Today one of my very best friends, Mira ( Lady the Tramp) and I met in Manhattan for tea and sweets in Curry Hill. We plopped ourselves down at an Indian restaurant and requested Chai and Gulab Jamuns, an Indian delicacy and dessert (essentially they are fried dough balls soaked in honey. Sickeningly sweet). The Indian man mumbled something for a good minute with Mira and I merely catching some resentful mutterings about us only ordering dessert, and then he whisked off to give us tea (not Chai! What kind of Indian restaurant is this?) and stone cold gulab jamun (usually it is warm). While we laughed at the strangeness of it all and caught up on each other’s lives, I noticed a shop across the street- Om Saree Palace, a retail store for, what else, sarees, a typical dress worn in India. There was also a variety of shawls, men’s clothings, salwar kameez’s, and jewelry.
After paying the disgruntled employee for our cheap meal, I told Mira that I wanted to check out Om Saree Palace. We headed over and walked inside to see a kindly old Indian lady folding shawls.
“Namaste, Aap Kaise Hai?” (hello, how are you?), I asked in Hindi.
“Chik Hai, Aap Kaise Hai?” (fine, how are you?) The lady responded, positively beaming.
“Chick Hai,” I replied. “Torrah Hindi bolti hu.” (I speak a little Hindi).
The woman’s smile widened even further. “I am so excited that you are here in my shop and that you speak Hindi!” she proclaimed. “So many tourists come through here but they don’t speak Hindi. Were you in India?”
I recounted my story to her- three trips, six months, all over North and South India. And I loved every second of it.
Sarla, the old woman, was from New Delhi. When I told her that I had been to Paharganj and Majnukatilla in Delhi, she nearly jumped up and down with excitement.
While Mira and I chattered with her incessantly about India (Mira has spent time in India as well) and perused the clothes, an absolutely gorgeous salwar kameez caught my eye. It was orange, red, and black, spread into a pattern that looked almost tribal. I knew instantly that I had to try it on. It fit me absolutely perfectly. Sarla clapped her hands.
“I will give you a good price for this salwar,” she said. “I had very good business today and you made my day, so I will give you a special price.”
While my phone played Hanuman rapping in the background for Sarla’s utter delight, she slashed 10 dollars off of the salwar kameez (she sold it for only $45, which is cheap even by India standards considering the quality!), and gave me a pair of gorgeous black and glittery earrings to go with it for free, as ‘a birthday gift’ (I had told her my birthday was tomorrow).
Standing there, basking in the warmth and loveliness of the beautiful lady who was so giving and so happy that I knew and understood her culture, I felt so unbelievably happy to know people in the world that have gone out of their way for no reason at all other than kindness. There are rare occasions when I’ve come across this when traveling- that is, meeting a foreigner and the only thing that ties us together is a few words or a gesture- but this forms a bond and a kinship that are beyond words. It is the very power of humanity. And it says that even though we are very different people, from very different backgrounds, we can understand each other. We can love each other.
Thank you lovely Sarla, for making my day, maybe even my whole experience, in New York. We need more interconnectedness like this in the world.
Filed under: India
This past week, I’ve been in Dharamsala, India, with my amazing Tibetan family.
I first met my Tibetan family when I was with Carpe Diem in the Spring of 2008. We did a homestay in McLeod Ganj (part of Dharamsala) for a week, to learn about Tibetan families and issues. Dharamsala is home to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile. Many Tibetans fled Tibet (which is now part of China) in 1959 after China invaded Tibet. It is still a very controversial and heated issue today- my stance on it is of course, that Tibet should be a free country. You may say I have a biased opinion considering I am so close to a Tibetan family. But that is where I stand and will always stand.
Anyway, I ended up homestaying with this family in India and I just completely fell in love with them (four brothers, one of them has a wife and two kids). I barely knew them, but I fit in with them immediately. I absolutely loved their family- I loved that they had so little, but loved each other so much; that they were always playing music and dancing, laughing, and spending time with each other; that their home was incredibly small, but incredibly cozy and comfortable for me; and that they went out of their way immediately to make me feel like I was part of their family. I also felt this strange connection to everything Tibetan- the language, the food, the dress, the customs, the way of life- to such an intense extent that I felt I should stay there. It felt like the right place to be in my life at the time, and so I made a very hard decision to leave my Carpe Diem group, and I stayed with my Tibetan family in India for the rest of my time there (the remaining six weeks). It was the best decision I’ve made in my life, and it’s pushed me to make many other important decisions in my life (such as choosing to go to Global College). It was the first decision I made where I wasn’t doing it for anyone else but me- and I made the decision because it felt so right at the time, and I trusted myself enough to follow that.
Making the decision to stay with them in Dharamsala has reaped huge benefits in my life, the first and foremost being that I feel I’ve gained an entire new family in the past year, as well as experiencing a completely different way of life (and with that has come many new revelations). They are my brothers (and sister), and I am their little sister to them. I’ve kept in touch with them over the past year by phone, and I’ve talked to them at least once a week. Finally, I had the chance to come visit them again for a week after I was finished with my internship in Bangladesh- and once again, it was one of the best decisions I’ve made.
Meet the Family:
This is my brother Nawang. He is 25 years old (or 23? They all don’t know. Age doesn’t matter in Tibetan society and they don’t even know their real birthdays). Nawang was the first person I met in their family. When I first met him he was incredibly shy and only spoke in Tibetan to his brothers. But after about two weeks of me staying there, suddenly this quiet guy turned into this loud, crazy, dancing machine, always laughing and cracking jokes. I feel very close to my chocho (brother) Nawang, and I talk to him (or rather he rambles on for hours) on the phone quite often.
This is my ‘Pala’ (father in Tibetan). His name is Minjig but I always call him my Pala, for one of two reasons. One being that when I was given my homestay assignment, I was told that Minjig was my ‘Pala,’ and his wife Chemi was my ‘Amala’ (mother), because their parents are dead, so I was given a young Pala and Amala. The other reason why I call him ‘Pala’ is because I respect him so much. This man is only 26 years old and has two kids (Lobsang, five, and Choeying, 4 months), and he works so hard to keep his family together. You could say he is the glue that holds his family together- everyone looks to him for advice, and he is very respected in McLeod Ganj. I respect him as much as I respect my own Pala.
This is my Amala (mother) Chemi. She is the sweetest and nicest person I know. She takes care of all four of the brothers, and puts up with all of them living in the same house. Not only that, but she has a job and two kids to take care of, and the way she handles all of it is quite courageous and admirable. And as you can see, she is amazingly beautiful. My Pala is very lucky.
This is Lobsang, my five year old brother. He is Chemi and Minjig’s first son, and he is a wild and crazy boy. Whether he’s throwing out curse words and giving everyone the finger, or kicking and punching everyone, or screaming and laughing, this naughty little boy sure knows how to grab everyone’s attention. But he is endearingly naughty, so much fun to be around, and life wouldn’t be the same without my little Lobsang.
This is the newest addition to the family, baby Choeying. He is four months old, and the cutest baby I’ve ever seen. Everyone absolutely adores him, and life seems to center around him in McLeod Ganj- everyone is always coming to Chemi’s store to play with him, and all of the brothers are always holding him, cooing at him, feeding him, or trying to get him to sleep.
This is Tashi, the oldest brother. He is 38 years old and has two kids. Tragically, his wife died giving childbirth to their second child- you could say Tashi hasn’t been dealt the best cards in life. But he still takes everything that’s been given to him in the best light possible, and I have a lot of fun with him. We laugh together a lot, call each other ‘porto nyonpa’ or ‘morto nyonma’ (crazy old man/crazy old woman), and sit around for hours talking. I love my brother Tashi to death, and he is an amazing individual.
The little girl on the left is Yankgyi, Tashi’s first child. She is seven years old and very shy. She is at boarding school at TCV (‘Tibetan Children’s Village’), which is about 20 minutes away from McLeod Ganj. She spends all of her vacations at home with the family, but spends most of her time up at the school. She is very cute, very smart, and speaks English fairly well for an eight year old.
This is Dawoe, Tashi’s second child. He is the most quiet and calm child I have ever met, and he is very serious. He lives with Dawa (also in the picture), their older sister (she has five children of her own, but she lives in another house in McLeod Ganj so I don’t know her as well).
This is Tsering, the fourth brother. He is 29 years old, and currently he’s living in another small room in McLeod Ganj. He’s a very nice person, very smart, and speaks English the best out of his family. He wants the best for all of them and is always hatching plans to make things better for his brothers. He is the one that I’ve gotten to know the best and talked to the most.
It’s been the most amazing week, and I’m so glad I made the decision to come see them again. Whether it was learning Tibetan curse words from my five year old brother Lobsang, or tripping over stairs and falling (twice) with my brothers Tsering and Tashi after going out for tea, or learning how to make Tibetan tea, bhale (bread), and gonga (half fried egg) from Chemi, or eating mutton momos (momo is a Tibetan dumpling) again at Norling restaurant (a place I frequented often last year), or just BEING there again in the most intoxicating place on earth to me- I. love. Dharamsala. I love my Tibetan family, and they are some of the most important people in the world to me. And while I’m very sad that I left, and that I will probably have to wait a whole entire year before seeing them again- it is worth it, because I am so lucky and so glad that they have come into my life, become like a family to me, and have made everything so much richer for me. I am truly a blessed person.
My family and I together in the Spring of 2008.
Much love,
Sangmo (my Tibetan name my family gave me- it means ‘kind girl,’ and it was their mother’s name)
Note: This post was written before I left for Dharamsala, but I never had the chance to post it. Please read this as if you have been transported back in time to a week and a half ago. Thanks friends!
My last weekend in Bangladesh, I went to Chittagong (the second largest city in Bangladesh) and Cox’s Bazar (‘the best beach in SouthEast Asia’- this will later be refuted) with five French interns. Yes, I was the only American. Yes, I learned some essential French phrases this weekend (“Your Mom is crazy”). Taking a seven hour bus ride to the middle of nowhere with five other French speaking people? Classic. Basically when we arrived in Chittagong at 5 AM I ended up sleeping the day away because the bus ride was the most uncomfortable experience EVER.
Cox’s Bazar… is supposed to be the big ‘tourist’ destination in Bangladesh. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I went. The beach is actually relatively clean (by Bangladeshi standards), and it was nice to spend the day feeling a cool breeze on my face. However, it was quite literally going to the beach, Bangladeshi style. Everyone stared at us like we were aliens. Hawkers came by every two minutes with jewelry, coral, horse rides, beach motorcycle rides, you name it. Every other two minutes beggars came along. People would find excuses to sit by us so they could stare at us and discreetly take pictures of us on their phones. Truthfully, I almost feel like I’m starting to get an inkling of what a celebrity must feel like. When you want to just ‘get away for the weekend’ and not be stared at by continuously- it’s impossible, even in Cox’s Bazar.
Bangladeshis are always trying to get foreigners to vote Cox’s Bazar as one of the ’seven natural wonders of the world.’ Okay, first off, the smell is overpowering (and not pleasant), the ocean is the dirtiest I’ve ever seen, and to call it ‘the best beach of SouthEast Asia’- obviously these folks have not been to Thailand. But I am kind of going on a complain train here so I’ll end with- Cox’s Bazar was nice and it was nice to visit, but the hassle getting there and back was not worth it, and if you come to Bangladesh I would highly recommend the tea gardens (Sylhet) over Cox’s Bazar.
Then I spent my last day going out in style- getting ripped off by CNG drivers, sitting in traffic for two hours sweating in a tiny corner of a taxi, and getting some intense food poisoning for my final meal. It was almost like Bangladesh wanted me to experience the worst things possible about Bangladesh on my last day so I could appreciate India even MORE when I got here. Now I am in Delhi, at the Tibetan Refugee Settlement (Majnukatilla), slurping on a banana smoothie and readying myself for a grand 13 hour bus ride. Dharamsala, here I come!
Much love,
Brittany
Filed under: India
Hi Friends,
Sorry I have not written in a long time. Right now I am in India and crazy things are happening. It is very hard to come to the internet and write long, long posts about the things that are going on in my life right now. However, I promise when I get back to the States (in 3 days), you will get a nice, LOOONNGGGG update about the end of Bangladesh, Delhi, Dharamsala, the ridiculous sickness I’ve had for the past week, and the wonderful amazing reunion with my Tibetan family.
Miss and love all of you!
-Brittany
