It is eerie to feel rain fall in the desert.
Darkness, high winds, and slow soaking rain greeted us this past month, spoiling half-dry apricots on roofs, violently swelling the streams and rivers, and causing winter fodder for the cows — stored under earthen roofs — to mold in place.
We heard that a million people fled 1,400 villages downstream in Pakistan when the rivers burst their banks.
The amount of suffering and uncertainty people are facing right now feels really serious.
Our minds and hearts are with those who had to leave their homes behind.
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At this point, in Ladakh, the rain has passed. People are wondering how the cows will fare this winter.
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Here is an image I took in Tar yokma on 26 August, the second of three days of continuous rain.
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Here is the same location two days later.
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A number of these next videos are from the same day, 28 August, after the peak, when the flood waters had dropped a bit.
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This one was taken September 18, three weeks later, when the waters had calmed quite a bit.
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And here is the same place at the flood.
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This is a natural spring that runs across the path, backed by the rushing stream and the new snow on the high peaks nearby.
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This is a waterfall we pass every day on our way between Tar and our home in the gongma.
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This shows how much water was raging through the area near our house.
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And this one shows what one area looked like after the water dug away up to two meters of earth and stones.
The stream sounded like giants playing with stones for weeks after the rain.
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In the video below, these springs opened up after the rain.
We have seen springs open up on this slope before, but at that time the flowing groundwater was emerging ten feet lower than here.
Three weeks later, the springs are still pouring water.
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Two days after the rain stopped, the sky looked like this in the morning.
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In closing, I would like to share this.
I feel I need to consider every day:
How can we relate to this water that gives us life?
