Been a while, but all is well.

Hello all,

Everything is nice and quite here in Darjeeling, not a lot going on, which is good to report.

We had strikes here for a week or so last month and it looked like they might start again, but the news from the meetings held last week was good, and it looks like we are fairly safe from any more strikes. The strikes went across the whole city and closed all the shops and some schools for short periods.

The issue at hand mainly has to do with Darjeeling and the surrounding areas status in India. They want their own state within India. The population here is largely Nepali and so they have a different cultural identity and language from the Indian population below. This is an issue which has gone on for almost a hundred years, so it is nothing new nor particularly dangerous; and I am glad to report it looks like it is not an issue for quite a few months to come.

Generally, darjeeling is quite nice. It was an old English vacation spot, from when England was in control of India, and the influence is still very present. A lot of the houses are old English homes, and there are many old pretty English style buildings. Many of the people here joke that they wish the English never left :).

Actually there are still many tourists, and they are largely India, all though there is also a lot of foreigners. It is very much a tourist town, although unemployment is a huge problem. It is quite an odd situation, in that you see many fairly wealthy looking males my age or so who live with their family and can't find work. Because there is a fair amount of wealth about, you don't see the sort of abject poverty you see in Delhi, it is a more modern problem they have here. Young people with cell phones and mp3 players who can't find any thing to do for cash. Strange eh?

The family I am staying with is nice, very Tibetan, they say "Choe! Choe!" a lot (that means is eat, eat.) The food is excellent, very fresh and simple, mostly filling, although I usually need a few nuts in the morning, vegetarian food is not a Tibetan specialty.

Classes are going well. I think last time I wrote I wasn't sure if I would be taking the more advanced or the beginner class. I stuck with the advanced class and while I'm still behind, it's getting easier with time and I am definitely learning a lot. The classes hear are a lot of reading Tibetan texts and discussing them, a bit of grammar, and a bit of talking. They last about 4 hours a day, and for a hour or two additionally I have tutoring each day. In tutoring I am working hard at building fluency in grammar and at my accent. These two things are really tricky for me. I definitely sound very American when i speak Tibetan! :)

In class right now we are reading The Jewel Ornament of Liberation (A book of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy), His Holiness the Dali Lama's Biography (mostly focusing on his section on philosophy) and a Tibetan kids textbook (with lots of stories and pictures!) So there is a good bit of variety.

The other students in the classes are nice. We are quite small right now, only 5. We will fill up another 3 or so in the next couple weeks here, there are people traveling to different places. They are all really nice people, mostly my age, only a few Americans. Actually, in my class right now (which is in Tibetan and English) I am the only native English speaker. The rest of Europeans for whom English is their second language.

Not too much else to report. Still very rainy, lots of nice Hindu chanting in the morning when I wake up (I live next to a temple) and of course lots of excellent tea.

Ryan