TACKMACHIK GOMPA

Wednesday 4th August
Today we went with Stanzin to the apricot orchard. The air is very heavy. There was huge thunder and lightening last night. We took various tins and plastic containers to put the apricots in and Stanzin carried a homemade wicker basket that fitted on her back. It had four sides and tapered to the bottom. Each side was about 16 inches long at the top, and the depth of the basket was about 2 feet. It was lined with a modern, woven flour sack. The frame of the basket was constructed from two U shaped willow branches and attached to them were stong flat ropes to go around the shoulders and across the top of the chest. Tsering Angchok had made the baskets.


Life in Ladakh, especially in Tackmachik, is very 'human scale'. These baskets hold an amount of apricots that takes one person about two or three hours to gather. This time is enough to ensure one is not sick of picking apricots! The weight of the filled basket is just enough for one person to carry. The basket is built to the size of the body. If it were in the West, we would make bigger baskets so we could carry more at one time - so it would save us making so many trips. But it would be a struggle for us to carry them home. They would take longer to fill, so we would be sick of the job before we filled the basket. We would have made life harder and unpleasant for ourselves! We would have created unnecessary stress in our quest for bigger and better.

In the afternoon I went to the Gompa (monastery) It is near the entrance road to the village, roughly half an hours walk from Kaptopa house. Tackmachik is beautiful. It is on the left bank of the Indus. It is a green oasis created by the villagers. The road is high up and sweeps in to the the village. The fields are thin and curved and stepped, following the line of the river. As I walked along I could see three men up on the side of a mountain. They had been blasting out a channel for a three mile long canal which was to run between Tackmachik and a neighbouring village. A man waved for me to pass. It was safe to walk in front of the area where the men were working and take a short cut over the foot of the mountain to the Gompa.
The Gompa is a small rectangular, white washed building with a smaller anteroom extension on the left. At the front door is a wide platform with five steps leading upwards. On each side of the double front door are full length wooden framed windows. I looked in.
Along the whole back wall was a wooden framed glass case containing beautiful gold Buddhas. In the middle was an especially big statue. The statues were placed about waist height and reached nearly to the ceiling. There was nothing else in the room. There was a deep red carpet on the floor, and two wooden T shaped decorated beams stood on either side of the main Buddha, supporting the roof. It was amazing. Out in the middle of nowhere this small, ornate jewel of a temple.
I walked down the steps from the entrance and leisurely looked in the windows of the ante room, as my eyes focused, my brain registered the most frightening, wrathful, demonic face I have ever seen - and there was an almighty
B O O M ! !! ! ! !
The ground shook, I felt the noise reverberating in my sternum. Oh Buddha, I thought! The terrible face, and the terrible noise - I nearly had a heart attack!
I caught my breath and thought, this is not the place to be just now, I'll head back to the village. As I walked down the path it occured to me I hadn't left an offering - and considering the power that was evidenced as I had gazed upon Vajrapani, I thought it would be prudent to do so. I turned around and went back to the front door. Looking in at the benevolent Buddha I left a little, new apricot and some water. I turned to the window of the room housing the dark blue face. Bending to leave the offering, my eyes focused again on the terrifying visage -
B O O M ! ! ! ! ! !
The temple shook, stoor and dust filled the air, stones rained down about my head. A small shrine high on a jagged edge above me shook, it's prayer flags waving crazily. The ground below my feet shook. The sound consumed the space around me and reverberated from mountain to mountain echoing again and again in the dust filled sky. It was frightening and overwhelming. The sound and the sight were one and the same. Twice I had looked upon the terrible face and twice the terrible roar had filled the air. I know who's in charge around here, I thought - and legged it.
http://www.angelfire.com/mt2/thubtentenzin/texts/Deities_in_Tibetan_Buddhism.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajrapani

DANCING UNDER LIGHTNING

Thursday 5th August 2010.

Heavy, heavy rain last night. The Indus is in full spate. Stanzin told us the bridge at Basgo had been washed away. In Tackmachik some of the villagers were aligning themselves along the steep, stoney banks of the river. They had long poles of wood and they were using them to winkle tree trunks and branches out the spinning, foaming torrents. It is difficult, dangerous work. Not only do they have to salvage the wood, they have to drag it up the steep banks to the road, then take it home. Perhaps some of the luckier ones will have a donkey to help. Stanzin's father in law is one of the men undertaking this arduous task. She takes us to the foot bridge and we watch for a while. He hooks the wood as it spins past, manoeuvers it closer to the bank, then throws it up onto the stones. Stanzin is worried about him while he is doing this. It is very dangerous, and the river has no mercy.

That evening we were invited to Stanzin's Mum's house for dinner. The house is on the mountain side. To reach it one has to climb a wooden step ladder. Stanzin's Grandfather (90 years) lives here, too. 'How does your Grandfather climb up and down this ladder, every day?' Laurel asked, gingerly manoevering herself up to the house, 'with no bother at all, and faster than you!' came back the humorous reply. There are no prams or baby buggies to be seen in Ladakh. There are no reclining armchairs either. In the West we think we are making life easier for ourselves, we are actually taking away our natural movements. No wonder we are stiff when we get old!

We sat outside in the courtyard, one storey up and Stanzin rolled thin, round pasta, and twirled them on her fingers into lovely butterfly shapes for dinner. Lightening crackled continuously round the mountain peaks above our heads. It filled the sky with an eerie, petrol blue luminosity. I leaned my elbows on the mud brick courtyard wall and stared and stared at this hair raising spectacle. I was standing on an earth floor 11,000 feet up in the air with electricity cracking and fizzing all around me.
Stanzin and her niece, Rigzin Angmo, age 9, sang a lovely Ladakhi song. Then Rigzin Angmo danced for us while she and Stanzin sang. Both the dance and the song were beautiful and sweet and delicate. It was so magical, cradled in the brown, earthen courtyard in the dark, with this lovely, wee girl singing to us and the blue lightning sparkling all around. Jigmet Chopel, age 2, decided he would dance for us, too. He encouraged his mother and Rigzin Angmo to sing and Laurel and I to clap in time and he danced and danced until it was time for dinner.
It is the most ethereal time I have as yet, been privileged to experience.

PROTECTION FROM THE RAIN

Friday 6 th August
I awoke at 2 am with rain pouring into the room. The roof of Kaptopa house, and the majority of houses in Tackmachik, is made from smoothed, dried earth. The rain had been so heavy and frequent over the last days and hours it had erroded the earth covering and was pouring in through the poplar sticks that formed the ceiling. We put basins down to collect the water, moved our bedding and went back to sleep.

That afternoon I helped Stanzin and Tsering Angchok lay plastic sheeting over the roof. Jigmet Dorge handed large stones up the wooden step ladder to the roof for us to secure the plastic.We also put sacks over the wall head as it is important to keep the wall head dry.

Later, Tsering Angchok and I covered the donkey house with sheeting. Near the donkey house was a stone alcove built into the hillside storing sheaves of daal. Rigzin Dolma asked me to help her move the sheaves out onto the earthen courtyard. Tsering Angchok came along - and from the animated conversation between him and Rigzin Dolma, I gathered that she wanted to move out the daal that was in the alcove, cover it with the plastic and move other daal in. He wouldn't let her do it. I don't know if the daal in the alcove belonged to someone else or what the issue was, but I left them to it and walked back to Kaptopa house.
That night, about 10pm, rain poured down the wall in my bed room. One of the runoff gullies from the roof had been blocked by the plastic. Stanzin climbed up to the roof and in the wild rain and wind sorted the problem. That night Stanzin, Jigmet Dorge and Jigmet Chopel slept in our room. The night before their room had been soaked through. Their room is in the older section of the house. Kaptopa house is in two parts. The old section is on the right of the main door, and the new section on the left. The house now forms a 14 m sided square, with an open topped hall area in the centre. I presume the new part was added when Stanzin married Punchok Paldan, thus creating more home space for an expanding family.

THE (RELATIVE) CALM BEFORE THE FLOOD

Saturday 7 August 2010

Today we sorted out our room. Stanzin has 4 or 5 types of grass brushes for different jobs. Some are long, thin, soft and feathery, formed from the tips of the grass right down to the stalk. Some are thicker, stiffer brushes, formed from only the stalks. Some are rough, and spread out at the end, like a short brush made from tough heather. These brushes looked like dishevelled spiders! Each brush is for a specific purpose. The soft feathery ones are for fine brushing, sweeping down the lovely, brightly coloured carpets and rugs that cover the mattresses. The rough ones are for sweeping the interior earthen floors.
Today I had a complete body wash in 1 litre of water. My Mum told me when one does this, 'you wash down as far as possible, wash up as far as possible, then wash possible!'

THE DEVASTATION OF THE FLOODING

Sunday 8 August 2010
At tea time, I was using socks to wash our bedroom windows. Two other members of the group were intending to go to a group meeting, and I wasn't going to bother, then Laurel said she would wait for me to finish and we should go up together. Luckily I did.

We heard shouting and saw the villagers up on a high ridge. The mountain burn servicing the village had swelled with the torrential rain. High in the summer pastures, over the days of rain, a huge natural damn had built up. The water had increased in volume and eventually burst through, sweeping down the field fringed gorge, carrying fields, trees and animals with it. It was finding it's way to the Indus.

Sonam, one of the villagers, had been up at the summer pasture, the 'drok', in Ladakhi, and had seen the water building. He anticipated the water breaking through. He ran all the way back to the village to warn people. The village girls wash their clothes in the river. The children play around in the shallows beside their siblings. Sonam reached the village in time to give 15 minutes warning.

When we were up on the ridge we heard a terrible rumbing fill the air. The land shook beneath my feet. Energy shock waves reverberating up from the gorge hit my body, as from safely on high, I watched a mini tsunami power like cosmic vomiting over the land. The water was grey, brown, thick, turgid. Wave upon wave of liquid energy forced down the gorge. The huge stone road bridge was swept away in a second. The power in the air was exhilarating. The devastation was heartbreaking. Mature trees cracking and snapping like thin, dry sticks in a fire. Huge boulders and wedges of earth whirling in the water, as lightly as tumbleweed blowing along the American plains. Nothing can withstand such elemental force.

Some villagers were crying. Some of our group were crying. People were shocked and bewildered.
After time, the volume of water became constant. Luckily, it had swept a natural dog leg to the Indus and avoided the houses of the village. I figured if there was going to be another surge there would be a window of 30 minutes before it reached. If there was another surge, there was a possiblity of it breaking the dog leg open and sweeping along the main street. My family's home would be directly in the path of the water. We would need to spend the night high up.

Some of us decided to go down to our homes to fetch water, warm clothes, supplies. Our home and the mayor's home were the lowest down. But, I figured if I went now, I could get stuff and be out of the house before anything else happened. I went down the hillside to the houses. The village was a ghost town. Everyone was up on the ridge. I walked along the streets to Kaptopa house. I can see it now as I write this. I got my suitcase, put Laurel's spectacle case in it, made sure there were warm jumpers and my first aid kit. The house is low on the land, I heard the water's deep menacing growl filling the room. My heart was racing, my blood pounding in my ears. I could see myself doing things as though I were watching someone in a film. At times I thought I could hear the river becoming louder. My rational mind had worked out the probabilities, and I trust my own judgement, but another part of me was thinking - what if I had got it wrong? Gathering things together, I sent love from my heart and soul to my family at home, and I thought to myself, ' If I am swept to the Indus in a power of muddy water, I've had a good life and I'm ready for the next stage of the journey.'
On one hand I wasn't scared at all, and on the other I was terrified out of my wits. Years ago, a fisherman who survived his boat sinking, told me that we have two minds. I said I understood what he meant, and that day, in Takmachik, I experienced it.

BEING TAKEN TO THE GOMPA BY MY FAMILY

The evening before I left Takmachik, Stanzin, Jigmet Dorge, Jigmet Chopel and their cousins, took me and two friends to the gompa. Stanzin got the key from someone and we made our way up the hillside, past the line of little prayer wheels. The little prayers wheels are set in the wall at shoulder height and as one walks past one can send prayers spinning to the universe. For the last few days Phutsok Dorge had been spending a lot of time at the gompa. I was happy about this, I thought at this time we needed all the help we could get.

Stanzin unlocked a large wooden door. We entered a big sized room, with aged wooden posts and flooring. The facing wall contained lovely, golden statues of Buddha. The things in the room felt dark and worn and old. The Buddhas glowed with a strong, golden hue. The children and Stanzin performed honouring movements. I walked forward and went to each Buddha in turn. The atmosphere is very respectful and I felt touched by it and very emotional. A cousin picked a length of wool about the size of his thumb from out of a vase and started working with it. Jigmet Dorge took a cloth and was wiping a small golden goblet. Stanzin asked me to go outside and wash my hands. When I returned she gave me a box of matches and motioned me to the little goblet which now had a woollen wick floating in a sea of almond oil. I lit the lamp. It was on an aged wooden altar in front of the Buddhas. I plucked hairs from my head and took money from my belt and left them with the flickering lamp on the altar.

We each took time to give thanks or petition the Buddhas or offer reverence. It was very spiritual. Although I cannot be regarded as a Buddhist, I felt something fill my heart and mind, and was awed and humbled by my experience with these people in the holy space.

In our own time, we made our way back to the open courtyard in front of the main door. I looked out over the houses of Takmachik to the swollen Indus. I looked out to the immense mountain ranges stretching to meet the blue infinity of sky. I felt the power of the land and the sky and the Buddha.
Stanzin and her family group took me to three different temple rooms inside the gompa. Each had a different feel, but each was part of an overarching whole. Stanzin made an almond oil lamp for me to light in another of the temple rooms. I asked for protection on my journey. At each altar I left three hairs from my head and money. I wanted to offer something of myself.
We processed through each temple room in turn, and locked each door behind us. Our journey was slow and organic and reverential. I felt time immemorial in these rooms. They were foreign to me, but I was not a stranger there.
Eventually we made our way out the gompa. I knew with certainty I would be looked after on the journey that lay before me. I could sense the Buddhist God in the skies over Ladakh.

ISLAY TO LADAKH AND BACK

Ladakh is a semi autonomous area in the region of Jammu and Kashmir in Northern India. I travelled there to stay with a local family in their home and participate in their way of life.
To get there, I crossed Taglang La, which at 5,359m (17,684ft) is the second highest pass in the world.
I arrived in Takmachik and met my lovely family on the 3 August 2010. There are four generations living in the one house. The oldest is Phutsok Dorge at 90 years, and the youngest - and wildest is Jigmet Chopel at two and a half years.

I believe that life in Ladakh is similar to the way life was in Islay and Colonsay at the time when my Dad was a wee boy. The people grow their own food. There is not a predominant money economy. In the villages there are no shops to speak of - if you don't work and create the food yourself, you will go hungry. For me, the difference between Islay and Ladakh is not specifically one of geography, but one of time.

I helped the family harvest apricots, turn the daal, fetch water, brush the floors with appropriate grass brushes. Life was peaceful, deep, hard working, joyous. Until the rain started. Heavy rain is unheard of in Ladakh. The annual rainfall is 90mm. This summer it poured for days. The roofs of the houses leaked, the apricots drying in the sun were ruined, the daal drying on the rooftops was soggy and turning mouldy.

One night we heard shouting, everyone had to move to high ground. The river that serviced the village had swelled to become a huge, raging torrent. It had burst it's banks, carrying fields and animals with it , and was now heading for the village.
I ran along a high ridge of rock. Looking down, it was like a mini tsunami, everything just crumpled before the awesome power of water. Fully grown trees snapped like dry matchsticks. The huge stone road bridge was swept away in an instant. Nothing could have held against the overwhelming weight of the water. It had found it's way from the mountains to the Indus. That night, and for three nights after, we all slept in a concrete built community centre up on a ledge on the mountainside.
Our village was now cut off from the outside world. Luckily, people could still walk out over a pedestrian bridge. We heard news of the terrible floods in Leh, 700 missing, five road bridges swept away. The village next to ours had lost 20 souls. There was not much to do to help our villagers. Their fields had been swept away, we were eating their food supplies, there was only one hand pump to supply all our water requirements. There were no communication links to the outside world. Our families in the UK didn't know if we were alive or dead.

Time to leave, I thought. I packed a small haversack with my sleeping bag, a first aid kit, a warm jumper, my diary, and my toothbrush and like India Anna Jones, set off. It was a bit scarey, but it was better to be actively doing something, than waiting to be rescued.
I crossed ravines by tree trunks lashed together, by metal step ladders placed over the stones on each side of the torrents. I got lifts in the back of huge stone dumper lorries. I also got a lift from a colonel in the army, who gave me an apple and whisked me along the burst banks of the Indus to Leh.
On arrival in Leh, I delivered a hand written letter to the Lama son of my Ladakhi family, informing him they were all safe. I waited at the airport for six hours for a standby seat to Delhi. In Delhi, I bought the last available ticket to the UK, and slept in the airport until my flight was called.
Before I left, both the grandmother and the grandfather of my Takmachik family put silk scarves around my neck. They were to keep me safe on my journey. I arrived at Heathrow, took the first train to Glasgow, then got the ferry to Islay.
And when I was safely back in my own home, I took off the scarves.