Tibetan Refugee Settlement

The other day we chanced to meet a gentleman from Tibet who runs tours of the local settlements for refugees. His passion for these people and their cause sold us on taking his all day tour yesterday.

The other day we chanced to meet a gentleman from Tibet who runs tours of the local settlements for refugees. His passion for these people and their cause sold us on taking his all day tour yesterday.

He picked us up at our hotel sharply at 9am and we were off.

We watched women cleaning wool and spinning it… saw the rooms they stored the yarns and dyed them….

Then watched some of the women weaving the rugs.

In the next building teens are taught simple sewing so they can earn some money making bags.

Each settlement also has a medical center. We had a medical consultation with this Tibetan Doctor. She later said i gave her one of the nicest gifts she had ever received.

We visited a school where I was able to entertain the kids and their teachers with a handful of balloons I still had with me in Pokhara (I was able to make something for each of the 20+_ preschoolers and their teachers).

We visited a monastery where sat for about 20 minutes having a conversation with a Monk (he’s a 24-year old student there… and has been studying there for the past 10 years). We sat in a religious service (taking a few pictures we were later told wasn’t permitted).

We had lunch in a small house with a family there… later we had tea in another along with a traditional paste-type food (a mixture of barley powder with a salty butter tea).

By the end of the day it was like we had taken a college semester course learning about the struggles and hard lives these refugee Tibetan people are having these past 60 years. There is so much we all take for granted that these people can’t even imagine.