The Mibby Post

Mexico #3

Fri, 03 Feb 2006 03:30:00 GMT

(Mailing list information, including unsubscription instructions, is located at the end of this message.) __ Hey all, Happy Sunday morning. Here´s a brief submission to the Mibby Post, -before rumors get out! Yesterday´s home school lesson for Anna, Lily and Marley was one they probably would not have received at Calais Elementary. We had finished our math problems and were half way up a mountain on the edge of town -climbing rocks, getting weird rashes from this little plant we brushed against, wondering if Aztec ghosts were testing us as we came closer to the summit -when out of the brambles stepped two large men, one with a hankerchief on his face and a very large knife blade glistening in the sun towards us!! Only Anna and I saw the knife, so it took a little while before Lily and Marley realized that we were being robbed. I immediately started emptying the many pockets on my travel pants (I was headed to immigration after the walk, so I had passports, credit cards, cash on me). By the time he got to my travel wallet and backpack, the girls started crying and freaking out a little bit (as one would expect!) while I was repeating, "It´s O.K., It´s O.K." and asking them to sit to the side on a rock and the Bandits were saying urgently, "Tranquio, Tranquio" to them and "Mas!, Mas!" (More!) to me. I asked him, "Please not my credit cards and passports!" Finally, he got about 100.00 U.S. dollars, politely handed back all my credit cards and my wallet and pack with my passports. He did also look through my First Aide kit only to take the Swiss Army knife engraved with my initials that Jimmy Pease gave me 15 years ago (at least it went with a good story! Sorry Jimmmy). And then he waved us down the hill where we promptly ran about a mile to the the nearest road! Ironically, we did give a pretty clear message to a police officer there -Anna had remembered ¨the word "Robar" (robber) and with Denaro, and a few pantomimes we told our story. And as one might expect of a low paid, apathetic Mexican police officer, he nodded in recognition, smiled and then laughed, and we kept walking. So I guess the home school lesson is... If you are in Mexico, don´t go walking in isolated places so near to large urban centers where you are so vulnerable to attack. But if you do get held up at knife point, ¨"Tranquio" -remain calm and give the guy your money!! (then head immediately an outdoor cafe on the Zocalo for Tres Flan and Una Cervesa!) So the next time you all get depressed about the latest ice storm, just be thankful you´re not being robbed by bandits in the Broad heat of the Southern sun! Take care all, Love Matt, Louise, Anna, Lily and Marley

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Mexico #2 - First impressions of Oaxaca from Lily and Marley

Sat, 21 Jan 2006 04:10:00 GMT

Hey everyone, Here are some first impressions of Oaxaca from Lily and Marley for their school and friends: Kia, could you please pass this on to the Fourth Grade? Thanks, Louise and Matt January 19, 2006 A message from Lily and Marley Myers to their friends in Calais Elementary 4th Grade... Hola, 4th Grade, We are staying in an apartment on Fiallo (Double LL sounds like Y). On our street are a lot of shoe stores and next to our apartment is a can crushing place. There is a Palm tree in our court yard. We walk to the main square almost every day. At six O'clock this morning, fireworks went of for a few hours. One main drink we like is Boing Juice. The kinds we tried are Fresa, Mango, Uva and Guayaba. We didn't really like Guayaba. We went to see the biggest tree in Latin America. Here it is called, El Tule. It was huge and it had a face of a lion on it. The tree is 2,000 years old. Next to it was a tree that was 1,000 years old. Next to the tree there was also a lot of mango trees, but the mangos were not ripe. Also next to the tree were some bushes that they pruned to look like different animals. Another place we went to is Monte Alban. It is an old ruin (500 BC) on a hill. The annoying thing about it is the tunnels were blocked with gates. One of the buildings is a ball court. It had two tunnels leading out of it. When we were there it was really hot. Another building in it was a place where you would look at the stars. The first two days we stayed at a hotel where there were two girls that spoke English because their father is English. In the court yard there is a tangerine tree. We ate a lot. They are really good. Another tree there has lemons. The thing about these lemons is that they are sweet. We ate some of them. We taught the kids how to paly cards. The first game we taught them was Go Fish. We get alot of our food at the market. There are stands of different things. For example, there is a lot of fresh fruit, meat, vegetables, hats, flowers, cheese, and party stuff. Tell us about the bus that flipped over. What's the weather like there? (Here it is sunny and 80's everyday.) We miss everybody and want to hear back from everybody. Good Bye!! Adios!! Que Les Vayan bien!! (Ask Senora Speigel) >From Lily and Marley

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Mexico #1 - In Oaxaca

Sat, 21 Jan 2006 03:21:00 GMT

We are really enjoying this place! wow! Oaxaco is the classic spanish colonial city with beautiful stone buildings, southwestern colors, an active central square with musicians, outdoor cafes, enormous trees with vast green canopies, smiling mexicans living their lives, art, vendors, a real sense of the old mixed with a vibrant modern lifestyle for many. I´ll give you a sense of the daily routine we fell into this past week. The girls wake up around 7:30 or 8:00 but stay in bed for a half an hour or so reading. I get up around the same time and walk 8 blocks into the Zocalo (city square) to sit in an outdoor cafe and sip coffee and watch the morning start up. I return in time for Louise to walk 10 blocks or so to her school. By then the girls have usually had cereal and start work on their math around 9:00. After math they usually get into a calico game or draw, read more or engage in other projects. sometime during the day I propose an outing either into town on some mission or to one of the many sites to visit out of town. Because Lily was first sick (soar throat and fatigue) and then Anna, we´ve only done one out of town trip, but we usually get into town at least once. Then we typically meet louise in the Zocalo for dinner or sometimes we´ve cooked dinner at home. Walking around the town is infinitely fascinating with so many interesting streets, shops, buildings, people, colors, etc. Some common questions we are getting, along with our answers, below... How does Louise like her course? Louise likes the course alot so far. It is very rigorous and tiring, but she likes the three other students and the content and the teachers. She is already practicing teaching and will do it several times next week with real live students! So far, so good! How do you and the girls like puttering about on little errands and adventures? They like it sometimes, and not others, depending on how tired they feel. They love eating Flan in one of the outdoor restaurants in the Zocalo! They also had a great time exploring Monte Alban, the most important Archealogical site in Oaxaca. A truly amazing mountain top ruin of a city -with much intact 2,500 years later! Do you have a kitchen in your bungalow? We are living in the lap of luxtury for $350.oo US/month. It is a new bungalow within a building of 4 bungalows. It is quite attractive concrete with southwestern colors, a safe courtyard, stove (with oven), Fridge, bath, hot water shower, two bedrooms and as of yesterday, new furniture. It is on the second story with views of the neighborhood and distant mountains. si, and everything else! Matt, Loiuse, Anna, Lily, Marley

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The Mibby Post #10

Thu, 16 Jun 2005 19:45:00 GMT

More Mibby from Louise... Well, we wrote a long Mibby (we never sent due to lack of email and a shortage of computer time) about our adventure over the kardang-La, the highest moterable pass/road in the world at 18,300 feet to Nubra Valley. Itâs a one lane road with traffic running each way every other day. It took us 15 hours to go 140 km (usually a six hour trip) including lots of snow, getting stuck behind several army trucks several times as they got stuck and unstuck, pushing our bus out of a slushy rut at 18,000 feet (with incredible views of the karakoram range calling us onward), hours of diesel fumes, lunch finally at 10:00 at night âMaggi noodles and milk tea and finally arriving in Hundar at our homestay at around 11:30pm where we were welcomed by a kind and generous couple and their 2 young daughters (both named Stanzin) who ended up taking all 17 of us in for 3 nights, feeding us and hosting our student, Greyâs , birthday party. We were rewarded in our long journey by a beautiful village with hundreds of flowering apricot trees, Bactrian camel rides, sandunes we literally swam down, people plowing their fields with teams of Yaks and an illegal trip over the restricted zone to have lunch in our friend Jigmetâs village. I wish I could say going over the pass back to Leh was uneventful, but it was not. Though not nearly as long trip, a huge army truck that was breaking down every couple of hundred yards (four an hour at a time) slowed our way considerably as it refused to allow us to pass until Matt, Becky, Chosang and I ran in front of it and blocked itâs way until it agreed to pull over to let us by. The next weeks were a blur of student projects and wrapping things up âand another trip to Changtang âbeautiful, stark, high and of course snowing. We stayed at our friend and guide, Tashiâs, hot spring âresortâ where we all enjoyed many hot baths and watching boiling water bubble out of the rocks along the Indus river. Anna, Lily and Marley entertained themselves by boiling eggs in small, bubbling pools until they were broken or hard boiled and ready to eat! Some of us went on a day trip to an extremely remote nunnery âthey welcomed us warmly and fed us a delicious lunch. We hiked into a valle where nomads summer with their Yaks on the banks of a high altitude lake (which was mostly still frozen) our experience there was a highlight for me of the trip -one of those rare, so remote and quiet places. We got to see 3-4 foot high Black Neck Cranes. Then we saw two dogs that had followed us into the valley chase the cranes out onto the lake.. Also hikes into wide valleys that beckon you around just one more bend âin search of the last bend that opens into a high field where yaks are all playing. But as we know, itâs not getting there, itâs the journey. Meanwhile, Matt and the girls caught a 5 hour terrorizing jeep ride (crammed in the back with two unknowned, but friendly Ladahkis) with a friend of Tashiâs who was second in command of the Kargil District police. He had a driver who flew at top speed around every hair-raising corner towards Leh where Matt and the girls returned early to meet Pauline. Along the way, the Police man saw a distant relative coming from Leh to a funeral of a common uncle. So they backtracked half an hour to attend the funeral (while matt and the girls hung out in the jeep waiting) and then back on the road. Pauline joined us for our last two weeks in Ladakh, which was wonderful âWe were so excited to share some of it with here, and I think she fell I love with the people she met and the places she saw. She joined us on our trip to Bombay and the beach south of there âan immersion into a very different and very hot Indian culture. Big flowering trees, warm ocean, India cows and water buffalos and heat! We left Delhi minus 16 teenagers- and rode a 12 hour overnight bus to Dharamsala in the green foot hills of the Himalayas -home of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan Govât in exile. Jon and Ashley (our co-teachers) came too âso we all unwound together and have been enjoying lots of fresh fruit, milkshakes and pancakes. Dharamsala âwow. Itâs never quiet here. I actually woke up at 5:30 this morning before the cars started and it was just birds and dogs working out their territories. So our simple hotel room has a balcony that looks ou over our perch into the plains below. The first day here we had about 20 huge vultures in the treetops below us. The town clings to the side of steep forested slopes as full as possible with houses, hotels, shops, cars and people. A constant din of noise prevails -birds, cars, people, monkeys, music, monks in the monastery below us practicing their traditional instruments for hours âa sensory overload âhard to tell is there a rally going on in the strets or is that the birds? Even at the D. Lamaâs temple there is clanging symbols and hours of monks debating. Oh and the beggars with no hands and the fact that no one should drive here. Cars squeezing by eachother in narrow streets, horns honking, people wedged against the buildings trying not to get run down by the passing Rickshaw, motorcycle, jeep, bus, cow. Indian and Tibetan residents, lots of Indian tourists, tons of Western travelors all dressed in their new Indian garb, monks, nuns, the ever present mangy dogs and wild monkeys. The other morning we woke up to a mandala ceremony on the roof adjacent to our hotel balcony. For about three hours, monks were chanting and making food offerings to a fire built on top of the Mandala. An amazing mix of smells âpine forests, cars, food, spices, feces -one moment you smell flowers, the next âliterally shit âand every possible burning smell as we rode the night bus from Delhi to here. I guess you could say it has been a sensory overload since we left the peaceful desert and vastness of Ladakh. This place is relaxing, comfortable and crazy, but it grows on you too. We have all become accustomed to seeing monks in their maroon robes and the stray dogs and sari or sawar kameez clad women, so many bright colors. So may delicious mangos. And though we are winding down and excited to see friends and family and swim in Curtis Pond, thereâs a lot we will miss and will bring home with us. Lots of love to all. âThey just started banging a big gong in the Monastery below us every 10-15 seconds, and now horns âanother ritual?

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The Mibby Post #9

Mon, 11 Apr 2005 23:59:00 GMT

Hey Matt and Steve, I know Matt has editorial perogatives for the Mibby, but perhaps the subscribers would enjoy reading some of the adventures from McCleod Ganj. Okay Matt? Jamie and I met and Autralian couple on the night bus from Delhi who had accidentially booked two rooms at different hotels, so we walked into the popular "Green Hotel" and our new friend said we have a "reservation." The Tibetan guy behind the desk laughed. No such thing as reservations I guess. We got a room anyway. McLeod Ganj is a tourist town. There are world travelers on every street: Isrialis, Germans, French, Slovenians (one anyway), Australians. At first I felt that there were just too many tourists, but soon realized that this has a positive aspect in that it balances the division between Indians and Tibetans and foreigners, allowing numerous conversations, a freer flow of information about what is going on in town, and the sellers and beggers don't have to work so hard to get your money, because there is another tourist right behind you. The town is situated in the foothills of the Himilayas. There are a few snow-covered, magnificent peaks visible beyond the also very steep green hills (mountains by our standards). The nearer hills are covered with large coniferous trees, houses nestled into their flanks in a thickening carpet of dwellings until you are in the warren of buildings of Dharamsala itself on the valley below. McLeod Ganj's streets are narrow and jambed with taxis, trucks, pedistrians, scooters, motorcycles, dogs and cows. Every inch of street-side has a small stall selling Tibetan religious articles, scarves, jewelry, fruit, rice and dal, haircuts (that include a head and shoulder massage), Ayuvedic massage, yoga classes, and the ever present Chai. The shops are generally the size of your average American bedroom, or closet in some cases. It is very dangerous to walk of the streets without paying close attention to the wheeled vehicles, and other moving things. I've jumped onto the sidewalk to avoid trucks numerous times, been nearly stepped on by a cow, and almost struck by a flying motorcycle, escaping the collision only because a Welsh guy pulled me out of the way. On Friday night we met up with a group of English travelers, and I started playing guitar on the streets. Passers by began to gather to listen. People were clapping. Our German/Turkish friend Olgam began dancing with a guy from New Zealand, and we had a party going. People on the street were asking us the next day where we would play again that night. The chai stall owners began nodding to us. Another Indian guy asked if I would like to play at a little cafe on a street above, but we never found it. Saturday was a particularly intense day. A few days earlier Jamie and I were invited back to a little apartment by a young Tibetan woman who had walked out of Tibet just three months earlier, and who wanted to learn English. This young woman was living with an Australian girl, an Indian guy, and another Tibetan man named Tenzin who knew some English. Early on Saturday evening I was chatting with Tenzin as the cars and people swarmed around us, when another Tibetan man, quite drunk, reeking of alcohol, came up to us and began gesturing, bowing, laughing, and firing away in rapid Tibetan. Tenzin explained to me that the man wanted us to come to his room. I was a little hesitant, because of his condition, but Tenzin said we should go for a little while, so I agreed. The room was down a rank set of stairs, dark, smelling of piss and burning sage. The room was tiny and jambed with empty bottles, cases of CD's (the man, like many others made his living selling on the street), food packages, a little gas stove, a table and a bed. We sat on the bed as the man staggered and struggled to make us butter tea, gesturing and talking all along. Tenzin was translating as well as he could. The man had walked out of Tibet just six weeks earlier. He had spent three years in a Chinese prison for having a book by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. He began to cry, to show me his scars from where the Chinese had tortured him, pulling up his pant legs and shirt, turning over his lower lip, pounding his chest. He was 39 years old. He had left a wife and three daughters in Tibet. I choked down the butter tea, ate a little hunk of bread. The man was crying and bowing, saying that they would fight the Chinese, but His Holiness said not to, that I should always do what his holiness said. I was so moved by this event that I went back to the hotel feeling horribly sad. That night, after hanging out on a roof-top, we heard about a "Trance Party" from some Indian guy we had met earlier. We imagined a little international circle of people singing the cultural equivelent of "We Shall Overcome" around a little fire in the woods, or on the roof of a guest house. We agreed to go even though it was already midnight. Jamie, Olgan (our Turkish/German friend) and I were led by these two Indian guys (after we bought them a bottle of cheap Indian whiskey) up the side of a steep mountain, in the dark, for three hours! We could hear the party on the steep mountainside above, and it didn't sound a bit like "cumbyah my Lord." We realized that our guides were drunk and lost, so we just went cross country up the mountain, following the sound of the music. A guy stopped us in the dark and demanded 50 rupees as entry fee. We detected a lack of conviction, and because so many encounters in India are followed by a scam, we refused and hiked on up the mountain. We were stopped again, this time even closer to the strange, bussing sound of the music, and this time the fee was 100 rupees, and the guy was really serious. "What for?" we asked. "To cover the expense of dragging the sound equipment up the mountain." he said. We payed. What we found on the little flat spot on the mountain was like some strange dream. An international Grateful Dead concert fueled by halucinegens, hashish, and "Trance" music, a European dirivation of House Music: a frenetic, electronic beat with no melody, like a conga party on a cocktail of speed and steroids. There was a crowd of about fifty people writhing around a fire, milling around. The sound of the generator was completely drowned by the pounding beat of the music, so loud it shocked you. There were some indians selling beer and water at exhorbanent prices, little side fires with circles of wild looking travelers huddled around them. The stars were out, and the lights in the valley traced the contour of the foothills and the valley below. Jamie, Olgan and I were seperated, and I just began to dance. At first I really hated the music, and felt like the whole scene was just too bizarre, but after a while I just moved to the music in the mass of people jostling around the fire. The sense of seperation between us began to fade; we were one moving mass. At one point the music stopped, so thinking it was over, and inspired by the continuing beat of a few guys squatted in the dust playing conga drums, I went to get my guitar where I had stashed it in the bushes below a stone wall. It was dark away from the fire, and I couldn't find the guitar. I saw a Spainish guy I had met who had a little flashlight. "Hey, could you toss me that light?" I yelled. He threw it, and not realizing how close to the stone wall I was, I ran to catch it. I tripped over the wall, of the far side of which was a three foot drop. I landed directly on my face, nearly breaking my nose, scratching my cheek and my forehead. I was shocked, wondering if I was really hurt. "Hey are you okay?" yelled the Spaniard. I was okay, but sore and bleeding from several places. I went back to the fire and continued to dance until the sun was up. People began to tack visible shape, instead of just being dancing figures. The dust, the blankets wrapped around shoulders, the dread-locks, and the asian faces were now discernable. I rested for awhile with a group around a small side fire. The dancing was still going on when I walked off the mountain at seven in the morning. "India..." People were saying: "Only in India." As I walked down the mountain rode I saw monkeys on a burning garbage pile, and a Tibetan man singing an amazing song, standing on the side of the road, projecting his voice into the valley below, with such facinating vocal power. Oh, man...India... J.C. -- Warning, clicking on the link below, at the bottom of the page, will instantly unsubscibe you from this mailing list: To unsubscribe from: The Mibby Post, just follow this link: <a href="http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=u&l=mibby&e=example@example.com&p=[pin">http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=u&l=mibby&e=example@example.com&p=[pin</a>] Click this link, or copy and paste the address into your browser.

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The Mibby Post #8

Fri, 08 Apr 2005 01:29:00 GMT

Hello from India: Hey Sweeties! I'm sitting in the Tibetan enclave (sort of a crowded block of buildings with a Bizarre - market - running down the middle of a tight, crowded, insect-infested alley) on the outskirts of Delhi. We have tickets to ride the "Potalla Express" to Dharamsala this evening at 6:30. It's an all night, 12 hour bus ride. We just flew in this morning from Leh, and then took a carnival ride taxi through the nearly unblievable streets of Delhi for an hour in the hot, stinking swarm of motorcycles, motor-rickshaws, busses, trucks and cows. Jamie, as you may know, talked to Nanny the other evening here - morning there - and we know that Uncle Billy will be happy to have us, and will even pick us up at the airport. This is good news. We will call him when we get to McCloud Ganje (about 2 km from Dharamsala, and reportedly where the Dalai Lama lives, and the place to be, instead of the more gritty and less attractive actual town of Dharamsala). Ladakh was beyond description. Meg, you would love it so much. The Ladakhis are warm and friendly, and the landscape is like a fallen piece of the moon with the mountains of your dreams lining every horizen. We spent a total of nine days trekking and staying in "home-stays" with traditional Ladakhi families high in the mountains. I need to recite the list of places we visited just to remember the amazing vistas: Rumbak: miles from a road that winds it's way along cliffs, through canyons, 1000 feet above the turquous-green Indus river. The road was bone-jarring. We crossed in a jeep with 7 people and their luggage a suspention bridge you would think twice about walking on - it rolled and swayed as we crossed, with inches to spare on either side from the rear-view mirrors to the bridge rails. an hour later The driver let us off and we hiked down a steep bank to a little enchanted forest and hired two donkeys from the man who came down from the house above. Jamie and I were not acclaimated to the altitude yet, so we gave the donkeys (half the size of Jenny) our packs and we all climbed up the valley, each turn more breath-taking, until the vally widened out to partially snow-covered fields with stone walls everywhere. They fed us for two days, mostly on Chappatis and Mango Jam (we were hungry after the second day). We hiked up a mountain to 14,500 feet and watched as John and Ashley, Matt's assistant teachers, attempted to ski the breakable crust on antiquated skis they found somewhere in Ladakh. We saw Snow Leopard tracks. It was a crystaline blue sky with puffs of white clouds that actually look like the idealized ones on Tibetan paintings (Tsonkas). Lakir: We stayed with Norbu, a ninth generation Tsonka painter at the Norbu Guest house - quite sophisticated by Ladakhi standards, but still without any running water, and with traditional Ladakhi toilets (a hole in the floor of a mud-walled room with soil spread on the floor to dump down the hole when you're done). We played with Norbu's kids and once again the digital cameras were a great hit, along with the head-lamps. The next day we hiked about ten miles to Yang Tang and then on up to Ulley, which is at about 15,000 feet. There were columns of gravel supporting huge rocks, it was snowing, and very dramatic. The trail was steep and we were exhausted when we arrived at Norbu the pony man's house in the village of three houses (a different Norbu). We took our packs off, got out of our wet clothes, settled in the little guest room under blankets, when Norbu came in and told us that it was not his houses turn to have trekkers (the village houses all take turns taking in hikers so as not to create competition), and we had to hoist our packs again with aching legs and straining lungs. Norbu, who speaks a rudimentary form of English, said "just next house up." We walked outside: "where?" we asked. He pointed up the mountain still 500 feet higher, accross a deep gorge and 3/4 of a mile away, to a little tiny house clinging to the side of the cliff. We groaned. "Follow donkey" he said, pointing to a little beast winding its way up the opposite side of the gorge, "just next house up." That night Norbu and his family came up, I played the guitar, and then we had a dance party to Ladakhi popular music (a strange combo of chinese-sounding, pitch modulated singing, and synthesized drum beats and horns). We all laughed when we called it the "Ulley Disco." Dah Hanu: The next day we climbed back down the valley, with Norbu asking us please to come back soon, back to Lakir and the Norbu (other Norbu) Guest house, where we spent another night because the bus with the American students and the Ladakhi guide was delayed because of a nation-wide bus strike. The bus finally did pick us up, and we went on down the narrowing Indus river, through about five police check points to the restricted area of the Cargil region on the Pakistani border, where there has been bombing and shelling in the past. We drove for about six hours. Ladakhi busses all have bald tires and worn-out leaf springs, and the drivers heave the busses toward the cliff side, then back out toward the 1,000 foot (not kidding) drop at an alarming rate of speed, out toward the precipice, jamb it back toward the cliff, again and again for hours. The air thick with dust, the smell of deisal, people dancing in the isles, Ladakhi music blaring, brakes squealing, tires pounding. Trucks, busses, cars and scooters come the other way from time to time, sometimes causing one vehicle to back up to pass by on the single lane road. It frays my nerves incredibly, but Jamie loves it. We finally stopped, just when I thought I would keel over with anxiety, at a tiny little mud hut at the base of the cliff. "This is it" says Tashi, our guide. "This?" the teenagers muttered "I'm not hiking." We did hike up a little trail to a village of "Dard" people, who were the first human inhabitants of the Indus river valley, and who are "Aryan" and have facial feature similar to Europeans, but with dark skin, and sometimes red hair. The village was nestled into the cliffs almost like a stoney version of the Hopi cliff dwellings. There were pear trees, and it was a lot warmer at the lower elevation of about 8,000 feet. Lilly and Marley climbed like monkeys and Lilly knocked down a little stone wall that was probably about 200 years old. They were repairing it by the time we left the next morning, and Matt gave them some Rupees for their trouble. Chictang: Tashi took us to his own house in his native village the next day. His is the only Buddist family in a town full of Muslims. They had never seen a group of white trekkers, and they stared like we were from Mars. Tashi's family's men are traditional medical practitioners and their house is about twenty feet from the steps of a Mosk. They were amazingly warm toward us, and took very good care of us. Every time I went into the streets of the village, the little kids, old ladies and curious teens made me take pictures with the digital camera and show them the results. They were mad with excitement. I juggled rocks for them and immitated a monkey which sent the little boys into hysterics, and they followed me pulling on my sleeve for about two miles as I tryed to catch up to Jamie and Matt who were fast ditching me to avoid this crowd of nutty kids. They spoke almost no English but were making penis jokes, and telling me they were Muslims, and asking "you Buddist or Muslim?" Whole families sat out in front of their houses and watched with amusement as we passed. They made me juggle rocks and make monkey noises as each house we passed. All of this occurred amid rich fields, cows and donkeys wandering down the road, surrounded by striking, snow-covered peaks. On the way home (Jamie and I left a bit early to catch our flight), and caught the public bus - jamb packed full, jolting over a 14,500 foot pass - we were about two hours outside of Leh when we came upon a huge bulldozer widening the road (on the edge of a cliff, as usual). Just then the front tire of the bus went flat with a huge rush of air. Everyone, climbed off the bus, but for a few people who kept their seats. About five to ten men (myself included) started jacking up the bus and taking the tire off, pulling the spare from under the bus' belly. We put the spare tire on and let the bus down off the jack and found the spare tire was also flat. By this time the bulldozer was done, and cars and trucks, unable to pass, were gathering up behind us. We took one of the dual tires off of the rear of the bus (jacking up both front and back with people still in the bus there on the edge of the cliff) and put it on the front, and then put the flat tire next to the remaining good tire on the back set of duals. And off we went, not slowing down a bit. We spend the next day in Leh, hiked another mountain to see an ancient Gompa and castle, and went to sleep a midnight after I played guitar with a southern Indian guy who played very well. We drifted off to the call and response of dogs, and awoke at 4:00 am to the wailing sound of Allah calling the faithfull to prayer in Leh's only Mosk. What a strange fallen piece of the moon this is. Love to all. I miss you Zoe, Meg, Connor, Mom, and all. I can't type anymore. I hope it's not too much to even read. J.C. (Papa) -- Warning, clicking on the link below, at the bottom of the page, will instantly unsubscibe you from this mailing list: To unsubscribe from: The Mibby Post, just follow this link: <a href="http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=u&l=mibby&e=example@example.com&p=[pin">http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=u&l=mibby&e=example@example.com&p=[pin</a>] Click this link, or copy and paste the address into your browser.

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The Mibby Post #7

Tue, 05 Apr 2005 22:19:00 GMT

Here is a link to Archives of "The Mibby Post": <a href="http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=list&l=mibby">http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=list&l=mibby</a> it also includes a subscription link, if you are getting this as a forward from someone and want to get it directly. Our only photos sent here by Matt are online here (still hoping for more): <a href="http://songseek.com/picturenet/photos/Ladakh/index.htm">http://songseek.com/picturenet/photos/Ladakh/index.htm</a> or find a link to them at www.picture.net It has been beautiful lately, probably in the 60s, with lots of sun , blue skies in the day and incredible stars at night so bright and close. Youve been hearing dramatic tales of oracles, tracking snow leopards, and shoulders getting dislocated on crowded Delhi buses as our heroes attempt to bring us pounds of much needed dark chocolate. Anna and I (louise) want to share a bit about the day to day at SECMOL and in Leh, that have become parts of our lives after two months here. Our day did start a bit dramatically though, with Anna throwing up at five in the morning, etc on the day we were supposed to head to western Ladakh. So, we loaded everyone onto the bus, and probably the most moving part of the day for me so far was watching Lily and Marley head out in a bus full of teenagers, and Jon and Ashley of course, on the day before their ninth birthday. Matt and jamie and JC are in Likir about two hours away where they have been hiking since Tuesday. They will meet the bus there and continue on with the group. As they drove off, I said a quick prayer to Mother Mary and to Tara to watch over my babies, and headed to the wash house to wash all the bedding etc in freezing cold water, feeling so proud of how game Lily and Marley have been on this trip! Having Jamie and JC arrive last week, put in perspective how acclimated we are becoming, and how much SECMOL has become home. Waking up early and heading out to the Ladakhi toilet then the kitchen to get sweet milk tea and hot water, which all Ladakhis start their day with; Lily and Marley often help make breakfast with whichever VIS student is on; Anna likes to read; Matts usually been working in his head since before the sun came up and ready to go, and Ive been going for walks along the river. The sky is beautiful as the sun comes up over the mountains in the east, first hitting the mountains here with golden light, then so blue and shimmery lately. Breakfast at 8 is usually some kind of bread we have a wood fired bread oven, as well as steamed bread, fried (usually served with chickpeas and one of my favorites) ,, and mostlyu chapatis or tagi which is a round flat Ladakhi bread--and something spicey and more milk tea. We have all been busy in our own ways, but its amazing what a difference it makes when youre not heading out in the car all the time. We realized how luxurious and relaxed the pace is, tea time at 11 and 4, lunch at one, classes and prep, morning meeting, washing ourselves and clothes when the sun heats up the water, helping Becky in the gardens, or walking down by the river or up in the dunes. And now theres ongoing volleyball matches and cricket, which I still dont understand. They make it sound exciting on the radio though, especially the India- Pakistan match which India just won. On that front, the big move towards peacefull relations involve an India- Pakistan bus through Kashmir. Its so interesting hearing news (very litytle) from this side of the world. I have to admit Im pretty out of touch, but it gives perspective on how regional most of our news is, even American news when I think of what Ive learned from here that we dont here at home. The kids have been spending more time learning about our computer, but also playing in the canals and dunes for hours, and of course reading and drawing. Theyve also been cleaning up garbage along the Indus in their search for good props for Calico critter houses. There are a lot of shoes and bottles finding their way into our rooms. Also a lot of rocks, which we all are still marveling over purple, green, black, red... The only thing weve been lax on is math, but theres still time... I have to say what theyve been learning is unmeasurable! So dinners at 7 in the dining hall (we eat the rest of our meals either in the room off the kitchen or on the roof of the kitchen). We sit on the floor for dinner with our plates on colorful cloths I have to say I am enjoying the minimal furniture like one desk in our classroom for this computer is the only thing in here we eat as a community, singing a Ladakhi song afterwards and then someone speaks about their home or something interesting about themselves each night. A few days ago 11 MBA candidates from around India showed up to stay for a month to work at some of the NGOs in Leh. They are all friendly, full of energy, sweet with the kidsimpressed with lily and Marleys energy and theyve all decided Annas an intellectual! They all came with lots of strange and interesting treats their moms cooked and packed for them and they are marveling at the clean air and cold. It will be fun having them around and an opportunity to really get to know some Indians from all around the country which we probably wont be able to do as tourists on our ten day tour. Outside of Secmol, we have gotten accustomed to trips to Leh on the bus, the army presence along the way, shopping in the main bazaar, wild dogs and dzhos wandering the streets, and their poop everywhere. Ladakhi faces are becoming familiar etched faces of the older people in their traditional dress they often get quite excited to see our girls coming down the street and greet us with, jule, Jule! and touch their faces, which of course drive the girls nuts, and I say theyre excited to see children since most tourists dont bring them here especially in the winter, so say hello, and sometimes they do and sometimes they just kind of scowl. The girls do stand out, but have been wearing their salwar kameezes and we all know the Delwar soundtrack by heart (THE ladakhi music tape actually blaring upstairs right now)-- if we dont know all the words, we know all the tunes anyway. Weve found our favorite restaurants, and foods the Tibetan restaurants are a big hit with the girlsmomos, spring rolls and chow mein. I like the Kashmiri curries for something a little different.. We still crave more fresh fruit, but there are apples and dried apricots. The girls and the students all know their way around comfortably, especially where to get treats, and its impressive how much theyve been walking. The girls have been interested in how we will bring some of our experience back home with us, and how we can live more simply at home. They are all very thoughtful about this whole experience and at the same time very matter of fact. They keep me honest in the way they look at everythingnot glossing over the pollution in Leh or some other things I might not notice. Becky has also been a fantastic teacher for our family. She knows this culture so well and has a tremendous perspective. And has been trying to teach us all Ladakhi The other day, Lily, Marley, Anna and I went to Choglamsar outside of Leh to the Tibetan Childrens Village a school established by the Dalai Lama for Tibetan refugee children, orphans and poorer Ladakhis. It goes from ages 3-16. Many of the students live in house with families on the campus. They have three other satalite schools, with a total of about 2000 children. The principle showed us around first, then we visited several classes. They have classes through fifth grade in Tibetan except for English. Then through tenth in English except for Tibetan classes. It is a way to give all these kids an education and also keep Tibetan cultural and spiritual traditions alive. Highpoints were the first grade class where they were doing math, and both the male teacher and the students were all shouting! Another class where they were reading aloud in Tibetan call and response, and best of all meeting up with a 6th grade class in the playground who interviewed us and had Anna sing an American song and sang us a Tibetan song. Then they asked the girls if they wanted to be best friends and invited us back next week to visit their class. Today Anna and I are laying low. Our students, as I mentioned headed out for a few days (we may join them tomorrow on a public bus if Anna feels better), the South Indians and most of the SECMOl students went to Leh for their one weekend day off, so it is quiet around here. Actually, very pleasant for a few hours. Our students are hitting stride at the half way point, but it has not been without challenges... Ive certainly been learning a lot on all fronts. Tonight is momos, which is the favorite dinner. Were adding a Hindi song on as well as the usual Ladakhi traditional song after dinner, and then bed. Besides working on getting Anna healthy, our aim this weekend is to make Lily and Marley an apple crisp for their birthday (their request) and a cake, which one of the Indian students said she would help with. The challenges will be cooking them in the wood fired bread oven, and making delicious frosting with condensed milk and cocoa powder! We love hearing from all of you, and Im sure Matt will have lots of news of their latest adventures! love, Louise and Anna -- Warning, clicking on the link below, at the bottom of the page, will instantly unsubscibe you from this mailing list: To unsubscribe from: The Mibby Post, just follow this link: <a href="http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=u&l=mibby&e=example@example.com&p=[pin">http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=u&l=mibby&e=example@example.com&p=[pin</a>] Click this link, or copy and paste the address into your browser.

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The Mibby Post #6

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 22:49:00 GMT

Here is a link to Archives of "The Mibby Post": <a href="http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=list&l=mibby">http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=list&l=mibby</a> it also includes a subscription link, if you are getting this as a forward from someone and want to get it directly. Recent photos sent here by Matt are now online here: <a href="http://songseek.com/picturenet/photos/Ladakh/index.htm">http://songseek.com/picturenet/photos/Ladakh/index.htm</a> or find a link to them at www.picture.net Hey everyone, We are really excited that J.C. And Jamie showed up this week after a three day weather delay in Delhi. He has such a good story, though, I asked him to share about his time in Delhi. More later... >From JC... So after a flight from Burlington to JFK, a seven hour hold over there, a six hour transatlantic flight, a nine hour flight on to Delhi, Jamie and I collected our voluminous luggage (which included a hockey bag, and an extra carry-on full of presents for the students and the Matt Family, as well as Jamie's and my backpacks and daypacks), and caught a cab from the Delhi International airport to the domestic airport, arriving there around midnight. We spent the night on the benches, hugging our luggage. At around 5:30 am, we checked our luggage through three (3) security areas, one of which was actually out on the tarmac, where you are required to identify the luggage you just checked through the first two screenings as Indian army personnel with automatic weapons looked on. But there was a weather delay that kept us waiting on the benches for a further three hours before they decided to cancel the flight altogether. So we gathered our luggage, loaded onto a bus with Hindi pop music blaring, and they drove us to the posh (though slightly thread-bare) Ashok hotel in Delhi (about a half hour away). They treated us well at the Ashok, with buffets in the various restaurants - chinese-a-la Indian for lunch, the Funbar restaurant for diner (with a tabla player, and waiters who pulled out the seat for you as you sat down). Later we met up with a Ladakhi guy and a Swiss fellow named Domonique Rolle (we nick-named him "Swiss Rolle"). We saw cows in the streets, desperately poor families, markets where small children accosted you for money, stall keepers telling you there goods are the finest quality, open avenues, and crowded back alleyways, beautiful women in colorful saris. We rode through unbelievable traffic in motor rickshaws, weaving in and out around trucks and busses; it was as thrilling as any carnival ride. The next morning they got us up a three (3) am and loaded us onto another Indian, crowded, colorful bus to catch the 6:30 flight to Leh. We waited around another three hours, they cancelled the flight, and they bussed us back to the Ashok. It was like "Ground Hog Day". The rides around Delhi, the buffet with the tabla player, the three (3) am wake up call, and back to the airport we went to find another weather cancellation. But this time they had sold more tickets, and the bus was getting more crowded. By now we had made several more friends: mostly Ladakhis and a few westerners. We were getting to know each other, feeling a sense of solidarity and a growing sense of resentment of Jet Air, and their ticket selling policies. Even the Ashok was loosing its shine. So the wakeup call came again a three (3) am, and we loaded onto an unbelievably crowded bus, isles stuffed with luggage, baggage hold overflowing. Jamie and I, packs on our backs, were dragging the huge hockey bag full of goodies down the isle, stepping over luggage with our feet on the seat arm rests, and Jamie's pack snagged and he completely dislocated his shoulder just as the bus pulled out of the Ashok. I eased off his pack, trying to stabilize his arm, and he began to pass out. I finally got him into a seat, calling to see if there is a doctor on the bus. I tried to put his arm back into its socket as we are roaring through the streets of Delhi. I realized at a certain point that I was not going to be able to do it, so I just held his arm out, and fed him Ibuprofin from my pack. When we got to the airport, our Swiss friend helped us unload our luggage and guarded it while I took Jamie to find a doctor. A Jet Air official led us to a little room, where a sleepy little man, who claimed to be a doctor, but showed no signs of competence, told us that Jamie was hurt. The Jet Air official said "I go get a taxi, yes? It will be pre-payed." And he disappeared, never to return. Jamie was in great pain, so I finally went out side and stamped my feet, retrieved our luggage, and got a taxi (how hard should it be to get a taxi at an airport?). We loaded our luggage on top of the taxi (no straps or anything), and sped off to the big government hospital in Delhi. The hospital was a Dante's Inferno sort of place with piles of bloody sheets in the corner, mutilated victims laying in halls, moaning on stretchers, people staggering around. A nurse approaches Jamie with a big hypodermic needle and says "this goes in the hip." "What is it?" we reply. "Pain Killer." We made her show us the sterile package it came out of. To give proper credit, the doctor was brusque, overworked and competent. They took an x-ray (people walking in and out of the room with no protection, the door to the x-ray room open to the hallway) the doctor relocated his shoulder while I ran outside to guard our luggage at the entrance to hospital where the military guard with the automatic weapon told me we could not bring the gurney full of luggage inside, but that he would watch it. He was gone, but by some trick of fate the luggage was still there. I kept running into the hospital to make sure Jamie was okay, and back out again to see if we still had luggage. At one point I saw monkeys climbing up the façade of the outside of the hospital, in and out of windows, throwing down bits of paper on the crowd below. At another point, two women came up to me and started speaking rapid Hindi, very close to me, while some person stole our water filtering bottle, and some batteries from the side pocket of my pack. The doctor gave me a sheet of scrap paper on which he had written "shoulder immobilization." and directed me to go across the street (at the peril of my life), and into the "subway" (an underground passage below another street). There were whole families of homeless people, and among other shops there was the Pharmacy, or "chemist." I elbowed my way to the counter, among rapidly speaking Indians, and for around four dollars, bought a sling contraption and made my way back to the hospital. So in about two hours, for four dollars, we got Jamie's shoulder put back in its socket, two sets of x-rays, and we were back in a cab with our five hundred pounds of luggage, minus a water bottle and a pack of batteries, headed back to the airport. We passed a dead cow in the highway on the way there, and decided that by comparison we were not so unlucky after all. So by 9:30 am we learned that the flight was cancelled again. The doctor had told us to wait around for an hour so he could talk to Jamie about how to deal with his recovery, but luckily we decided to flee Dante's Inferno, and return to the airport to learn that Jet Air had cancelled our flight again! A buddhist monk and a group of our Ladakhi friends were staging a small sit-in, which thrilled Jamie. The monk was very calm and firm, and demanded that our entire group receive boarding passes for the next morning's flight. They conceded and we were bussed back to the Ashok. So the next day we finally got out, after a scene of airport chaos like I have never seen. People desperate to get on the plane, pushing and shoving, even when we had checked our luggage, and were filing out onto the runway in the fog to board the plane, they were still crushing in and shoving. It was surreal. We broke into spontaneous applause when the plane took off. We were just not real anxious to go back to the Ashok. We already had the menu memorized. We did get one last souveneer from the Ashok though. I thought that two rolls of toilet paper would be enough for one guy for a month, but I've already gone though a whole roll in less than a week. I remember they assured us that the water we had with the buffet was purified. So much for promises. Greetings to all from Ladakh. J.C. -- Warning, clicking on the link below, at the bottom of the page, will instantly unsubscibe you from this mailing list: To unsubscribe from: The Mibby Post, just follow this link: <a href="http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=u&l=mibby&e=example@example.com&p=[pin">http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=u&l=mibby&e=example@example.com&p=[pin</a>] Click this link, or copy and paste the address into your browser.

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The Mibby Post #5

Tue, 15 Mar 2005 20:08:00 GMT

Here is a link to Archives of "The Mibby Post": <a href="http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=list&l=mibby">http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=list&l=mibby</a> it also includes a subscription link, so if you are getting this as a forward from someone, you can subscribe yourself, and/or read the archives. Recent photos sent here by Matt are now online here: <a href="http://songseek.com/picturenet/photos/Ladakh/index.htm">http://songseek.com/picturenet/photos/Ladakh/index.htm</a> or find a link to them at www.picture.net Recent news about home stays and the Sham Trek in Ladakh... (written by Louise with some additions from Matt -Put your message machine on and shut your door this is a long one!!!!) Likir is so beautiful with the Zanskar Range outside our guest house windows. We watched the very tips of each peak catch fire in the golden sunrays of the early morning while most of the mountains remained various hues of blue. Likir is a small village with stone pathways connecting houses and fields so many stones; stone walls like youve never seen, weaving around gardens and yards, enclosing narrow winding paths leading to Chortens, more diverging pathways, another house or field. Really, everything made of stone, and houses made of earth mud bricks with wooden framed windows all white washed and much bigger than I would have expected. Our staff member, Jon, (who previously has lived in a farm program in Likir for a month) put house size in terms of the ancestral estate. Houses are in families for hundreds of years so they keep adding on- for the relatives, animals, storage, etc. They dont use all the space, especially in the winter and no one has much furniture. In winter, people are mostly in the kitchen which is usually the only heated room. Three or four generations will huddle in the dimly lit warmth every evening; sipping tea, preparing food, laughing, playing with the young ones, singing and talking. The kitchen stove, made of ornate tin and only a couple feet high is fueled by small wood harvested from willow trees, or dried dung. We sit on the floor on mats or Tibetan rugs with small low tables. Old people sit on racks of cardboard egg flats stacked and tied together to lift them off the floor a little. Whenever we come into our house or visit any other, they immediately offer us Cha-ngarmo or sweet milk tea and biscuits while they sip away at butter tea all day. They all have a firm belief in the powers for good health of chuscol, or hot boiled water. They dont think anyone should drink cold water (especially in the winter). To mix boiled water with cold water and drink it is to invite inevitable poor health or death. When the girls get diarrhea, they all chime in that its because they are letting themselves get too cold and they need to drink lots of chuscol and wear more layers of clothing. Basically, Ladakhis wear their coats and often hats or scarves inside and outside. They cant believe Im warm when I only have two sweaters and a long underwear top on. They are so generous unconditionally and kind. Theres something too to be said about being in a cohesive culture of one people with longstanding traditions and beliefs makes us Americans with our anything goes or relativistic attitudes seem wishy washy. The food in the villages by this time of year end of winter is very simple, but good: potatoes, rice, bread, onions, some carrots and of course the home-made noodles in the tukpa or soup. Oh, and delicious dahl! We had a couple of eggs two mornings, which the girls were very excited about. Its not so hard for me to be vegetarian, but Anna definitely misses meat and so do Lily and Marley, though they are some what satisfied by eggs and cheese. Lily has been most adventurous food-wise and with spicey foods, Anna is close behind and of course, Marley holds her own. Fortunately for Marley, our new Ladakhi friend, Pumy, joined us on the trek and convinced the host family on the first and second night to prepare a special plate of French fries just for her! Back at SECMOL, you would see us making grilled cheese (from individually wrapped little squares of American cheese and white bread all that is available in Leh this time of year) sandwiches quite often! Anna got quite sick with sharp pains in her belly on the first night in one of the mountain villages on the Trek. We made her a hot water bottle and she slept, but the next morning she was still very weak and out of it when it was time to start out. Thank goodness for the fat, farting (as Anna described them) ponies!! She was able to ride most of the way that second day with me holding her, except for near the top of the mountain pass (too steep for ponies) over which Jon and Tashi (our guide) and I basically carried her. Luckily, I had homeopathic dysentery which she doused for and I gave it to her every 10-15 minutes. By the time we got to the next village, the runs were gone and she lay in her bag reading all evening. [Matts insert here...] The next day, Anna was fine as we hiked in brilliant sunlight through canyons and passes until we reached the base of the final, highest pass (13,500 feet). Everyone was nervous as we approached this part of the trail as we could see from the distance, a snow covered, 60 degree mountain face with an unbroken plain reaching at least a 1000 feet to the top of the pass. The trail of soft spring snow was only a single boot width in places as it switched back and fourth towards the summit. Students, staff and ponies carefully picked each step as, like a line of ants, we marched higher and higher. A miss-step, or fall would have certainly sent us careening down a snow field with little chance of arresting our descent until we reached the bottom hundreds of feet below. It was a sandy surface beneath the snow, and no large rocks or cliffs below so I do not believe it was life threatening. But as I held Lilys hand up the entire slope, I was at times thinking of how I might respond if she pulled me off balance from behind. I think we would have been in for quite a ride. Everyone behaved bravely the girls were really amazing; refusing pony rides and pushing up and up for close to an hour. All gave quite a cheer when we reached the tremendous mountain splender and safety of the top! Snow covered peaks extended into the distance in every direction as far as the eye could see. Cookies were handed out by our guide while everyone rested before the final descent into our last village of the trek. This last part of the trip was not without interest. Anna had convinced me to join a couple others in a precipitous sliding fest down a snow shoot that dropped a hundred and fifty feet or so when I heard a call from Louise down below that someone had hurt her knee. Visions of ACL injuries or worse were entering my head when news came back up the trail that it was only a severe bruise from a pony kick! (We were told not to walk too closely behind). So Anna and I had a grand time surfing down the slide, she on her butt and me riding my pack like a boogy board on waves. [Back to Louises recollections of our trek...] We saw Snow Leopard tracks twice on our journey. Most of the group went on a side trail to a higher village on the second night, while I stayed in a lower one an extra night to rest with the few sick students. We thought tracks would only be seen at the higher elevations, but due to unusually heavy snow fall, the leopards have come down really low. We saw tracks just outside this first village as well as the final village on the trek. This final mountain village, Ang, had had 12 animals killed by leopards in the previous week. Pommi was shown a sheep by the villagers that had a huge puncture wound in its neck from a leopard, but survived. They asked Jon if we had any sheep medicine, but we didnt! Ed had a blast tracking the leopards paths through the village and above. He observed that they always kept a stone wall between them and the center of the village; crept under very low tree branches, leapt from large boulders at least a dozen feet before landing and all in all, lived up to their reputation as one of the most illusive creatures in the world. More reflections on our home stays (Louise and Matt) All the houses have flat roofs and a ladder or stairs to go up. The roofs are walled with dry hay and or alfafa for winter feed and sticks for fuel. They are festooned with prayer flags and are a great sunny spot to hang out and see the views. Many older people will assemble there in the middle of the day, spinning with a small hand spindle and chatting with each other while theyre warmed by the sun. The first village appeared like a tiny medieval enclave perched on a gravel peninsula high above a deep canyon and dwarfed by a vast expanse of white peaks. Terraced fields, held back by a series of low stone walls, descended to an uneven cluster of three or four, mudstone dwellings. Huddled in a protective formation with prayer flags and hansom windows, these homes formed narrow, two-story passage ways in a maze like fashion. Very old, and seemingly unchanged, walkways might reveal a wondering Yak with pointy horns or an elder villager circling the small gompa in the center of an inner courtyard chanting and fingering his beads as the sun dropped behind the mountains and the gentle night sky enveloped this remote community. All the rooms that our family stayed in had two entire walls of windows with amazing views of canyons and mountains. Five out of seven nights, we were in unheated rooms (extra blanket provided!). We woke up with thick frost inside the windows and a reluctance to make the trip to the freezing stone outhouse with hole to squat over. Im not sure how cold it was, but at least 20 F or colder. The last two nights we had heat once a gas heater that felt like a hot bath! And once a little portable bukari or woodstove for which they poked a hole through the ceiling to ventilate with a narrow pipe. While the windows made rooms very warm in the daylight sun, the cold at night definitely makes me appreciate heat and hot water! In the mornings we asked for water to wash with and got a tin of warm water to splash our hands and face clean. Otherwise we were quite dirty on the trek with one change of clothes for the week, often wearing all our layers at the same time. Back in Leh, we enjoyed a warm welcome and hot pizza (Ladakhi style!) served at our now familiar Oriental Guesthouse. A bucket of hot water to wash our whole bodies in, our one change of clean clothes brought in from SECMOL, and we made the transition from the timeless remote village life to bustling Leh with the now unfamiliar sounds of internal combustion engines, horns and shouts. Fortunately, we could still gaze out to Stok-Kangri, the 20,000 footer among its lest lofty, white mountain companions encircling Leh, reminding us of wilder places and the mysterious lives of our hosts in the hill villages we had just left. Hope all is well with you, our family and friends! Matt and Louise and family... -- Warning, clicking on the link below, at the bottom of the page, will instantly unsubscibe you from this mailing list: To unsubscribe from: The Mibby Post, just follow this link: <a href="http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=u&l=mibby&e=example@example.com&p=[pin">http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=u&l=mibby&e=example@example.com&p=[pin</a>] Click this link, or copy and paste the address into your browser.

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The Mibby Post #4

Tue, 01 Mar 2005 00:59:00 GMT

Here is a link to Archives of "The Mibby Post": <a href="http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=list&l=mibby">http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=list&l=mibby</a> it also includes a subscription link, so if you are getting this as a forward from someone, you can subscribe yourself, and/or read the archives. Hi everyone! a quick update from Ladakh... Things here have been warming up. Very sunny for at least half the day each day. Enough to start heating up the thick mud/stone walls so we can shed some blankets at night -even though the evening/morning temperatures are still quite chilly. The day time sky has been just incredible. Like a clear fall day, Puffs of cumulus clouds billowing above the brilliant white mountains against a starry blue backdrop. It is almost surreal. We are all really settling into our life here. I think Louise may have found her calling as an English teacher. She really likes it and the students really like her. Anna, Lily and Marley seem to really be thriving in this environment -except for an extreme dislike for the food and occaissional vomiting and diarhia. They have been real troopers! Anna got up three times the other night to relieve digestive problems in the roofless outhouse -didn't even wake us up or complain -just did it and came back to bed without telling us. I think they really enjoy the independence and free time to play, do homework, hang out with the students or Ladakhis, etc. Anna's working on a narrative about a flying moose, a project to document and investigate a local ruin, some photo/computer graphic stuff, painted essays, math and a ton of drawings. Lily and Marley do a bit of math each day -Marley is writing a procedural paper about how to make mo mos (which she and Lily love to do with the cook each Sunday) and Lily is writing a paper about how she prefers shopping in Leh, Ladakh (with cows in the street, numerous vending stalls, etc.) over getting dragged along to shops in Montpelier. They have been thrilled with various hiking adventures, leading us up and down precipitous inclines of sand and rock. They had me take a picture of their Calico Critters mountain climbing yesterday. All three of girls had prime seats with their Ladakhi friend, Pumy, at the Matho Monastery this week where we saw Oracles slice their tongues with swords and run parilously across the top of the narrow Monastery roof lines (about 50 feet up) They were quite striking and certainly seemed in a trance or from another world. The lower part of the Monastery where Louise and I were watching was like a massive mosh pit with a sea of cramped human bodies waving out of the way of openings in the crowd made for the monks and Oracles to pass through. The colors of the building, the dramatic costumes, sometimes sinister -sometimes shamanic appearing, -the deep, constant rhythm of the large verticle drums and the envelope of Himalay peaks all about put us all into sort of a trance for several hours. We are looking forward to a two-day home stay starting March 1 in Likir and then a four day treck leaving from Likir and going up to a series of mountain villages (inaccessable by road) and over a series of mountain passes. We will bring ponies for the girls to rest on as needed. We are all looking forward to Mom, JC and Jaimie's arrival on March 18! (which airline?) Well -time to go to dinner now. I hope all is well with you, our family, friends and neighbors. PS: My workmates would appreciate the fact that instead of my calendar being jam packed with endless details, I don't ever use one now -except for writing the occassional appointment on my hand! PSS: Our email address is now <a href="mailto:vis@valley.net">vis@valley.net</a> for those who missed the change. (put our name in the subject line) Love Matt, Louise, Anna, Lily and Marley -- Warning, clicking on the link below, at the bottom of the page, will instantly unsubscibe you from this mailing list: To unsubscribe from: The Mibby Post, just follow this link: <a href="http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=u&l=mibby&e=example@example.com&p=[pin">http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=u&l=mibby&e=example@example.com&p=[pin</a>] Click this link, or copy and paste the address into your browser.

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The Mibby Post #3

Sun, 27 Feb 2005 18:17:00 GMT

Hello everyone! We definitely feel far, far away! This is an incredible place! Leh is part of a vast valley with views of the dramatic Himalaya all around -spiced with the 9 story palace, gompas on the near hills and chortens sprinkled throughout. We are now settled into our SECMOL, the Ladakhi solar powered boarding school 30 minutes up the Indus River valley from Leh. Weve been quickly adjusting to a new way of life in Ladakh. This tends to involve intense highs like when we are overwhelmed with breath-taking vistas of the himalaya, vast canyons, colorful festivals at the monasteries or the simple beauty and peacefulness of the Ladakhis -or can be much lower moments like the other night when I got a bloody nose (because it is so dry in this high altitude desert), had an intense sore throat, a sore back and was scratching all over from bed bugs!!!!! We are told that culture shock often is reflected by more intense extremes in ones highs and lows at first arrival, but then these even out more as you stay longer. I would say that has probably been true so far for most people here. Anna and the girls seem to be adjusting very well. They love the freedom of home schooling. We have taken some great walks/adventures on the rolling sand-stone dunes above the campus or down by the beaches along the Indus River. We recently have been exploring the stone ruins of a dwelling/fort on a precipitous peninsula of stone near by. No one knows anything of the history of this fort. Weve been finding pottery shards and picturing ourselves living with the people who were first here. Was it as far back as the Dards who first settled the Indus river valley? Was is built to defend against Dogra invaders in the 1800s? We also were just told of a small burial ground of bones under stones and spread around a bit just up a tributary of the Indus near here. Did these people die attempting to defend the fort? Or was it a wide spread disease that occurred a few generations ago as one elder Ladakhi believes? Our host, Becky, sais that Ladakhis are not as obsessed with their history as we are and that is probably why this site and many others have not been studied, catalogued, written about in books, etc. Hmmm.... I guess I am a bit intrigued by our Vermont past and ways of living in the past around the world. Anyway, I feel very privileged to have this site to explore as if we were the first ones to discover it! I have yet to get what Anna, Louise and I originally wrote for the Mibby onto this computer so much more to come... Till then, thanks for all your emails. We have you in our hearts! Jullay! Matt -- Warning, clicking on the link below, at the bottom of the page, will instantly unsubscibe you from this mailing list: To unsubscribe from: The Mibby Post, just follow this link: <a href="http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=u&l=mibby&e=example@example.com&p=[pin">http://www.songseek.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=u&l=mibby&e=example@example.com&p=[pin</a>] Click this link, or copy and paste the address into your browser.

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