TALK: The Green Mountain College Blog

I’m going to admit now that I never realized how intense study abroad programs could be. I mean, you think about it, right, and you say to yourself: “hey, I get to go to a new place, explore all this cool stuff that I’m interested in, and maybe write a couple of papers when I get back to the states.” Well, that’s not exactly accurate. Every day, as I hope you’ve recognized by now, is packed FULL of exploration to the point where all you really want is just a little bit more sleep. Or maybe a whole day of sleep. Or maybe just to watch TV, even if it is in a language you can’t understand, and put up your feet for a while.

This was how the sixth day started. For once, we got the opportunity to sleep in, and even had a few hours to ourselves in the morning, as we wrapped up our stay in Lhasa. I went around shopping by myself for a bit, picking up this or that for friends, family, and acquaintances at home. I eventually bumped into a group of kids on the trip and continued my shopping adventures with them. I got a lot of neat stuff, but I’d have to say that my favorite shop we stopped at was Nirvana Tibetan Handicraft. Because it was an actual store, rather than just a booth, there were a ton of cool items in there all at reasonable prices, so I didn’t even feel the need to barter with the employees to get some good deals on gifts. I got a really cool purse for my younger sister that I hope she’ll like, as well as some hemp wallets and a hemp notebook with handmade paper for some friends at GMC. All and all, a pretty good deal. And a pretty good morning.

After this, we prepared ourselves for the trip to Shigatse, the second largest city in Tibet. On our way there, we stopped by a small Tibetan orphanage to give gifts and sing to the kids there. It was soo absolutely wonderful! With all the things that our group purchased, we managed to supply everyone there with a new toothbrush, bar of soap, and washcloth at the very least, which is really beneficial, since most of them have to share these essential items among themselves. There were also a number of other gifts given, including some books (these students learn Tibetan, Chinese, and English in school, so although the books were English, they were books they could eventually read) and some pencils, pens, markers, notebooks, stickers, and other fun stuff.

After distributing the presents we brought, the students sang a Tibetan song to us that essentially expressed their gratitude for the gifts. It is a traditional orphanage song, since part of the lyrics (Tenmpa translated for us) said that they were ok with not having parents because there were people like us in the world to take care of them. Although a little depressing, it was a sweet sentiment on their part. They also sang the ABC’s to us, which I noted was taught to them in a bit of a different tune, but they did very well. We sang “Old McDonald” to them, but inserted the Tibetan word for the animals (we asked Tenmpa beforehand for these). They were laughing hysterically out our pronunciations as well as our imitations of animal noises. They were so cute! We also sang the “Hokey-Pokey,” which we encouraged them to join in on, but I think most of them just thought we were crazy. It was a lot of fun, nonetheless, mostly because I felt so silly singing it with a huge group of people I hadn’t known only six days before, and a handful of them were in their thirties or older! It was great, though, I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time.

Here's a picture of one of the girls right before we began singing to all of them.

Once we got our silliness out, the kids showed us their beds/ the bedroom they all shared, and then we headed to their dining room to sit around and hang out for a while. A lot of pictures were taken during the interim… they were just so adorable! Most of the children were under the age of 13, but there were a couple that were older than this. One boy was 22—a student in the group, Riley, ended up giving him his zip up jacket because the boy thought it was cool looking and most of the gifts we had distributed were for younger aged kids. (Yes... Riley literally gave the coat off his back to this dude!)

Here's a picture of Caitlyn hanging out with one of the younger, quieter girls.

All and all a wonderful experience, although quite bittersweet, as can be seen in the look of this kid’s face as he waved goodbye to us. We had only been there for a couple hours, but he looks so sad at the thought of us leaving.

Jim later explained to us that the kids at the orphanage we went to (he visits as much as possible with as many gifts as possible) are stuck there until they are self-sufficient because the Chinese government has passed an ordinance that will not allow them to be adopted by anyone besides either Chinese or Tibetan families. As many of these families are poor themselves, it is pretty unlikely they will get out of there. Basically, the government doesn’t want Tibetans to leave China, as this may attract attention to the issues going on over there. Learning this really frustrated me, simply because I’ve always wanted to adopt a child, and those kids were just the sweetest kids I’ve ever met. It is so unfair that they cannot get out of their situation. I mean, there is some hope—one of the kids who was going there was doing so well in public school the Chinese government funded her college education to become a doctor. So there is a way to become successful and do what they want in the future, but it’s just unreasonable that they can’t be brought into a typical family. And don’t get me wrong—the two caretakers of the orphanage are actually married and do seem to do a wonderful job of meeting these kids’ needs with the resources they have. But still. It’s just not right that the Chinese government is trying to push their orphans on to Westerners, but won’t permit the Tibetans these types of opportunities.

After visiting the orphanage, we stopped off at this absolutely beautiful place by a body of water that is a sort of picnicking area. There were all of these umbrellas, pillows, and blankets lying around for anyone who passes by and wants to stop and eat. It was really a neat place. I wish these sorts of places were more common in the states.

Here’s a picture of Adam freaking out about the egg that was in our picnic lunch. I won’t lie—some of the food was a little sketchy, especially the further we got out into the countryside.

Here's a picture of me at the picnic area.

And then we were off again. At this point, rather than riding the bus, we had all made smaller groups and jumped into Land Cruisers. At first, we Westerners were a little critical about the necessity of these smaller vehicles, considering the terrain wasn’t that bad. I mean, we were on a highway after all. But we would eventually understand the need for them. Which you, too, will see in one of the next entries.

As we were driving, we stopped several different times either for a restroom stop (I should say “pee-pee break” as that’s what our tour guide called it… and we were in the middle of nowhere, so there weren’t really restrooms to go in. And even if there were… we did find one at one point… risking death due to “overwhelming stench syndrome” seemed like a worse idea than simply finding a bush to squat near.) I must note that the Tibetan countryside, though beautiful, is very dynamic in that there are certain areas where there is only sand as far as the eye can see (oh. And MOUNTAINS), as well as certain areas where there is tons of low shrubbery and trees. There doesn’t seem to be a very happy medium. One of the unfortunate side effects of being a female traveler in the middle of nowhere Tibet, then, is finding a place to properly go to the bathroom without flashing the world. We eventually created a system of holding up jackets for other female travelers as they relieved themselves. Believe me—none of us thought we would be that close to another person in such a short period of time. But I suppose necessity makes it so, and it only added to the complete and utter ridiculousness of the entire experience. Oh yes. WONDERFUL!!!

At one point, we found a field full of wicked tall yellow flowers, with a wonderful mountainous backdrop and stopped to take some pictures.

And the rest of the day was really spent traveling, taking pictures, and falling in love with the Tibetan countryside.