are a lovely family, and have breakfast and dinner ready for us every day. Tonight, our host family dad made dinner: a soup with gnocci-style pasta and these delicous sweet-tasting little red things I later found out were ghoma(toma?), which it turns out is a root grown in Tibet and brought over. I'm hoping I can find some in the market to bring back home, because it was a rare treat.

As for my volunteering, everything has become a little convoluted because we arrived just as the biggest Tibetan holiday of the year, their new year Losar, so the childcare program we were going to be working with is closed for 3 weeks. Our weeks have thus been split between different organizations: this past week we assisted with a 5-day daycamp program for the Tibetan group Rogpa, which was finished up today. Starting tomorrow, we spend the rest of this week taking a taxi down to lower Dharamsala to help at a daycare program down there and then next week, I'm not sure. My longterm plan is to stay here in Dharamsala with the childcare program I'll eventually get to for three months, and then I'm going to transfer to Bir (about 2 1/2 hours away) to teach English to Tibetan monk children aged 7-19. Here's the thing about all of this, though: I don't know any Tibetan. My Hindi has not found much use up here. So, I bought a book today aptly titled 'Speak Tibetan Like a Tibetan', and am going to teach myself to speak Tibetan in the next three months. The children, thankfully, know some English and conversing with them isn't too difficult, but the monks don't know any English or Hindi. I think this book will become invaluable. As a side note, I also bought a book of Tibetan Folk Tales I'm absolutely stoked to read.

I received a rare opportunity the other day: Pema, the founder of Rogpa, asked me if I would be willing to write an article in the free Dharamsala newspaper about the organization, in an attempt to 'get the word out'. I wrote it today, and am quite happy with it. I'm going to hand it over to her in two days and hope it goes over well. I'm going to have something published in a newspaper in Dharamsala, India! Definitely bringing a copy of that (or two, or twenty) home with me.

This post is becoming very long, so I'm going to try to end it soon here. First, though, I need to get out what I experienced tonight. Since I've been in Dharamsala, there have been two candlelight vigils held to bring attention to the atrocities happening in Tibet by the Chinese. The first one I made it to and walked around the town with the crowd and my own little candle lit, then headed home after a bit. Tonight, my friends and I went to the second one, and I ended up staying through the whole thing. After the very long procession that went around town multiple times, the crowd gathered down in the same courtyard where we held our Rogpa activities.

At first, we were overlooking the courtyard. The showed a 15 minute video that contained both photographic and videographic footage of monks self-immolating (putting themselves on fire). It was gruesome and heartwrenching. After the video ended, I left the others and made my way down into the courtyard, where the leader of the candlelight vigil was speaking emphatically. Shortly after he ended, a woman took the mic and spoke in English about the videos. She brought up the question of why a person would commit suicide when, even in Buddhism, it is one of the most horrendous acts against the self. Here is her speech:

After she spoke... they burned a massive Chinese flag in the ultimate symbol of defiance. Here is that video:

I was speechless. Still am a bit. It was such a powerful moment, such a powerful evening. After the burning of the Chinese flag, there was a short 'thank you' to everyone who showed up to support the movement, and then they handed out a limited number of pamphlets. Luckily, I was able to grab one. The title is 'Tibet Burning', and inside is a horrifying booklet that's a 'factsheet' of every monk who has self-immolated, including details before, during, and after the act. Some details include Chinese police beating burning monks with sticks with nails on the end, not even bothering to put the flames out. In others, the Chinese police forbade the gathered crowd to weep or mourn for the monk who had died in front of their eyes, and stated they would haul away those who did. Such heinous, deplorable acts. Also in the pamphlet is a statement from the organization and a petition to the World Leaders... as well as a copy of the DVD they earlier showed of the monks self-immolating. I actually received two of those. I have in my hands two copies of extremely rare footage of monks setting themselves on fire and dieing for a purpose much larger than themselves. People risked their lives (some died) to get this footage out. Now I have two copies. My hands are shaking as I write this.

Friends, I hope you have been staying with me throughout this post, and that you feel as revolted and shocked as I am feeling. Hopefully, this draws attention to a wider audience of these inhumane acts being commited in a defenseless country. If you would like more information, please head to www.tibetanyouthcongress.org. That is the name of the organization who put this pamphlet out. Please keep the Tibetan people in your hearts and minds, and most definitely in your prayers. They are in great need of God.

I must go now, but hopefully I'll have another post up in a week or so (probably sooner rather than later). Take care all, and goodnight from Dharamsala!

In peace,

Aaron