This year the Ladakhi New Year fell nine days before the solstice. Families all over Ladakh gathered back together in their villages, to celebrate and keep ceremony together. Last year, the conversation at this time was all about the construction that was set to begin imminently on a road up the canyon to the village. This year was different; as the Tarpa all came together, our minds turned towards creating something beautiful for the children.
We began to build our ice rink while Tar was still full of eager hands and strong backs. Urgyan Thostop had learned the art and discipline of ice-making the year before at SECMOL, and two of his friends, Ngawang and Chosphel, came to celebrate Losar in Tar instead of their own villages, and help us. For many nights we woke up at two-hour intervals to carry buckets from the stream– a strong, laughing team of the three teenagers; Caitlin and Jason; and any number of young villagers still home for Losar who were swept up in the excitement. On the third and fourth days of the new year, as we came into the time of the longest nights, many people left to visit relatives in other villages or return to their homes in Leh. Jason went to the city to welcome our foreign volunteers, and Urgyan, Ngawang, Chosphel, and I continued on. Ngawang and Chosphel are both sweet, soft-spoken young men from semi-nomadic communities in eastern Ladakh. They are kind and earnest and respectful, and full of subtle humor and playfulness. Ngawang had a beautiful way with the water, spreading buckets that we carried in gentle, even arcs over the surface of the ice.
The day before the camp was to begin, Jason returned to Tar with Dave, Linda, Armonie, and two suitcases full of donated skates. Families arrived from Leh throughout the afternoon, and the young people gathered again to carry all the elements of an outdoor kitchen to one of the central fields, protected by good fences from wandering cows. By that evening the rink had reached full thickness, with a beautiful, even surface. We were ready.
Many of Tar’s children spend most of their time in Leh, and while some are already friends or relatives, many had never met before. Over the next weeks we watched this group of young people of ages four to sixteen come together into a community of kindness, joy, mutual care, and rambunctious energy. They formed into three groups of mixed ages, older children stepping into the roles of helpers and leaders, as naturally as breathing. Each group was named for one of the great mountains that encircles the village: Sipskyang Lu, Gundum Drak, and Drak Khar. It was a joy to hear young voices shouting these names against the echoes of the cliffs; it had been a long time since the mountains heard their names on the tongues of children.
We all gathered each morning on a field called Upper Red Willow, just as the sun crossed the southern ridge and rose on the village, warm on our cold faces and hands. Every morning circle ended with five minutes of introspection, an opportunity for the children to think about the day to come, set some good intentions, offer thanks, and give attention to their breathing.
After morning circle, children rotated between ice skating, english, and handicrafts. Jason and Linda held their English class on Konchok’s rooftop, teaching with games and songs, education that felt joyful and real.
The handicrafts group gathered in the sunny spot by the prayer wheel in the center of the village. Each student carved a spoon of willow wood, working with impressive focus and seriousness. Over ten days, they all finished a project. Dadul finished his spoon quickly, then found an old knife blade in his family’s house, and asked to learn to make a new handle and sheath. Elders often come to the prayer wheel in the winter to sit and spin wool, or just talk in the sun; they enjoyed watching the children work. As more and more spoons were completed, we turned to other projects; some of the students scraped and softened a sheep hide, while several of the village aunties taught another group to spin. Acho Tsewang demonstrated shaping the wooden spindle with a stebo (an adze), perhaps the most important tool in Ladakhi woodworking. He said he had been using a stebo from the time he was six or seven.
The ice rink captured every student’s mind and heart. Only two or three children had ever skated before; from the first day, on which just standing up was an heroic effort, all of them learned to fly. In addition to Dave and Armonie, who were a constant presence at the ice and tied laces until their fingers were raw, two Ladakhi skating coaches arrived as special guests. Acho Angchuk Norbu came early in the camp for just one day, offering the children the example of his grace on skates, and the American volunteers a number of helpful exercises and drills for beginners. Later Ka Kaliq visited, bringing great patience and expertise as a teacher and coach, as well as a donation of twenty left-handed sticks. Our teenage ice-makers returned for the last days of the camp, from another camp they were facilitating together in Chosphel’s village in Changthang. The children were thrilled to have their adopted older brothers with them again, and the inspiration and challenge they offered. After skating each day, the students all worked together to sweep and water the ice, treating the effort of carrying heavy buckets in pairs as a game.
After the morning sessions, the whole village came together for lunch. By the time the children arrived the rest of the village would be assembled, chatting, spinning, knitting, and drinking tea in the sun. The outdoor kitchen became a truly beautiful gathering space, with brightly cloth walls protecting us from the wind, and woven rugs spread for everyone to sit together in a circle on the earth. Each day two households cooked together in rotation, taking turns to feed the community. After lunch each day, we brought the daman, drums, and for the next two hours practiced traditional Ladakhi song and dance, with the young fathers of the village taking turns drumming. Everyone in Tar learned three zhunglu, folk songs, and the older people taught the young ones the essential dances needed for weddings and other ceremonies. Whoever was interested had the chance to play the drums, learning the complex rhythms that accompany Ladakhi songs and dances. We made music until the sun passed behind the ridge and the temperature dropped, and the children left for an hour of free time and games– or stayed behind, crowded around the daman.
After games, children went home to drink tea and warm up, then gathered again for an evening study hall. The day closed with one more folk song, and then another five minutes of introspection, students settling (mostly) into silence to reflect on the day and their efforts. For the last two minutes of introspection each night we followed a simple guided meditation on compassion that Lundhup Dorje offered: wishing happiness and freedom from suffering first for ourselves, then our families, our villagers, all the humans and other sentient beings in our country, our continent, and then the entire world.
One day we walked together up into the valleys stretching beyond Tar to the south and west, beyond our home in the gongma, the upper village. We stopped for a picnic lunch with the younger children on an open sunny plane at the confluence of two valleys. Some of them worked together to boil tea over a fire and serve it around; others ran up and down the scree slopes like ibex. Jigmet Skalzang found an old ibex skull with enormous horns, and carried it down triumphantly. Acho Rigzin took the older students all the way up to a high ridge with infinite vantage, where they could see down the Indus out past Khaltse. We watched them climb for a long time, smaller than ants on the high slope, until they finally disappeared among the rocks. They all came down as the afternoon light began to fade, tired, exuberant, and incredibly proud. We offered them hot water for sweet coffee when they reached our home and sat outside together, hearing stories in the last of the light.
And then, these magics: in time snatched before or after lunch, children slid down the frozen stream on small pieces of metal or plastic– the original Ladakhi “skate,” older ones catching younger ones, keeping them away from the rocks. They helped their families with water and wood chores, and with cooking breakfast and dinner. Stanzin Lhamo, who was eight months old, spent her days sleeping in a basket full of blankets by her mother, or passed around among all the children, sometimes on the back of someone barely twice her size. They climbed up and down stone walls and water canals, asked their grandparents questions, watched the water and the light.
In the last days of the camp Ka Tsewang Namgyal, director of the Snow Leopard Conservancy, came to visit with his son and his nephew Jigmet, a young wildlife photographer. That evening the whole community gathered at Konchok’s house for dinner, and sang and danced late into the night. In addition to being a gifted naturalist and protector of wild land, Ka Namgyal also sings beautifully and plays the lingbu, Ladakhi flute. Jigmet, too, brought many gifts, playing the daman with tremendous power and facility; it felt in many ways like a master class, which the village had practiced well to receive.
The next morning after a brief sleep, Tar’s older teenagers and young adults gathered in the cold dark to set out snow leopard spotting. We walked up the valley that leads towards Ursi La with Ka Namgyal in the first light, finding frequent, recent signs; some urine trails were fresh enough that the scent still lingered, only two days old at the most. After a long walk we stopped to drink tea, learn about some of the plants and animals of the broader region, and about the habits of the snow leopards. Returning down towards the village, we watched a herd of 30-40 ibex cross the valley and stand together on the slope across the way from us. Among them were several powerful adult males, larger and much more muscular than full-grown white tail bucks in North America. We watched them for a long time, amazed by their movements, the way they seem able to travel directly up sheer cliffs. As we neared the village Ka Namgyal said, smiling, “Well, we didn’t see a snow leopard, but a snow leopard certainly saw us.”
Returning from our long chilly walk to warm sunlight and breakfast, we found the children in kos, traditional dress, all bustling and making preparations for their performance. I felt a profound mix of joy and sorrow, so happy for everything that had come to pass so far, unready for it to end. The celebrations went on through the afternoon, with drama, songs, dances, and speeches. After lunch a freezing wind blew down the valley, and the children ran over to the ice for one final skate in their formal clothes. The young men brought the daman, and the rink became a gorgeous chaos of color and movement.
Many families left the next morning, and the village grew quieter. But not empty; some of the students whose families are most steadily present in the village stayed on. With fewer children, time became more spacious. Our daily schedule relaxed into an intuitive flow of work, study, and play; we opened the ice while the sun shone on it, played games, taught English, and moved with the energy and desires of the children who remained.
At last the day came for our volunteers to depart. All the children still in Tar brought kataks and gifts of apricots and bread for travel. They saw us off down to the foot of the village, singing Tashi Papches– the traditional closing song, and everyone’s favorite of the zhunglu we learned– at the top of their lungs.
We thought we were offering a youth camp, but as the weeks passed it became clear that this project was a gift for, and from, every person in the village. The healthiest communities keep the well-being of their children at the center; vital to this, though, is everyone else gathering around them. We can’t know what will come in the years that follow, but we finished this camp with a different feeling of hope and possibility. Maybe, in the end, many families will continue to choose Leh and the amenities and opportunities they feel it offers. But perhaps many will also choose Tar, and another generation of life may take shape here.
Thank you greatly for all these wonderful pictures and details of the highly successful, fun winter camp in Tar village. I have printed out this last photo of the men of the village to post on my wall, to keep them all in my prayers and admiration. I will reread these blog posts often and think of Jason and Caitlin this winter in retreat and then back to community. May God continue to bless you all well and deeply.
Thanks Mom! You are an inspiration to us as well. Love you.
LOVE IT