Coaching
I went for almost a week to coach the Tibetan national soccer team to their training camp in Dharadun, which is about 12 hours drive from where I am staying, the bus ride was a experience and a half, the driving is like Mexico but scarier (if possible), so you basically close your eyes an hope for the best, passing in curves and all the other no no’s while driving are common occurrence here.
I shared the ride, with a young Jewish girl, that was traveling alone for another two weeks and then returning to Israel, she has jus finished her 3 year military service which al citizens have to do, she was very interested in Buddhism, so she was asking me many questions about it, this took my mind from the driving and the near misses.


TIBETAN NATIONAL SOCCER TEAM

So I arrived around 5.00am at the old bus station and waited for the team officials that were going to pick me up and take me to the training camp, which is about 30 minutes from town, in a great facility of the TCV (Tibetan Children Village), this particular facility has around 70 acres of well kept grounds and buildings, it actually continues to expand every year.


HAVING BREAKFAST WITH THE TEAM

This school (residential), has two sections, one for grades 1 to 10, mostly of Tibetan children refuges, some of them orphans and the rest with their parents in Tibet, unable to leave, the other section is for vocational training and have many different courses , such a cooking , hotel management, computers, house keeping, usually 2 years after grade 12.


COOKING/BAKING SCHOOL FACILITIES


HOUSE KEEPING STUDENTS CLEANING MY ROOM


MY MEALS COOKED BY STUDENTS, DELIVERED TO MY ROOM


Both sections are designed for high achievers, so the best of all the TCV schools in India is here, is a beautiful facility, that we don’t have even in Canada, all the cooking for all the students is done by the cooking students, the housekeeping also is done by the students etc, so the students take care of all the services, which give them an excellent practical training, there are soccer fields and basket ball courts.
This facility being so great is a perfect place to sequester the National soccer team so they can train without interruptions with all the facilities at their disposal.


FEMALE STUDENTS IN THEIR BIKE

So I did 2 training sessions and one classroom session a day, working mostly on the needs of the team to improve their technical abilities as well as their physical conditioning, they have 2 tournaments coming up, one in Seekim and the other one in cypress.
I am going to try to do my best to go with the team, but it requires many days away from my Buddhist teachings, so more likely I wont be able to go with them, so I will have to return here to their training camp, once more between tournaments so they get ready for Cypress.
The players and other coaches are extremely respectful, I never been called SIR so many times in my life, players do as they are told, no Prima Donas here just hard working players, all the players, and coaches do it as VOLUNTEERS as they don’t have any money to get pay, they take timeoff their regular jobs or teams to train and play together, so they need funds on a regular basis to pay for the team expenses including traveling, so if any of you know of any organization that may help, please let me know.
In the way back I got a tour of the Nehru Tibetan colony, which is superb, I was amazed by the beauty, size and cleanliness of this Tibetan colony, there is a central area with all the monasteries, centers stupas (Tibetan religious buildings), and a very big statue of Lord Buddha, the place was very impressive and as it was Sunday well visited by Tibetans and Indian families a like.


BUDDHA STATUE IN THE TIBETAN COLONY


STUPA AND CHENREZIG


NICE OLD MONK


MONASTERY IN THE TIBETAN COLONY


STUPA

After the visit to this center, it was time to take the 12 hour bus trip back to my loved mountains, so I returned with Kalsang-la the person in charge of the Tibetan team, I was ready for another 12 hours of fun filled bus ride, but I was not counting of being in a middle of a riot in the highway.
It was around 9pm, as we were passing by a town, predominantly of a specific faith which I will not mention, I live it to the reader to imagine which one, there were a few hundred of people on the road, shouting and fighting, there was armed police present but it was kind of an ugly seen, I put my shoes back on and grabbed my back pack, in case that I have to do some running to save limb and soul, fortunately the bus driver was convinced to turn around and go another way, so we turned back among chaos of traffic and fighting demonstrators and drove by another road.
After that the usual near misses for a few more hours and suddenly we were back in the lovely Himalayas around 6am, which is great to observe the sunrise by the high mountains, the trip was very full feeling and I was able to share some of my limited knowledge and learn much more from this land and its people, I arrived to my apartment, had breakfast, picked my books and went for my teachings, walking down the road to the Tibetan Library and Archives (which is were my teachings are held), I could only think, how lucky I am to be able to see/learn and witness so much in this far land, as I walked down, my usual road side companions, Tibetans, Indians, monkeys, cows, donkeys, were heading into their daily activities, and once again I felt part of this very different world.


HOW WOULD YOU LIKE TO GET YOUR GAS DELIVERD LIKE THIS??, OR TO HAVE THIS JOB??




more pics to come soon

There are stingy situations here as well, the other day I helped some monks catch a scorpion as they were afraid of it, me being a good Mexican grew up with them (no we don’t eat them in Mexico), so it was a very simple operation, then we realize the creature on the bush, there are also huge fields of Nettles (Urtica dioica), all over the place growing by the road side and houses and everywhere, not to many people knows the medical benefit of this plant, you can not even find a bag of nettle tea in town, some foreigners get stinged by this plants and don’t know what to do, it is funny seeing their faces, when they get it.
Also I have seen a couple of Mongoose, I wanted to take pics of them but I did not wanted to get in the bush to get closer as their main meal is Cobras and I don’t want to find out if there are any around here.
As you can see there is never a dull moment around here....
But nothing is as chalenging and dangerous as going to the ATM machine to retrive money (there is only one in town), you see it is the favorite place of some of the locals,


THIS IS THE BEST PROTECTION AGAINST GETTING TO MUCH MONEY


and then try to pass by them without getting a scratch its not easy, and that is no BULL, I hope you agree with me??????.


THIS IS TO MUCH EVEN FOR A MEXICAN BULL FIGHTER, (you should see their deposits???)

changing the subject to food, the Tibetan food is very simple but tasty and around here its very cheap, it cost about .50 to.60 cents for breakfast, lunch about 1 dollar and dinner about the same so with 3 to 4 dollars you can eat 3 meals a day, food is mostly vegetarian and thank good Tibetan use chilies so I can eat all my food hot and spicy.



THIS IS THANTHUK MY FAV. TIBETAN SOUP, WITH VEGGIES, TOFU, HOME MADE PASTA AND CHILIES

The other day went to a Korean restaurant (there are 2 here), perhaps the best meal in town and for all standards very expensive, it was about 8.00 dollars but it was a great meal and complete with rice, kimchi, which I love, salads and the main dish, it is funny but there are 2 Italian type restaurants Run by Tibetans (actually most of the restaurants are owned by Tibetans and perhaps 2 or 3 by Indians, the funny thing is that a lot of the foreigners believe that this Italian restaurants serve pretty good Italian food, in some cases just as good as in Italy???, no offence to my Italian friends, they also have Mexican food (so called) in 2 or 3 places, such as corn chips and salsa, quesadillas and vegetarian Mexican hamburger.

Well life continues as normal, studying, doing my Buddhist practices, In a way there is never enough time to do all the things that I one would like to do, so you can make your life as busy as you want, here just like anywhere else, the difference is that here you are trying to get rid of the negative/afflicting emotions that affect your life creating an illusory life and also by volunteering you help sentient beings as there is so much need around here, every day refugees from Tibet continue to arrive here from all areas of Tibet trying to escape the Chinese oppression, and they are in much need of everything even the most basic human needs.
In my philosophy courses there are Buddhist students from all over the world so it is neat to listen in the breaks so many languages spoken around me, it is also nice to see that Buddhism is so well accepted all over the world as the people realized that Buddhism, offers so much to us as a human beings not as a religion but just as a life philosophy to become a better human being.
In my Tibetan languages class are mostly Indian people, 3 or 4 from Singapore and Korea a German lady and me, Tibetan language is very hard as it is completely different than any languages that I destroy (sorry speak), but lets see how much I learn, my goal as requested by my Lama is not to learn it to be fluent, but to learn Some and used to read and better understanding of my Buddhist teachings.


Very popular the Mela festival


The monsoon is still upon us, for the last 2 days there has been the Mela festival,full of more food and items to shop than normal, its supposed to announce the end of the monsoon but I believe since the festival started there has been more rain than before, I have never seen so much rain in so little time before, in way it’s a blessing as it cleans the streets of all the cows droppings that the leave as They move from place to place.


Even the nuns have to do some shopping


Festival was very well attended


But you can smeel winter in the air, its starting to get cold in the mornings, soon I expect to see the Himalayas white and as magnificent as we see them in pictures or in our imagination
I hope that you like the pics that I have been posted, now that I know how I will be posting sometimes just pictures, with no text as I imagine you may get bored with story telling, my goal is to mostly take pictures of daily life, not the worst or the best here, but real life and hopefully some funny pics of different things that we are used to see in the west.


Even a pale face got into the Mela market, can you find him? LOL

Monday 21st I started all my 3 classes, Tibetan beginners, and 2 Buddhist philosophy, one with Geshe Sonam a very well know teacher in the Tibetan world.
All 3 classes were very interesting specially the Tibetan languages as the class started 1 month ago so I am behind but I had to do the same as the others and repeat alone every thing that was written in Tibetan in the black board, this class is taught by a very funny nun, and she really is a good teacher, to bad I am not her brightest student.


MY POOR TIBETAN LANGUAGE TEACHER A VERY FUNNY NUN

Today Tuesday 22nd was the second class and I felt a bit more confident, so I have to hit the books to catch up with the rest.



ONE OF MY TIBETAN PHILOSOPHY TEACHERS (NOT GESHE SONAM)



MY TIBETAN PHILOSOPHY CLASSROOM



NUN'S DURING A DEBATE SESSION IN THE NUNNERY BEHIND MY PLACE

I see one or two of the soccer team members every day just walking up or down hill (that is all you do here there is no flat terrain, so today they told me that they all went for a run at 5.30am as it was part of my new instruction as the team has to be in a better shape, they are very accommodating and they do as they told very refreshing.

JUST ANOTHER DAY IN THE LIFE OF PEOPLE

Road trafic going to my courses

His Holiness Oracle temple

Tibetan lady circumambulating a temple (notice resting dog)

Tibetan lady walking saying mantras

Garbage Day, nunns do the chores as well


Indian ladies going to work


Laborers going to work


More indian ladies going to work


Tuk tuk on road