Today, we had our first “full-day” at Druk Padma – thank god!

It hasn’t been easy for Xavier and Mei, but it has been hard on the parents as well, and getting them both established at the school has been pretty tough going.

Xavier has had a series of chest infections and been run down by the stresses of non-stop travel and altitude (as we all have been).  It is an alien environment for us: the exposure burns faces and lips in a few minutes, and you are reminded of the altitude when a few swiftly taken steps leave you breathless … and Xavier MISSES Perth tremendously, or at least his Nedlands friends and the football season and … but hey, this afternoon he went with Nilza and Mei to milk a cow and came back laughing with delight.

Now he is finding his feet amongst the Ladakhi students and accepting of the early morning prayer sessions conducted by the Lama, the karate and of sitting through three language classes a day (Hindi, Bothi and English).  He likes the maths and the IT best.

Mei has been homesick since about Hong Kong.  A week ago we were eating a great meal at one of our Leh favourites, Chopsticks, when she remarked that she thought it possible to ‘do’ India in a ‘few nights’.  That was about as long as she would need.  She wanted to go home the next day (maybe via Paris).  Because we have had such wonderful homestays with Meera in Delhi, Latifa in Srinagar, and now Yandong and Phunshog in Shey, Mei has been able to make homes on the run.  She is wonderfully resourceful and charming!

She is also the centre of a great deal of attention.  Before we left I had thought Xavier would have got more, and while he does get some attentuon, it doesn’t compare to what Mei Mei has had to put up with.  We could have paid for the trip twice over if we had charged for the photographs the Indian tourists requested to be taken with her.  She has been hugged and squeezed, had her cheeks pinched, and been surrounded by slightly sleazy men all wanting a photo.  For some reason, perfectly normal families need her in their travel pics.

“Why do these people adore me?”

At times she has been confused and stressed, and sometimes a little chuffed.  We try to protect her and mainly succeed.

We have been regularly challenged by all manner of folk desiring explanations for her existence in our family.  The notion that a pretty little Chinese girl can ‘escape’ China and find herself within a ‘wealthy’ western family is just too much for their world view – and doubles Mei’s ‘exoticism’ (in their eyes).  Now, at the school, she can’t move without being hugged and poked at.  We believe things should settle!

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Anyway, after school we put up our feet in the shade at the front of our house and looked out to the new snow on the peaks to the east.  Books out, it was time to relax after a long day at the chalk face.  We are really loving Ladakh, sometimes it is very hard, but we love it.

After a while,  Phunshog came home on his way to a local meeting and we talked of his need to meet local government officials and register what he has been doing with his land tenements.  Most families have several fields that they crop very productively through the brief summer in preparation for the long winter. In a few weeks we will help with the harvest (Mei helps with milking Uncle’s cow every few days).

On his way out Phunshog stopped and called me over to where a chick was lying on the path, still alive, having been blown from its nest.  It was very young, all its organs visible through its translucent skin, its eyes covered over, blue veins pulsing.  We could see its heart.  What to do?  We looked for the nest, to no avail, so he left for the meeting, leaving it with me to decide.  I couldn’t help but think this was a little bit of a Buddhist cop-out, given my impulse was to put an end to its plight.

I dealt with this little challenge and got back to my reading, then grandma came home … well, we don’t know exactly where grandma lives … she is just here.  Grandma is truly ancient, has the world’s worst chronic cough, and maybe the best smile.

She likes to just sit fingering her prayer beads, occasionally breaking into a  Buddhist chant under her breath.

Then the wind comes up and we retreat to the bedroom and some writing.