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<\/li><\/ul><\/div>\nWe\u2019ve now been living in Shey for over a month with a lovely family: Yangdol, her husband Phuntsog, and their 13 year old daughter Nilsa and the ever present, always smiling, often coughing, \u2018Grandma\u2019.<\/p>\n
Like the great majority of people in Ladakh, our host family are devout Buddhists.\u00a0 There are thriving Shia Muslim and Christian communities in Ladakh, but you have to look fairly hard for them because all through the valleys and all around us here in Shey the landscape has been transformed from ancient times by the deep popular devotion to Buddha: at intersections there are giant prayer wheels, cars regularly divert around monumental \u2018Chortens\u2019, and high on rocky outcrops impossibly difficult to get to, you will find a prayer flag placed or rocks arranged precisely as markers of devotion.\u00a0 And looking up or down the rocky valley, generally high on a rocky outcrop, there will inevitably be a beautiful Gompa (monastery) catching the sun.<\/p>\n
Most houses have prayer rooms, generally on the top floor.\u00a0 Our Ladakhi Grandma keeps the butter lamps in our prayer room burning and every morning strolls through the house and garden swinging her charcoal burner smoking incense, ritually purifying the house and surrounds.\u00a0 The practicalities and meanings of the everyday Buddhist rituals of devotion are still mainly a mystery to us<\/p>\n
Food is the big issue!\u00a0 After weeks in India you begin to crave certain beloved delicacies from home.\u00a0 Responding to these impulses in local restaurants generally meets with failure!\u00a0 Best to stick local!\u00a0\u00a0 Meat is NOT on the menu, and we miss it sometimes (Mei dreams of a good Chinese Pork Bun) but there is certainly no lack of food.\u00a0 We are all losing weight \u2013 Mei and Xavier more so than their parents.<\/p>\n
Like most local families, Phuntsog and Yangdol maintain a large kitchen garden and ours is at least 250 sqm and has healthy plantings of peas, potatoes, cabbages, cauliflower, onions, silverbeet, coriander and a lot more.\u00a0 There are apple trees and apricots.\u00a0 Apricots are a staple here and thrive in the climate. \u00a0If only we could grow them this large in Perth, we would all have one in the backyard for shade.\u00a0 The families keep no chickens (at the Dalai Lama\u2019s behest) though they will eat eggs.\u00a0 At least in summer, there is no shortage of fresh vegetables, and they dry what they can for the winter, but they do have problems maintaining a balanced diet in the long snowbound winter.\u00a0 As a result they do eat some meat: a goat or sheep will be slaughtered to ensure everyone stays healthy.\u00a0 We have had three meat dishes since arrival, and all of us have rejoiced a little!\u00a0 What barbarians we are \u2013 the planet does need to be vegetarian to survive!<\/p>\n
Nilsa walks down daily to her aunty and uncles, where they collect the fresh milk.\u00a0 Aunty milks the cow, and Mei is hoping to try soon.\u00a0 Yangdol boils the milk, makes curd, butter and milky chai.\u00a0 We do crave fresh Australia butter!<\/p>\n
Our water comes from a bore and through an intricate system of channels that are opened and closed from one day to the next to distribute water across the yard.\u00a0 We have a solar unit for hot water, a tank of drinking water that we then put through a filter system, and a tank of water for washing.\u00a0 All of this is retrieved with a bucket.\u00a0 There is a running tap in the kitchen and in the bathroom.\u00a0 We are use to regular \u2018 bucket runs\u2019 all day and night.\u00a0 No shower! Just a hot bucket shower \u2026 it\u2019s been over a month since a bath or regular shower.\u00a0 We wash our clothes out next to the bore.\u00a0 Water is a precious commodity here, although the melt from the mountains allows many families to irrigate their gardens and homes, it doesn\u2019t last all summer \u2013 our local stream has been dry for a fortnight.<\/p>\n
Most nights, Yangdol and her family sit on the stoop outside the front door and cut and prepare vegetables for dinner.\u00a0 Mei loves helping and Xavier is regularly conscripted to help shell peas and ends up loving it too. \u00a0\u00a0To eat, we sit in front of low carved and brightly painted tables on the slightly raised and carpeted floor in front of broad windows.\u00a0 This is very much the \u2018traditional\u2019 Ladakhi family\/dining room. \u00a0When the time is right, a cloth is ceremoniously spread out on the carpeted floor and the food is brought in from the adjacent kitchen and spread out on it and we serve ourselves.\u00a0 There are firm taboos around feet and Grandma lets us know when some one has transgressed at any time.\u00a0 Simon, the bearded young man in some of the photos, is the visiting landscape architect at Druk Padma, and is regularly guilty of stepping on the cloth!\u00a0 He is building a greenhouse to propagate plants and to green the school site and buildings.\u00a0 Xavier and Simon have become great mates \u2013 Xavier loves a trip on the back of his motorbike.<\/p>\n
Our cuisine is quite simple: often pasta or rice base with vegetables from the garden: sparked up a little with Indian spices.\u00a0 Sometimes Tibetan MoMo\u2019s (steamed dumplings), occasionally trad Ladakhi consisting of doughy barley pasta (shaped into ears) in a delicious thick sauce \u2013 once with a delicious mutton sauce.\u00a0 Last night is was rice, a fabulous Brinjal (eggplant) curry and, low and behold, a lamb and potato curry.\u00a0 Meiduo gobbled down the meat.\u00a0 This morning a short term guest cooked superb puri\u2019s (breads) and delicious potato subje.<\/p>\n
As the \u2018guests\u2019 we are very much \u2018served\u2019, and so we are always fighting to clear the dishes or to do some domestic labour.\u00a0 Dinner is generally accompanied by awful Hindi soaps on the TV \u2013 Yangdol and Nilsa are addicted \u2026 we are amused, and generally beat an early retreat to bed.<\/p>\n
We generally get power from 7.30PM until 11PM, and have learned to daisy chain all our electronic devices (too many) to get maximum charge.\u00a0 Sometimes it fails completely and small solar charged lights are mobilised. \u00a0\u00a0Gas bottles fuel the twin burner camp style burners \u2013 there are no ovens. Most mornings Yangdol or Grandma cook Ladakhi flatbread over a fire in an outdoor kitchen area.<\/p>\n
Like many Ladakhi families our house has an outside washroom and dry drop toilet, as well as a flushing squat toilet inside.\u00a0 Chris uses the drop, the rest of us use the inside toilet. Human waste is recycled (every few years) for the garden.<\/p>\n
The parents rise early.\u00a0 They sweep and clean and prepare the food for the family and their guests. We hear Phuntsog praying as he works, in fact, any monotonous labour is generally accompanied by the regular hum of Buddhist chants.\u00a0 We are yet to hear a grumpy word from anyone, or between adults and children, other than those by the Hill Wilson Tribe. \u00a0In Ladakh, any expression of anger is generally frowned upon \u2026 so we have had a struggle on that count!\u00a0 At one time Yangdol had 10 adults staying: she works full time in a medical centre, and is permanently good-humoured, kind and fun to be around.<\/p>\n
Grandma has quite a few friends who visit.\u00a0 They are very old ladies and all wear the plum and grey wool Ladakhi dresses, and turquoise and coral jewellery.\u00a0 Though they are old and grey and their faces are worn from the harsh conditions, they will walk miles to see the Ringpoche or the Dalai Lama, while our kids complain about a kilometre to find a bus.<\/p>\n
In almost every sense they are a \u2018typical Ladakhi family\u2019 \u2013 they are not wealthy at all and must work extremely hard to maintain what is a very modest standard of living.\u00a0 They have very high aspirations for their one daughter, who they intend to send to Delhi to complete her schooling after Form 10.\u00a0 It should be said that the guidebooks are utterly correct in describing Ladakhi people as wonderfully generous and welcoming people.\u00a0 We are regularly amazed by the generosity we receive at odd moments and the sincere desire to \u2018care\u2019 for visitors and guests.<\/p>\n
The family all love Meiduo \u2013 a little too much sometimes.\u00a0 Yangdol calls her her Ladakhi daughter, and Meiduo can find the attention just a bit overwhelming.\u00a0 Other times she is in her element.\u00a0 Mei is always emerging from Nilsa\u2019s room with a new Ladakhi outfit on.\u00a0 Yangdol and her daughter are always re-doing Mei\u2019s plaits.\u00a0 Plaiting is an art here.\u00a0 The girls at the school sport thick black perfect ropes artfully placed high upon the head, or clipped back (required by school rules).\u00a0\u00a0 I have studied their plaits and have no idea how they appear to be woven not by hand but by some other more perfect method. \u00a0The old women all wear their hair long, and often in two plaits that are then braided together to meet each other, like a skipping rope down their backs.\u00a0 They wear badges with images of His Holiness the XXII Gyalwang Drukpa (the leader of the Druk (dragon) lineage which generally holds sway across Ladakh) or his Holiness the Dalai Lama.\u00a0 Buddhism is deep and pervasive: at assembly the children at Druk Padma bow their heads and join their hands in prayer.<\/p>\n
We are lucky enough to have a little kitchen off our room.\u00a0 It has two gas hobs serviced by a gas bottle outside.\u00a0 We have no running water, but bucket in our washing and drinking water from outside.\u00a0 We filter our drinking water.\u00a0 In winter the family intend to move into this space as it is much easier to heat and maintain.\u00a0 The family will move in a traditional Ladakhi stove, a slow burner, to keep out the below zero cold.<\/p>\n
We do suffer from being about 25 minutes from Leh \u2013 the centre of excitement! \u2013 but we also enjoy being away from what, at this time of the year, is a rather frenetic place.\u00a0\u00a0 We pay about 20 rupee to get in \u2013 unless a random car picks us up \u2013 which is often.\u00a0 In town you can do internet and eat most cuisines, from Israeli to Mexican, all done generally well.\u00a0 Our fave is Chop Sticks, which does good healthy noodles and wok meals.\u00a0 You will not find a good steak!\u00a0 Indeed, Tibetan Veg stands supreme, seriously threatening the authentic Ladakhi food culture.\u00a0 Historically, Ladakh is very much linked to West Tibet \u2013 and now there are large refugee camps outside Leh, some that we have visited.\u00a0\u00a0 Free Tibet stickers and T Shirts are common.<\/p>\n
Anyway, Mei is next to me on the iPad, Xavier has left for School, Josie is negotiating to meet up with some Museum people \u2026 and I need to get into town \u2026<\/p>\n
[This was written a few weeks ago by Josie and more recently added to by Chris \u2026. but lack of power or internet (generally both) and trips away have delayed actually getting it up on the blog.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We\u2019ve now been living in Shey for over a month with a lovely family: Yangdol, her husband Phuntsog, and their 13 year old daughter Nilsa and the ever present, always smiling, often coughing, \u2018Grandma\u2019. Like the great majority of people in Ladakh, our host family are devout Buddhists.\u00a0 There are thriving Shia Muslim and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-chris","category-josie","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Afwe-cs","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=772"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1144,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/772\/revisions\/1144"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}