Graduation and the Dalai Lama’s Birthday

6^th July

VERY special lunch

While the concept of having a graduation party before the final exam is an interesting one, there are some things that maybe should not be questioned too closely.  I guess the students have already had their graduation picnic and there was a good reason for the timing of that….

Apart from having been told the date of the graduation, I as rather unsure about what was to happen.  I had been told that it would be organized by the local manager and directors, but if anything had been planned, I was not told about it.  I asked the students and all they said was that there would be special food – which, it turned out, they would cook!  There has been nothing organized by the manager or the directors.

On the afternoon of the day prior to the party, students were preparing the dining area – signs, balloons with names and nicknames and the reinstatement of lights (with disco bulbs) and the tarpaulins to prevent some of the drips through the roof that had been taken down to take on the picnic occupied their time until dinner.  Some of their nicknames I had heard before, others were being invented:  the manager is “Slow penguin”, Wangchuk is “Mr Romantic”, Sangpo is “Chicken”. I am asked for suitable words to describe people or behaviour – “Cassanova” was rejected as too difficult, but “Playboy” was enthusiastically applied to Kalnam. I also suggest “Sweetheart” to Deki for her boyfriend Tseten – also applied.  They have given me “Our Honey” which is really sweet.)

Basketball game on improvised court

Tashi reappeared sometime in the afternoon after being absent for 3 days, consequently no eggs had been ordered for breakfast, a bit sad as eggs are one of my few sources of protein.   Thupten also reappears around dinnertime; he has been absent for a couple of weeks – investigating job opportunities in Delhi.  He tells me he has really only come back to say goodbye to those who have been his friends and family for 2 years.  For him, moreso family than most – most of his family were killed in a severe earthquake several years ago.

Since the dining room tables are laden with coloured paper, balloons, scissors and pens, dinner is served on the one small patch of grass in front of the school buildings.  I choose to bring a chair over rather than attempt to sit cross-legged on the ground.

On the day of the graduation party, breakfast included a savoury dish (potato cooked with garlic and tomato) to accompany the daily tingmo. 

Over breakfast Tashi says there will be no classes on the day after the party because they have to work today to cook food – I say there will be classes, since this will be the last day before exams.  The classes will be optional.  It turned out they were very optional, breakfast was not cooked and served until 10:30am!

My attempts to wrestle the printer into submission and print the exam were largly unsuccessful – the quality was totally inappropriate – however, the manager says to get a taxi tomorrow to Fatiphur to print the papers.

Later, I manage, very slowly, to print using the smaller printer, and figure out how to reset it in the process (it has a lovely habit of going into a meltdown if it runs out of paper or you try to cancel the last document printing)

During the morning the students play a basketball match on a cut down court which they have defined with the use of flour lines and they have similarly used flour to write “Free Tibet” on the court.

A veritable banquet

I head to Fatiphur to buy coffee and some toiletries and to have a café latte.  Not far from the school gate one of the directors who has been assisting the manager with some rearranging of equipment Board member offered me a pillion ride on his motorcycle;  it is very sweet of him but I am just not game for this mode of transport in India (or most places, come to that, but especially in India) And I am reasonably sure my insurance policy does not cover such activities.  I politely declined.

En route I stop to watch one of the blue-legged lizards, and an elderly man with dyed orange hair (the practice of many of the older people) stops inquiringly.  I point to the lizard which disappears over the wall before he sees it, and he thinks I am pointing at the flower, and goes to pick it for me – rather sweet.

Fruit salad, cauliflower stir fry, rice
and pork with noodles

I enjoy my latte and arrived back shortly before lunch.  The students have set out extra tables with tablecloths, from which to serve the food.  There were many different dishes – quite a remarkable feat to have produced so many on only 2 gas burners.  I enthusiastically help myself to paneer to find that it is tofu; nowhere near the flavour I was hoping for!  The fruit salad was excellent; while we generally get bananas or papaya twice a week for lunch, this included pomegranate and apple and was swamped in cream (the long life stuff, unfortunately, but for me to have dessert was a rare treat, I did go back for seconds!).  Over lunch T Deki shows me some videoclips of celebrations of the Dalai Lama’s birthday in Tibet:  videoclips of riders on horseback riding beside a car which is taking a high lama for an important ritual.  She also shows me the posts of many of her friends – photos of the Dalai Lama, some as a very small chid.

It seems that while previous graduating classes have had the opportunity for an audience with the Dalai Lama, that will not happen with this group since he is in Ladakah and will remain there for quite some time yet.

Tashi had relocated a couple of fans to keep us cooler over lunch – which was a really good move.  When the sun is shining the heat can still be uncomfortable even if we are not still getting high 30s.   He came to borrow my fan, quite prepared to move it from my room, but since my room is harbouring a number of exam papers, I moved it out to the office for him to take downstairs.  I did reclaim it after lunch; the teachers’ office is a bit of a fishbowl and gets very hot! 

Mushroom with rice noodle, meat and more meat

I spend the afternoon alternating between working on my blog post about Merak Sakten from 2 years ago (exactly) and putting together the remaining exam papers, marking rubrics, answer papers etc   The latter turned out to be much more work than I envisaged and I am only recycling old questions…. 

Later in the afternoon the rain started, rather with a vengeance, and upon investigation I found the students playing bingo in the library!  Actually, I think it’s a local version of lotto. 

The power did its  off – on – off again – on again routine before going off for pretty well the entire night and most of the following day. At least with the rain it was cool enough to have my door open for some fresh cool air without too much risk of mosquitoes.

I had been warned that dinner was likely to be late; they weren’t wrong Tsteten heads out saying he is preparing dinner, a bit after 8 – I could go down to grab a plate of leftover cauliflower – which would have involved going out in the rain, or I could eat bananas which I purchased that morning…I chose banana.

Dinner was called about 9:30pm, due to the rain and lack of power, it was served in the library by candlelight – quite nice.  The vegetarian food was a rerun of lunch – the freshly prepared mushroom and rice noodle just a bit too oily for comfort – and the cauliflower and tofu were lunchtime leftovers.  The meat eaters were tucking into a huge bowl of mutton ribs and other cuts involving much bone.  As I finished, Lungrig suggested that if I wanted to sleep, I could go – just as well, I was getting tired and they continued until 3pm – classes next morning did not happen.  

Noodles, pork, tofu and mushroom with rice vermicelli

I made some announcements about the exams over breakfast and asked them to help to arrange the classroom we would use as an examination room.  I definitely made some executive rulings here:  there would be enough tables for only 2 people per table and I overruled Tashi about using 2 classrooms for the exams, verging on annoyed about his dismissive statement that it did not matter that there was noone to supervise a second exam room since the exam did not really matter, it was only an easy one, the manager said so! I have spent a long time in compiling and printing the papers and the exams will be run according to normal examination protocol.

I am a little surprised at the lack of study prior to the exam.  And the lack of interest in offered classes after breakfast.  A few students have been seen working on vocabulary lists, and one or two have come for some extra practice exercises, but most seem to have little intention of doing anything much.  I might be wrong…

Around 2pm the manager appeared, despite my having sent him a text message to say I had already printed most of the exam.  I had only a dozen or so pages to print and figured that sooner or later the power would come back on and I could print at school.  However, it seemed to be one of his less English language capable days, so I went with him.  Why we needed to take a taxi all the way to McLeod Ganj when there are shops in Fatiphur that advertise copying services, I was not sure.  However, it was a gently crazy taxi ride – at a time of the day that I do not usually travel that road in a taxi, so a slightly different perspective on the route. 

Lunch was under preparation when I returned about 3:30pm so I am guessing that dinner is not going to happen in any sort of time frame that might interest me.  More bananas!! Dinner was eventually served at 9:30pm - stir fried vegetables with rice.