Tibet Post #2: Post-Earthquake Town

Monday, June 13

I'm now comfortably settled in with my new host family in the small broken-down village of Chenduo, a part of the Yushu Prefecture up on the Tibetan Plateau. There has been little (hardly any at all) recovery from the earthquake that happened last April, and most of the locals are still living in tents beside the crumbled piles of stone and dirt that used to be their homes. It's like one big construction zone. Even shops are schools have been reduced to a collection of tents while the rebuilding takes place. In short it all looks very temporary and yet this is how they've been living for 14 months now, and by the looks of things will continue to live for quite some time to come. I guess it took an entire year for the government support to come into effect, so no real efforts started up until just within the last 2 months. So, in the village itself, there's not much to see, but the surrounding mountains on all sides of the narrow valley are wonderful. It's a very peaceful place.

I've been absolutely loving my work helping neighbours to shovel dirt, mix concrete or put up walls. At first, I was with a team of Chinese workers who'd come in from Sichuan Province to earn some extra money now that farming has become all automated at home and there's not enough work left for them there. Construction with them was well underway and the outline of a house was starting to take shape. But when they didn't show up on the 2nd day because of some drizzling rain, I started up with the family just behind our own cluster of tents. Even though the quake was a full 14 months ago, this yard looked like it could've been only one week. It's just a grandmother, grandfather and young grandson that live there, with the son/father being a nomad and away from the village most of the time. Their "home" is just a big mound of earth still, so I've been digging through and separating the large stones away from the dirt to be used to rebuild. The family is quite poor so can't afford any equipment or extra help to speed things along. The work is fun out in the clean, fresh air and the family is extremely appreciative, so even though there's talk of helping rebuild the orphanage or helping at other yards in the neighbourhood, I'd be perfectly happy staying with this project as long as there's still work there that I'm capable of doing.

In terms of culture, this is a fascinating place to be. The lifestyle is at once both simple and advanced, with more years of human history than I, as a Western Canadian, can hardly fathom. Buddhism is deeply ingrained in every part of the lifestyle and those beliefs are used to explain everything that happens from small daily events to massive upheavals like the earthquake. Being totally immersed in the family offers endless interesting insights into the mindset, and I enjoy hearing all the stories of famous reincarnations or the actions of great lamas in this area over a thousand years ago. The culture is also very closely linked to nature, with mountains, rivers, the sky etc all having their own spirits. This is why Tibetans won't partake in mining or chopping down trees in holy places. Every life is considered valuable, so they tend not to eat small animals like fish or chickens (figuring that if they must eat meat to survive in the high altitude, somewhat harsh environment, they might as well make it a big one like a yak to feed the most people).

I didn't know what to expect from the food here, but have found it all very tasty. And after nothing but dal bhat for 10 months straight, the variety of dishes is almost overwhelming. It's usually some kind of noodle soup for dinner, rice with assorted stir-fry dishes for lunch, and the staple food, tsampa, for breakfast. Tsampa is barley flour, yak butter, yak cheese, yak milk tea, and sometimes sugar all mixed together to make a rather tasty clump of breakfast paste. In the afternoon, there's also a break for tea, more appropriately called "small dinner" given the amount of food served, which is how it directly translates. But this is far from the only time for tea during the day. They seem to drink it non-stop from morning to night. I don't think I've read an account of Tibetan culture without finding reference (usually highly shocked and disgusted) to the tea. I don't know why they put the salt into it, but am relieved to say I didn't find it nearly as painfully undrinkable as it would seem. In fact, I was able to acquire a taste for it within the first few sips after the initial surprise at the unfamiliar flavour wore off. Perhaps I'm just lucky that my family doesn't also add butter to make the more traditional, and I'm I'm sure much harder to get used to, drink of choice.