Back online!

I'm now back in Kandze after a 12 days stay in Rigul. Tomorrow
(Sunday 14th), I'll leave for Yachen with Khenpo Senge.

Here's an overview of my time in Rigul.

May 1st:

We left Kandze at 3.30 am in a truck fully loaded with goods for one
of the small shops in Rigul. We were 6 passengers and we really had
to squeeze in the cabin! It was not as cold as I thought it would be
but the truck was so slow when going uphill. It was terrible! We had
our first stop in Dzogchen after 6 hours of driving (it usually takes
4 hours!). We had our breakfast there. The weather was really great.
We reached Rigul around 1.30 pm. Riga and Choden came to welcome me.
I'll stay with Choden and her family. Josine and Justin, the two
Dutch travelers that I met in the bus to Kandze, had decided to visit
Rigul too and arrived around 6 pm with Khenpo Wangpel and Doctor
Chuga. They'll stay with me at Choden's. You can check their travel
blog at www.geocities.com/jenjontour

May 2nd:

First breakfast with Tsampa, it's good to be back here. It's spring
and most families are quite busy. They have to take the yacks uphill
every day, it's also time to sow barley and to fix the house after
the winter. Their life is really tough and they work hard from early
morning to the evening.
I did some laundry in the morning (the water in the river is really,
really cold). Then we visited the school (45 kids including half a
dozen of girls). The children demonstrated very loudly their reading
talents. We visited Riga. He's quite busy as Lamas are staying at his
home to perform rituals for his mother who died a couple of weeks
ago. The day long rituals are performed for 49 days after the death.
He offered us droma (the local delicacy made of sweet potatoes and
melted butter). I actually got sick and didn't feel well for the rest
of the day!

May 3rd:

Feeling much better. We had lunch at Chuga's, I avoided droma this
time. We went to visit a few other people in the afternoon.
Everywhere we go we are offered food and drinks in large quantities.
Justin says that he feels like he's having christmas dinner every
day. I must reckon that he's a very good guest as he always accepts a
second serving. We pay a second visit to the school, this time a
dozen children individually came to us to read and write. For the
moment, Tibetan is the only topic taught at the school.
We are visited by Tsen Jo a 38 years old almost blind monk. He's
eyesight has been very bad for almost 7 years. He would like me to
find sponsors to raise the 6000 RMB (600 euros) to go to Kanding/
Dartsedo and get the operation to regain his eyesight. So it maybe
the time for you to be generous!
It rained in the evening and during the night.
May 4th:

Fog in the morning and snow on the peaks! We went to help "our
family" to sow. It's not a heavy work but it seems to require a good
technique. At noon, I had a meeting with the main lamas of the
monastery to talk about our projects here. It went quite well even if
language is sometimes a problem. Returned home in the afternoon and
was visited by the lamas running the school for a look at the
accounts. Josine and Justin did pancakes for the family. They were a
little surprised! They all say it was so delicious that they wanted
to leave it all for us. In the evening we had dinner next door. Our
guest, Dechen Palmo is the widow of Choden's brother and mother of 4.
She's working very hard to feed her family, so is her eldest daughter
Yala, who never had the chance to go to school as she has to help at
home. She's really brave I think!

May 5th:

We went with Choden to visit the surrounding villages of Kara Gon,
Kana and Api. We had a lot of food and drinks (what a surprise) but
we were good enough to avoid droma. I had a lot of fun giving
printouts of some of the pix I took last year. We walked quite a
lot, but it was great!

Among others, we visited the family of Yeshe Cheutso the nun I
sponsor in Yachen. They too recently suffered the loss of a family
member and lamas are busy performing rituals. I was told that after
the 49 days of mourning, Kaga (Yeshe Cheutso's older siter) will also
become nun and go to Yachen.

May 6th:

Josine and Justin left to continue their world tour. We drove
together to Dzogchen as I wanted to visit a local school with Riga to
get inspiration for the school in Rigul. Choden also came with us.
Josine had been sick during the night and was still feeling unwell.
We were expecting the car at 6 am, it finally arrived at 8 am! The
dive to Dzogchen was 2h30, that'd good. We visited Dzogchen
monastery, the school and then Ringu Tulku's aunt. Around 2 pm we
put Josine and Justin in a taxi for Kandze and said goodbye. They are
very fine people. I had a lot of fun with them. They were really good
at adapting to the life in Rigul. I hope that we'll stay in touch.
We'll I'm quite sure we will!
After their departure, we called Ringu Tulku to gave him the latest
news. Everybody did some shopping. I bought nun's robes for Kaga that
I have decided to sponsor and fruits and vegetables for the family.
Among the fruits was a huge water melon. Choden had no idea what it
was and first thought it was a vegetable that had to be cooked. The
drive back to Rigul was fast and easy.

May 7th:

This was my day "off". I did nothing special. The weather was great
and I was able to take a shower thanks to the sun shower that the
group from Colorado left last year. In about five hours the water was
38°C and it was a very pleasant!

May 8th:

I wanted to visit the parents of Wangchen a monk from Rigul who
studies in India and that I sponsor. They usually live in Rinchen
Ling, the village on the other side of the river. Nowadays they are
uphill with their yacks. I decided to walk there anyway. As Choden
was busy, Yala (see may 4th) came with me. The walk was more
difficult that I thought. More than 8 kilometers and 400 meters
uphill! The last two kilometers had a 10% climb rate. At the end my
heart could give the beat to a techno dance track! I had to stop
every 20 meters! We met with Laga, Wangchen's father. He offered us
tea and tsampa for lunch. The walk back (and down!) was much easier
and I was happy to reach home and have yet another shower. It rained
(snow uphill) at the end of the day.

May 9th:

I had been invited to stay overnight at Yeshe Cheutso's family in
Kara Gon. They came to fetch me with a motor bike around 11 am. After
lunch I went for a walk around Kara Gon and to Kana (1 km). There I
took pictures of people building a house. There were mostly (quite
young) girls/women carrying mud for the roof for a salary of 15 RMB
(1.5 euro) per day. Most of them never had the chance to go to
school. I really would like to do something for them, I have an idea
but more on that later.
I also visited Khenpo Senge who lives next t o the building site. He
offered me a nice welcome and (of course) some nice food. I then
returned to Kara Gon where I played cards with young monks during
their break from the funeral rituals.

May 10th:

I felt sick during the night and slept very bad. I also hurt my
forehead when going out for a pee. By the time the sun rose, I felt
really sick, tired, weak and unable to eat anything. I more or less
slept during the whole morning. Around 2 pm they drove me back to
Rigul. I went straight to bed. They called doctor Chuga in. He gave
me a cocktail of medicine that eventually got me a little better.
That's the good thing about sponsoring a local clinic, medicine is
available! I was able to eat some rice soup in the evening. Listened
to some music on the iPod to cheer me up and had a good night.

May 11th:

I was feeling a little better and had a light breakfast of noodles.

Chuga gave me another 9 pills mix. I don't like to take unknown
medicine but it sure helped me to feel better. I started to pack and
around 11 am went uphill to Chuga's place. They put me on a horse to
get there. Chuga was quite busy with many patients. I had lunch there
and yet another pill. On the way down I stopped at Riga's place. He
gave me a copy of the school accounts and letters for Ringu Tulku. He
had been unable to find a car for me to go to Dzogchen on the next
day so we'll go on bike. Khenpo Senge will travel with me up to
Yachen. The dinner home was quite with everyone giving me messages
and letter for Ringu Tulku and his familly.

May 12th:

First thing I did when I woke up was to look trough the window to
check the weather. Well, it was not nice: foggy and rainy. The bikes
arrived around 8 am, it was still raining. I put on many layers of
clothing and we left after the usual goodbyes. Our party was made of
three bikes (one for my luggage, one for Khenpo as passenger and one
for me as passenger). The weather got worse along the way and then
after one hour, the chain of my bikes broke. They try to fix it with
a minimal amount of tools using stones as hammer. After more than one
hour, they finally decided to send one bike to buy a new chain in the
next village. In total it took around two to three hours to fix it.
Then the weather got even worse with rain, snow and hail! We reached
the Dzogchen area around 1 pm and we stopped at the first restaurant
where we all rushed to the stove to get warm. After lunch (and some
extra bike fixing) we drove to the Hot Springs bus stop near
Dzogchen. Of couse as we had been delayed, the bus to Kandze had
already left. We then waited in the cold and rain until 5 pm when
finally at taxi to Kandze passed. Then it started to really snow
quite heavily. The climb to the Muri-la pass was done with very poor
visibility conditions and the road covered with snow. In Manigango we
almost had a head-on collision with a truck! We really got lucky! We
finally reached Kandze around 8.30 pm. We got a room at the Loung-Ta
as before. We had a quick dinner and went to bed. Then I had a
terrible night at Khenpo Sengen snored really heavily all the night
trough!