Life in McG

The protests are less frequent now, only in the evenings, and Tibetan businesses have reopened. They were closed for 10 days in sympathy with Tibet. There is still a great deal of political activity, it will not stop until the Olympics are over in Bejing. I fully support the Tibetans in this.

My days are busy enough. In the morning I go to the Art School, these kids are lovely as is Lhamo, their teacher. Today we're going to make teddy bears!


At lunch I tutor Kunchok, a 25 yo Tibetan man, in reading and understanding English.
In the afternoon I teach an ever expanding class (perhaps they've heard how great the teacher is) of adults Pre-Intermediate English. They don't have the teacher manual, so I'm often puzzled myself, trying to explain why it's 'think' and not 'thinks' or why the 'y' in frying pan changes to an 'i' when you add 'ed'. The sadist in me loves setting homework.

Lincoln visited for a few days just after I arrived, and I took a 24 hour bus trip Rajistan to say good-bye to him last weekend.

Lincoln and I spent a night in peaceful luxury at Naddi, 20 mins from noisy McG.

I took a walk up the mountain with Lhamo, the teacher I work with, but she forgot to tell me it was 18 km return trip. It was gorgeous though, and we hung prayer flags on top of the mountain for our, and our families' future success.

Lhamo and I 2800m above sea level. That's 1000m higher than Mcleod Ganj


My drink bottle after I walked back down.

Sean should be arriving next week, we haven't seen each other (except on Skype) since early January. I'm going to be mentaAnd India's so much easier with a man around.

I'm loving the volunteer work, still trying to remember how lucky I am, but after 4 weeks I'm still trying to work out the answer to a seemingly simple question. Do I like India?

Indians going to work at Naddi.



On the road in Rajistan

Just after this photo the they charged and I was cowering in a shop doorway.

Hindi Holi Day paint wars. Tourists make great targets. It wasn't as crazy here as in other parts of India as there aren't many Hindus, mainly Tibetans and Muslims from Kashmir.

View from my balcony.