The Students' Picnic

23rd June 2017

Always room for one more on a motorbike in India!
Tseten, Wangchuk and Kelnam about to leave for camp

"Teacher, eat more!" and "Teacher, do you need my help?" Would have to be the two phrases I heard the most on the students' graduation picnic. 

Eat more was relatively easy to do, the food they prepared was special food, with different flavours and more yummy vegetables than normal.  The fact that this was prepared on the floor, and cooked on a single gas burner was even more impressive.

"Do you need my help?" Was always a very sweet offer, but when offered in the context of going to the toilet or going to bed, I had to suppress my smiles of amusement and assure them that I could manage on my own.  

Tsetem trimming bamboo tent poles with a meat cleaver

To be fair to them, going to the toilet did involve a round walk of half a kilometre or so, and going to bed did involve negotiating my way in the dark past a stairwell that had no balustrade.  One wrong step would undoubtedly result in at least one broken bone.

Picnic preparations started with a vengeance on Monday.  There is a discussion at lunchtime of which I understand nothing, but sense that while input is requested, anyone offering ideas contrary to Tashi’s plans is loudly talked down.  I could be wrong.  Money is collected (1000 rupees per person, I can give more if I like…), the blue tarpaulins which sit under the dining room roof are eyed off, clumps of giant bamboo are similarly being eyed off, and attacked with a meat cleaver from the kitchen – in the absence of any more suitable tools.  There is mass washing of various cloths, which are going to be used, maybe for making a tent. 

If we had a kitchen sink, maybe that would have come too!

As the afternoon / evening progresses a couple of the boys attempt to get the disco light from the main office verandah down.  Nothing so effete as a stepladder to achieve this.  Instead, lying along the 6-8 cm wide ledge along the outer edge of the railings above.  Finally Tashi puts himself into a most precarious position, with Kunzang making an ineffectual effort to hang onto his shorts, and removes the globe.  Remarking, as he got back into an upright position, something about “self confidence” at which I had to laugh.  It was an expression from that morning’s lesson.  I must confess, it was a feat that had me holding my breath, and I’m reasonably immune to a fair degree risk taking in 3^rd world countries…

Many supervisors!

Tsetem asks if I have any tape, as he effects electrical extension cords by the simple process of putting together short lengths.  I say no, but then think to check the cupboard in the teachers’’ room.  No tape, but there is a packet of balloons which are gleefully seized by Kunzang when I take them downstairs.

Tsetem is now officially my hero.  He asks over dinner if I would like to sleep with the students or whether I would like a private tent.  I confess to preferring a private tent.  He has borrowed one from a friend, because he thought that might be better for me.  It has a built in floor and a mosquito net.  And he pointed out that it means if I want to go to sleep early, I can.  It’s a long time since I slept on the ground without a lilo… it was Twilight Tarn, maybe 10 years ago…. But Tsetem tells me I should take cushions to sleep on.  I’ll need to consult with the girls as to exactly what that means. 

Packing up the tuk-tuk truck

Further preparation has included washing out the water buckets (not before time) and scrubbing a couple of the pots to within an inch of their lives – they are clean and shiny and fit to put next to anything in the transport vehicle, as opposed to more or less clean inside which is the norm.

On Tuesday, over lunch, more becomes clear.  Tashi and Tsetem have been busy all morning (including Tashi politely requesting leave for both of them to go shopping, rather than attend class.  I hate to think how he would have handled it had I said “no”!) with picnic preparations.  Tashi is talking to everyone around the rearrageed dining tables, and Zokkar is sitting next to me and translating.  However at one point, Thupten takes it upon himself to translate:  Tashi has said that we should take mattresses to sleep on, but only one mattress between 2.  And I should choose…..  I eye off the students speculatively, to their amusement.

And the truck is ready to go
- complete with a few of the boys in the back

I am reminded of a Saturday morning many years ago, waiting at Forest Lag on Bathurst Harbour for the dingy to return from the airstrip run to Melaleuca with the first group of changeover campers.  The sky was blue, hardly a breath of wind, a lovely day for flying over Tasmania’s south west wilderness.  Nothing.  We waited, and waited, and waited. 

The conversation moved from the mildly speculative to the ridiculous, and it was postulated that some massive catastrophy had resulted in the end of the world as we know it, and we were the only people left on earth.  We must repopulate the human race and I was pointed to as the only female of reproductive age…. I should choose the first to father a child….

Nothing like an absolute downpour
to enhance  packing up for a picnic

Back to party preparations.  All that is needed to prepare the camp, along with a number of the boys, is loaded into a tuk-tuk truck – the cheapest form of transport available.  By the time honoured method of “rock, paper, scissors”, as a group of 23 – 38 year old men would, it is decided who will ride in the front with the driver and who will ride pillion on the motorbike.  

The pillion rider and Wangchuk, along with Thupten give the tuk-tuk truck a push to get it going with its heavy load, and Wangchuk runs after it to leap onto the back – but the truck has gained momentum too quickly.  Never mind, there is always room for a third riding pillion in India.

And it seems that Thupten has been given permission by Tashi not to go and help to set up the camp.  His friend (not his girlfriend, he said before) comes to visit.

The girls are left behind with the role of making bread for tomorrow’s breakfast, which we will have when the rest of us reach the picnic camp.  The boys will sleep at the camp tonight to look after it (and commence the party, I suspect… but I could be wrong)

And we're off!  Kunzang, Choeden, Yangtso,
Deki, Zokkar and T-Deki

The original campsite - through the rain

A bit after 6 I go to find the girls to ask if they intend cooking vegetables for dinner, if not, I will cook myself some dinner.  They say “yes” so I return to my previous activities.  A bit after 7 I go down to find that they are making bread first – if I am hungry, I can eat bread.  I decline, as I don’t want to fill up on bread, but around 8, go down and get a piece of the flatbread – at this stage they are starting to make another type of bread.  Vegetables have been prepared, but they are left with only one gas burner (the other has gond to the camp) so can only cook one thing at a time.  A bit after 9 I go down with the intent of grabbing a handful of raw cauliflower and tomato, pouring boiling water over the cauliflower, and calling it dinner, but they tell me 5 minutes ….. it’s 9:30 when we finally sit down for dinner and it’s rather fun with just the girls – they are different on their own.  The meal is very nice, but way too late for me and I don’t linger!! News from the WeChat group tells us that the boys have dined on instant noodles (reconstituted or not – it is uncertain) and are now enjoying a bit of a party, with some whiskey and beer. 

I wake around 3:30 needing to go to the toilet.  I am not going to miss middle-of-the-night navigating of outside concrete steps with no railing when my time here finishes.  It is raining gently, so I take my umbrella.  As I get back to my room, the skies open.  I am glad of my walls and roof, and think of the campers, thinking again that a picnic at the school would be a good idea.

Breakfast: 2 varieties of flatbread with chilli or peanut butter
served with milky tea

The actual day of the picnic, the summer solstice, dawned wet.  And got wetter.  I had been told that I needed to be ready at 8am, so I rose at 6, had a couple of cups of coffee and a banana and packed my big bag with a thick doonah, which would serve as my matress, a blanket and a pillow, and threw a change of clothes and a few other bits and pieces in my backpack.  The vehicle appeared at 7:30am, to coincide with a change in weather from a light, steady rain to a torrential downpour.  The driver regularly tooted the horn in a demanding fashion, despite having been acknowledged and the downpour continuing.  The girls were accumulating their gear and trying to find locks for the main office, the classroom which houses a flat screen tv and the kitchen, the latter just in case anyone felt inclined to steal the gas cylinder and gas ring.  This is India, after all.  

Tseten with my private bedroom
- very kind of him to let me use it

Eventually at about 8, they were ready, the rain eased somewhat, and the remaining luggage and food, 6 girls, 1 kitten, and Thupten, who had materialised at he last minute, were loaded into the vehicle and we were, off.  

There was much hilarity as we travelled the half hour or so south-east towards our destination.  The road mainly wound through a series of scruffy villages, with the occasional larger untidy town.  These were separated by attractive valleys, each of which had a river flowing along a bed littered with large boulders.  Unfortunately, the boulders were not all that littered the valleys.  I read somewhere that when the British came to India they labelled the Indians as dirty, dishonest and lazy and when they left, these had not changed.  There is litter and rubbish almost everywhere.  Although the rain had created sufficient run-off to muddy the rivers, the inherent natural beauty of these was still evident.  The students enlivened the journey with song (with Thupten being very derogatory whenever the girls were off key). 

Looking toward the mountains,
but seeing only the inside of a cloud

We had been steadily gaining a little altitude and as we left the last bigger town, the road got a little steeper and the landscape which had already been dotted with evidence of agriculture became more rural with some forested areas - rather attractive.

At one point we stopped, it seems we may have overshot the turnoff, and exchange of phone messages resulted in us proceeding until we could turn around.  Tseten and Wangchuk were waiting at the turnoff, and Tseten energetically ran ahead of us to show the way.  

Rural Aspect from our "camp"

It was only a matter of minutes before we pulled up beside a small cluster of buildings, including one under construction...this was to be our camp for the night.

The downpours we had experienced back at school had extended to this area also.  The one at 3:30am, had resulted in a complete soaking of the campers.  Water had come into the large makeshift tent via the ends and flowing under the sides;  even the small tent, occupied by Tseten at that point, shared in this wetting.  

The result was an adjournment to shelter ... I am uncertain about the timing of this … and negotiation with the owner about camping there.  At a cost of 500 rupees a day. So rather than being in a tent in a grassy meadow, we were on concrete floors in a half finished house.  At least the roof did not leak.

More rural aspect
- that building housed the toilets we were able to use

The boys had set up one room as a bedroom / living room and one as a kitchen.  They asked if I wanted to sleep with them or elsewhere.  I elected the latter as there was another room that required only a little moving of building materials to clear floorspace.  I asked about a broom, and/or a piece of plastic, requests that meet with vagueness, but Tsetem comes in and says I can use his mosquito net – this wonderful piece of apparatus is actually a little tent arrangement that I had previously seen when he and Deki has erected it on the roof one ridiculously hot night.  He really is incredibly kind.  I have told Deki before that he is a good man!

Yet more rural aspect

He sets it up for me and the boys help me make my bed – spreading out the doonah, and putting the blanket and pillow onto it, and placing my backpack inside.  Really quite cosy.  They decide that the wooden planks, which were previously moved aside, might be better placed under my bed, I suggest that under the “tent” floor might be a good idea.  Deki wanders in to admire the arrangements and kindly tells me that if I am scared to sleep by myself she will come and sleep with me.  Sometimes I don’t know when the students are joking and when they are serious, but had I said I was afraid to sleep alone in that place I have no doubt that there would have been volunteers!

Carom game:  Tashi, Tsetem, Wangchuk & Thupten

By then it is past mid-morning and time for breakfast.  The bread that that girls were making so industriously the night before, with peanut butter or chilli, and accompanied by milky tea is set out.  There are 3 types of bread – the dry flatbread, an oil based flatbread and another sweet twisted bread that has been deep fried.  This latter one has eggs and sugar in and is a special treat, and mainly for snacks later in the day.

After breakfast I inquire about toilet facilities – no formal arrangements have been made;  Sangpo points out a toilet block and says he used that one earlier – and yes, I should ask.  I wander over and ask a passing young man, who nods.  Luxury, a relatively clean western toilet.  Later in the day, I find this locked, and use the squat.  The next time I go, there is a lady nearby busy with domestic tasks, and I ask her, she nod, and when I come out, engages me in convesation, asking about me, and asking me to tell the students not to use these toilets, they are private, but to use another toilet block below the house in front.  I pass on this information.

The kitten indulging in a regular pass time:  suckling itself!

Thupten doing masterchef imitations

 In due course, Deki says she has talked with a woman from that house in front, and yes, there is a toilet we may use, but we must flush and leave it clean – not an onerous condition!  
Unfortunately, the next morning, the power is off, the water for the toilet runs out and we are told that we can no longer use this.  Long walks to the forest, half a kilometre or so away, past where the tents were set up, is required. 

Somewhat later, Deki has arranged that we can use the toilets in antother block of flats, somewhat further away than previous toilets but a little closer than the forest.

Laying out the banquet lunch

The rain continues through the morning of our first day of the picnic and various activities are chosen:  cards, carom, sleeping, reading, videos and music (via phones).  Lunch preparations takes half the students quite some time, most peeling and cutting, and I am suitably impressed by what Thupten, as chief cook, puts together:  as one student suggests as I photgraph his efforts, a veritable masterchef – only done under much more difficult circumstances.  He asks whether I like my vegetables cooked mixed or separately and I nominate mixed, as being easier with only one gas burner, without realizing that he intends cooking vegetables separeately anyway, so there is an enormous bowl of mixed vegetables cooked, just for me!

As the food was being set out for lunch, a serious storm sets in.  The heavy rain intensifies ten-fold, and a gale force wind hits us, driving rain into the kitchen area, and through the glass-less window to the living/sleeping area we are using.  A mad rush to move things to where they won’t get wet, protect the food, get sheets tied up on the outside of the windows, to prevent the rain driving in, etc takes about 10 minutes before we can sit down to a superb lunch.  It’s not exactly warm, and students are rugged up in jackets or wrapped in blankets.

Sangpo with kitten, keeping warm

There is a group game after lunch:  a question and answer game, based on drawing cards at random, and the lowest number card asks the holder of the next highest card a question, which they must answer honestly.  A bit like truth and dare, without the dare option.  This generates hilarity and teasing, of course.  A few personal truths come out which are previously unknown, and other questions are less personal in nature.  I am asked how I felt when I arrived at the “camp” and said while I wondered about the wisdom of camping in such weather, when a party could be had at school, I was very glad of walls and a roof that did not leak and I had a very comfortable bed set up.  And I was very glad to be able to see them enjoying themselves.  OK, the bit about a very comfortable bed might have been a bit of an exaggeration, but they had done their best for me under the circumstances…

The aftermath of the storm:  this was the students' tent!

By late afternoon the rain has cleared enough for people to venture out for a walk, and I wander over to inspect the big tent, which has been completely blown over by the storm earlier.  The small tent is standing, and I am quite surprised.  It does not seem too damp inside, but Tseten assures me that the water was coming in last night.

I spend a fair bit of the early evening reading, while students pusue their own interests – and prepare dinner.  I sit outside on a stack of bricks on the slab that will become a balcony and enjoy the rural aspect.  Tseten comes out and tells me that I’m on dinner duty, so I stand up, but then he tells me he is joking, all I have to do is relax!  Dinner is to be hot-pot, it will make a wonderful change.

Our alternate "campsite" from the outside

A walk past the intended campsite gave us views of meadows

As darkness descends, I move inside to the living/student sleeping space, where lights have been rigged, and continue reading for a while, then adjourn for a nap.  Dinner is late, as all meals have been, and it is after 9 before there is setting out of bowls and mixing of quantities of chopped garlic, salt and sesame oil in the bottom of all bowls ready for the hotpot – which of course comes in 2 versions: vegetarian and meat.  The vegetarian option has plenty of mushroom, bok choi and reconstituted dried fungus of some description, amongst other ingredients.  It is superb, but eating after 9 really is too late for me.  By the time dinner is eaten and cleared and everything has been taken to the tap to be washed, it is well after 10 and the boys bring out the cards and the carom board, and the alcohol is opened:  Indian red wine and whiskey.  I choose whiskey, which is fairly basic, and some of the girls are drinking wine, including a couple of them who do not normally drink.  I request a small taste of the wine, out of curiousity, and concur with the faces pulled by those girls who do not normally drink.  It’s pretty grim.  Several of the students are choosing not to drink the alcohol, red bull and another caffeinated softdrink called mountain dew seem preferred options! 

The clouds finally clear to show us the Dhualadhar range

Sunset

Given the death trap of a stairwell outside the room in which I am sleeping, and the inconvenience of toilet arrangements, along with more than 2 months with almost no alcohol, a very small quantity of whiskey is more than sufficient for me!

The degree of hilarity and joking increases with the consumption but I retire to bed, exhausted.  It’s not an overly soft bed by any stretch of the imagination, but had I brought one of the flock mattresses from school, I don’t believe it would have been any better.  I exchange shirt and trousers for pyjamas and climb into my silk sleeping sheet and pull a blanket over me – the first blanket I have had over me for a long time.  We have about an extra 200m of altitude here, and that along with the change in weather, has resulted in rather a cool night. 

I wake early and get up, thinking I’ll make coffee, but both pots are full of food from the previous night, and the woks are oily – not a particularly appetizing option.  I settle for water.  Around 8:30, I sneak into the other room and grab a fistful of biscuits for breakfast – I suspect breakfast will still not be for some time, and I was correct.  Around 9 or so, students are stirring and food is moved around and a pot of water put on to heat.  I manage to extract some boiling water before tea is added, and add some of a sachet of “Bru” coffee.  Nescafe and Moccona are not about to be displaced from Australian supermarket shelves by this less-than-gourmet coffee.

Al fresco vegetable preparation

More vegetable preparation:  peeling vast quantities of garlic

 After some early light rain, the day has cleared, and the students decide that the balcony-to-be is an ideal place for breakfast 

Preparing individual bowls for hotpot:
with garlic and sesame oil

– the sleeping room being a bit fusty. Breakfast is the left over hot-pot “soup” with additional vegetables, and rice noodles, served with the special bread made on Tuesday evening.  It is rather good!

Hotpot  is served.

Breakfast on the balcony

The morning passes with students doing their own thing – sleeping, walking, cards and carom, chatting, dancing, and lunch is prepared.  I walk and read and walk again, walking to a meadow described by some of the girls – which turns out to be where our vehicle turned around the previous day.  It is well patronized by Indian’s exercising and picnicking and my approach generates excited waving by one small child and one lady’s very excited exit from the back of a lorry, which seems to be being used as a caravan by a very extended Indian family, so that she can have her photo taken with me.  How unusual.  Her example is followed by many more.

I am approached by an older man in white who is asking for money.  He has already tried this once back where we are camping and one of the men from the lorry/caravan is visually discouraging me from giving him.  I have no intention of doing so, and just keep repeating “no Hindi” and avoid eye contact.  I think he is asking for money for medicine, but I do not show any hint of interest.  I take the actions of the man from the lorry to suggest that the “medicine” might not be particularly helpful, or the whole thing being a bit of a scam. 

I finally extract myself from the selfie marathon, and walk around the meadow.  It’s rather a pretty location, with some lovely views towards sections of the Dhualadar range which are somewhat hidden from the school, as well as a distance Buddhist monastery.  There is scope to explore further, but a few drops of rain suggest that returning to “camp” might be advisable. 

I sit for a while, reading on the verandah, with the dancers on the grassy area below, but the volume (and repetitieveness) of their music drives me to find somewhere a little quieter. 

Lunch is served around 4pm and once again, it is a real spread.  Chief cook in this case being Lungrig, assisted by Zokkar.  Half a dozen or so others have, or course, contributed to peeling and chopping.  Included in the selection is bitter melon.  I am very glad that this has been prepared separately – I taste a small piece, which confirms my previous experience of it.  There are 2 big plates of it, which are scarcely touched.  Others clearly share my opinion of it!

During the afternoon, the girls have taken themselves off to a tap to wash their hair, and I suggest I will wait until we get back to school, to be told that we are staying another night.  That wasn’t on my radar!  I’m not coping overly well with the deferred meal times or feeling incredibly tired (I’ve already had a nap) and am a bit daunted by potentially uncomfortable insides and the prospect of long hikes in the middle of the night to access a toilet, so decide I will return to school.  

Dancing on the balcony

I tell the students, and Tashi suggests it might be unsafe for me to be alone at school (although I was alone at school the week of the Dalai Lama teachings) and says they will talk with the medium distance toilet owners and arrange to carry water for me to flush.  It is kind of him, but I decline and pack up my backpack, leaving the big bag with my bedding to be brought back the following day on the truck, and head down to catch a bus, having already checked with Lunrig, who arrived late under his own steam, about the buses.  I had initially thought to ask the students to arrange a taxi, but did not want to give them extra work, and they would think this rather a big expense.  The bus passes the road junction not far away, and Choeden and Wangchuk walk with me to the intersection, and are checking with a local person the name of the town down the hill where I might have to change bus, when the bus comes.  I flag it down, and it comes to a halt 50 metres down the road, and they run down with me.  Easy, the bus will go to Dharamsala, so I can get off at Fatiphur!  The fare is an extortionate 20 rupees!

The meadow up the road - a fairly popular place
- at least, close to the road!

I buy some vegetables in Fatiphur, on the way back to school, and am rather pleased to get there a little after 6.  I run a whole bucket of water for bathing (this does take quite some time) and use what is left over to soak my grimy clothes, and am glad to feel clean again and have the prospect of retiring early in front of me.  It was a good move to return – Deki subsequently tells me they partied until after 2am!

My Friday morning is much the same as any other non-teaching day, although I know I must cook myself some breakfast and feel a need for protein in my diet.  So after bathing and coffee, I wash my clothes and walk down to the shop to buy 4 eggs – highly expensive at 20 rupees! I clean up the kitchen work space and wash my cooking implements (the upturned oil jug is evidence of active rodents)….then cook mushroom and onion and whip the eggs for scrambling.  Around 30 seconds for the eggs in the frying pan, with the gas as low as I could get it, was sufficient to achieve a reasonably pleasant texture.  Why was I cooking scrambled eggs in a frying pan?  Because it has a smaller diameter than any other cooking pot in the kitchen!

The Dhualadhars

After cleaning up my cooking efforts, I prepare to walk to Fatipur for a jar of coffee – a 40 minute round walk for a 25g jar of Nescafe – and a café latte – good exercise at any rate!  I check my washing first and as I do, the tuk-tuk truck, accompanied by a motorbike unexpectedly pulls up with the camping gear and some students.  I had thought that they were returning in the evening, especially as the day is warm and sunny, and a good opportunity for outdoor games, but for that very reason they decided to come back to school early and properly dry out the gear that got such a soaking on the first night when the boys set up camp.  The rest of the students are returning by public bus – much cheaper than hiring a vehicle!

A distant monastery

Dancing in the meadow

I claim my bed bag and put it in my room and head up to Fatipur.  I purchase a few necessities and go to the bank to try to change some money.  I can use the ATM to withdraw, but this is rather expensive and I’d prefer to change the US dollars I am carrying.  Not going to happen in Fatipur – the bank tells me I must go to Dharamsala.  I might explore to see if there is a money changer in Norbulinka on Saturday – otherwise go to McLeod Ganj, where moneychangers abound!

I enjoy a latte in the café and decide that a plate of chips sounds good – yes, there is a lot of fried potato seved at school, but crisp chips sound appealing – not something I really eat much of, but a bit of a change – and a treat, since it’s still officially school picnic!

When I return, there is mass drying of mattresses and bedding along with some washing of blankets, sheets, shoes and clothes.  The remainder of my washing is well and truly dry and the mountains are still clear of any threatening clouds – and clear of haze after the rain has washed the pollution out of the sky – what that dirty and acidic rain has done to the environment is another matter…  there have been days recently when the pollution haze has obscured the mountains completely!

I have a lazy afternoon reading Bill Bryson – very different to the Dalai Lama’s autobiography – and wander down around 6 to find if the students have any plans to cook – Deki suggests that maybe not, perhaps I should cook for myself, which is fine, so I make a sort of risotto/friend rice, with enough to put in the fridge for another meal over the weekend – no doubt there will be haphazard meal preparation over the weekend.