TCV

Being here always makes me feel so lucky, so happy and so grateful - for the life I have and the opportunities I have.

Today I went to the Tibetan Childrens Village 49th aniversary day. It is a good walk from the main town of McLeod, 15mins up a steep hill to Dharamkot, then another 25mins of a lovely walk through the forest, past the most beautiful stupa with prayer flags blowing in the wind and then down into the village. It is quite big, with lots of houses and a big school. The school has over 1000 pupils, all Tibetan kids living here in India. They learn Tibetan, English and science etc as well as Tibetan culture. And for the annual celebrations they put on a show and invite His Holiness the Dalai Lama (who couldn't attend) and His Holiness Karmapa, who did attend and gave a speech (in Tibetan so no idea what he was saying...).

And the kids dance and sing and play music and the vast majority of Tibetans from the surrounding towns seem to attend. Lots of shops, cafes and hotels in town which are run by Tibetans are all shut for the day so that families can go and spend the day there. And the monks have a day off too! The junior and middle schools joined together (over 500 kids) to put on a cool display, spelling out various things like THANK YOU INDIA, CO2 SAVE WORLD, and making a picture of a stupa. Then once they were in these formations they would all move their arms in the same way, and each of them had a pink band on the left arm and a green band on the right, and from up above looking down on them it looked really good! And they offered thanks to the Dalai Lama for helping them to set up their lives in Inida with dignity and grace. It was a really sweet ceremony.

On my walk up to the village I met a lovely Tibetan monk who showed me where to go (thank goodness or I'd never have found it!). And when we arived the kids were all sitting on the ground of the dirt playing field, in front of the audience, with the Karmapa sitting at the top in the middle. And at least a thousand people were all perched on the steep hills around the field watching and listening to the proceedings. As always with these things here, it felt totally laid back and like a very open affair. All welcome! Although there were far fewer western travellers had made it that far up the hill away from the town! I love the way that it is so normal here to be sitting in the dirt (everyone else knew to bring some cardboard to sit on to stop their clothes getting dirty!) on a steep hill which is not exactly ideal for sitting on, under the trees. And how normal it is to walk there with a monk! The culture and religion are so close, and the monastic community is so well respected and so large that no-one looks twice at the monk sitting in the chai shop, or walking down the street on his mobile phone and mixing so freely with the lay people. And I love also how it seems so normal to have one of the highest Tibetan Lama's there, well of course he'd attend, what else would he have to do?! It feels like they play such a massive role in the lives of all the people here and that there are so many opportunities to see them or even meet them or go to teachings - it's just fantastic!

At the end of the show I flowed in the same direction as the crowd to be led round to the back of the school field where everyone was having lunch, so I joined in and had some momos.

I came back via the stupa, which has a very special atmosphere, totally calming, and walked slowly down the hill towards McLeod which looked so small in the distance down below...