Volunteering in Daramsala, part four

My final post on the volunteer work I was doing in Daramsala. I was there for just over two months total, not so long, but long enough to get a few things done. My work at Lha culminated in running a workshop which was very successful and will hopefully continue to build some expertise in the Tibetan community in India. It was the second Joomla course in McLeod Ganj and everyone from the first course is currently using the system to manage fairly sophisticated websites. I’ve only done a little teaching in the past but this class was a dream to teach, the students unbelievably keen and motivated, and friendly to boot. I think that most of the foreign teachers who volunteer in the Tibetan community find that too. 

As an IT professional I think that there are a lot of opportunities to make a little difference in the world these days, as helping with websites and systems helps spread information and education, two of the most important things for many causes, and especially so for diaspora communities like the Tibetans. Free (open-source) software makes this very cheap for the organisations too. I didn’t choose the Joomla web content management system; it was already being used by several NGOs in Daramsala/McLeod Ganj. But it is quite impressive. Much quicker and easier to use than commercial products I’ve worked with and with a lot of features. And free! Great.  

It was sad to leave McLeod. I’d made good friends there and got to like the place. It is a very touristy town and on arrival feels like there’s nothing to do except eat, but there is more to it than that. A good mix of Tibetans, Indians and Westerners, good vibes, things going on often enough and a good amount of nothingness is part of its appeal. Was getting a bit cold as winter came though.

These pics are all from the hills nearby: 

On Goa

Here are a few photos from my stay at Arambol in Goa.

It is Christian there! I spent my last day in India at a Catholic festival, The Feast of St Francis Xavier.

With some beautiful sunsets. It was much more purple in real life.

Me and my Uruguyan friend Gennaro indulged in a little Goa-style Motorcycle Dairies for a day. Had to bribe some cops because we did not have international driver licenses… but luckily like all else in India the extent of the so-called fine was negotiable. We asked someone else later and apparently you really do need an international license though.
Tropical as.

And like I said, beautiful sunsets.

Goodbye, Incredible India

It’s a little premature to eulogise my Indian experience since I haven’t left yet, but I’m in Goa now and today set the scene for how the next few days will flow: lazy breakfast, swim, beach, swim, beach, slow walk down beach, late lunch, swim, etc.

So how to summarise this crazy country? India is big. Very very big. And diverse in every way. Snow-covered Himalayas, jungles, endless plains, huge cities, and now even beaches. Every religion of the world living side by side, hundreds of languages, endless confusion. Tigers and lions. Pirates, terrorism, cricket, and billions of friends-to-be just waiting to catch you on the train and say “what you country sir?”. If you’ve been reading this blog at all, you’ll have realised that I’ve loved it here. Modernity and rustic-ness, buses with Hindu Shiva-spikes and Sikh symbols and Nike swooshes all painted on the front (really). I could tritely say that it somehow epitomises or encapsulates modern India, the spiritual with the commercial, the east with the west, but I think it’s still too simple. I remain no closer to finding “the real India” than I was before I arrived, and staying in Goa (formerly of hippie 60s-70s fame, more latterly of drugs-n-drum-n-bass fame, now more of package holiday fame…) certainly isn’t going to help me. But then Chandigarh wasn’t the real India either – too modern – and Ladakh wasn’t – too Ladakhi – and McLeod Ganj wasn’t – too Tibetan/Western – and Delhi wasn’t – too much of a typical “developing” world capital – and Amritsar wasn’t – too Sikh – and, and, and… But maybe that’s it. Maybe the real India is a weird kind of sum greater than its parts, a combination of complexities and contradictions and everything imaginable in the world and in life, all mixed up and stirred around with a large portion of red-hot chilly. I don’t know, and I don’t think that anyone does. Whoever tells you that they know India clearly doesn’t, because it is surely unknowable. And that’s the great thing. Arriving here you quickly come to understand that you don’t understand anything, and the sense of liberation of learning the unimaginable from scratch, and the excitement of it all, is overwhelming in the best of ways. I’ve promised myself to re-visit a number of places or countries over the past few years, but I think that for now India trumps them all. Sorry about the rambling.

Walking to work in Daramsala

I took a few photos walking to work this morning. Here we go…

In my village, Gamru. This is my neighbour’s house:

This is at the edge of my village. I’m about to start the uphill section. If you look close you can see someone carrying some water (?) on her head:

Himalayas are bright and clear and beautiful almost every morning.

I’m almost in McLeod Ganj – the town in which I work – now. Note the Tibetan prayer flags strung across the road. There are a lot of these about.

And here’s the cafe where I often have breakfast, at the edge of McLeod. I say “do aloo parantha, ek chai” every morning, and it remains almost the only Hindi I know. Oh so lazy.

Volunteering in Daramsala, part three

Another few weeks of volunteering/working in Daramsala have gone by. I won’t bore you too much with the details, like I would never write about ‘real’ work in the ‘real’ world. I’ve installed this, upgraded that, found a new component for X, explained how Y works, fixed something else, blah blah blah. Almost all with the joomla and joomfish web content management and translation management systems. I’ve been working with a number of different organisations, lately a lot more with The Tibet Express newspaper and some other new sites.

Far more interesting have been some short trips around Daramsala. First up, Amritsar! Home of the Golden Temple, that most sacred site in Sikhism. Here it is, and it appears to be making me contemplative:

The temple is beautiful and very impressive. But far more impressive for me were the logistics of the whole operation there. There is a free (well, by donation) kitchen running 24×7, free (by donation) accommodation for any and every pilgrim and tourist who turns up there, and despite all the hustle and bustle everything is efficient and of a good standard. Everyone is friendly and hospitable too and sitting in the communal dining room or tea-drinking area it is impossible not to make friends. Often more than enough friends, like many places in India. Here are a few:

Near Amritsar is the famous Attari-Wagah border with Pakistan. There’s a border closing ceremony every evening in which the two countries try and scare each other by marching around, kicking higher than their own heads, and generally being boisterous in front of cricket-style cheering crowds. Drinks and popcorn etc are on sale and its a great laugh. Just the kind of organised madness that I enjoy. No photos from me but you can check out Dan’s from the Pakistan side a few months back.

Not far from Daramsala is the Norbilinka Institute. It is a place in which the exile Tibetans try and preserve their artistic culture, something that’s not possible freely in Tibet and wasn’t possible at all for a long time. My colleague Marco and I got lost on the way there which provided a great opportunity to wander through the beautiful countryside:

And watch some good old-fashioned ploughing:

The Norbilingka Institute itself is amazing. Everything is perfect there. Beautiful art, a big brand new temple, everything bright and shiny and clean. There’s a shop with lots of very nice handicrafts and wall-hangings and woodworking and all sorts of beautiful stuff, all of much higher quality than the mass-produced souvenirs sold on the streets of McLeod Ganj (less affordable though). It is a breath of fresh air, almost literally, compared to much of India and if I were sticking round for longer somewhere I’d definitely return to. Highly recommended. Here are a few photos:

Thanks Marco for all these photos. I can’t finish without just a little politics… One of the major challenges for the Tibetan movement is to raise awareness of their plight in the west. The presumption behind this is that if people knew what was going on there they’d care and maybe do something about it. I guess we must all hope that’s true, that those of us from the western world have retained enough humanity and compassion in our busy capitalist lives to still care for others… anyway, one very simple way to raise awareness is through the Raise Tibetan Flags Campaign. If anyone’s interested I can bring a flag back to NZ for you, just send me an email in the next week or so. Cost approx NZ$8 each. That is all. Peace.