Drak Yurpa Monastery and Views of Mountains after Snow

We managed to interview over half the Amchi's, enter all the data into the computer and so took Friday morning off to visit the Drak Yurpa monastery. Its been raining at night which means while we get rain in the valley, the tops of the mountains get snow, making the views more spectacular. Sadly, at the Drak Yurpa monastery there were many ruins but it's slowly being rebuilt. The buildings are built into the mountain and there are tons of caves. This monastery is one of the holiest cave retreats in Tibet. Reini and Chris hung a prayerflag for their bean.
So our work and travels here are ending. Hope you had fun looking at the photos and learning a little about Tibet and our adventures.

Funny Signs and Cool bike fork made out of rebar

Click on photos to enlarge

Fields next to Tsurphu Monastery and Barley

Barley fields, by Tsurphu monastary. The barley is first roasted, then sifted and then ground

Tsurphu Monastery

We headed out to Dulong County to interview more Amchis. The interviews went well and then we gave one of the amchis a ride to her home. She had walked four hours to get to the township clinic for the interview. Since the Tsurphu Monastary was on the way we all headed there (including 2 amchis, ONEHEART staff member, driver, Chris, Reini and me).

The Tsurphu Monastary is where the Karmapa Lama (17th lama)is from. The 17th lama left the monastary and moved to India to practice in 1999. The history is very complicated/controversial and I cannot explain it here. The monastary was located at the end of a valley that was full of pristine rivers and fields of barley. Along the way we stopped at one villagers house along the way to taste some freshly "popped" barley and checked out how they used hot sand and fire to cook the barely and water power to grind the barely into a paste (tsampa). I cracked my molar on a not so cooked piece of barley.

We finally got to the monastery and it was beautiful. Because of the proximity they do not get very many visitors. There are about 300 monks at this monastary currently the majority are on vacation visiting their families for 2 months. We got a very individualized tour by the monks. It was great to have translation provided by one of the ONE HEART staff. The monastary was one of the more beautiful and magnificant ones we have seen. During the 1950s over 6000 monastaries were lost and now there are around 2000.

Yamdrok Lake

We took the day off on Sunday and went with the ONE HEART driver Mila to Landrok Lake. The drive while only 1.5hours from Lhasa is all uphill or upmountain. We went up a pass that peaked at 5000 meters. We were in the clouds it truly was incredible. The lake down below is one of the the three holy lakes in Tibet. It is an electric blue and is horshoe shaped. (Again the pictures don't quite do justice to the color and views, click to enlarge to help) There were busloads of Chinese tourists.
Later that night Reini wanted hot pot for dinner which is a chinese dish. We jumped in a cab across town and ate a delicious meal and managed to get the food we wanted without a lick of mandarin i'm embarrassed to say. This section of Lhasa felt like another city in mainland china. There was no evidence of Tibetan people, life or culture. I guess the large majority of Lhasa is like this. Our office and home are in the old part of Lhasa still very Tibetan.

Random pics

1. Another doc givin his rap, we like the way he wears his cap
2. This device below is put on the roof and used to solar heat the water
3. Monks chillin like dillon on the roof



















yak head , big head, small head
(which is which)



















this valley will be covered in water once the dam is completed


oooh what's that, i've never seen an alien baby before?!@#

umm... reini there's something we need to talk about

Village Amchi (providers) being interviewed, some cute kids standing outside clinic and a poster teaching about hemorrhage

Reini writes: Lhasa is definitely busier this year (more and more people moving here from mainland china and the new train from mainland has increased tourism). Maybe my patience for cities has gotten weaker too since we live in the peaceful mountains. It always takes a bit of time to figure out why I am here (half-way aroundtheworld!) and what is the best use of my time here. In the first day, I realize the 800 things I could do and need to be done- a lifetime of work really- which of course makes me terribly overwhelmed and my 2 weeks here laughable. Then slowly, priorities become clearer and we figure out what needs to be done and set to it. In my last trips here, I've been here a month, so there's a slow 2weeks of figuring this all out. But since this trip is just over 2 weeks, so it's all compressed into 1-2 days. A little stressful. I'm here with my dear friend Eve . It's been great having her here. It's her first trip to Tibet and she's getting oriented to One HEART. Usually there are lots of other team members here, but this time it's just the 2 of us. So it's calm and we can be productive - but less festive and fun! Those tough first days got better by the end of the week. We've been working quite long days, but they've been rewarding. We've been heading out to the county where we've been working for 5 years to meet with the alumni of our midwife training program.

Our goal is through focus groups and interviews to do a 5-yr analysis of where we are and what we need to work on. The interviews have gone well (except too long, we forgot how it takes 2-3times as long with translation, so we've been modifying as we go to not be too long)and we learned a lot. mostly,the doctors are very impressive and knowledgable and it's been inspirational to talk to them. The have such extraordinary challenges in their work - no medicines, limited transportation, villagers with poor health education. And they all work for peanuts - the equivalent of $4-60 per month in income. amazing. It's been great working with our staff too. We have 5 phenomenal Tibetans who are trilingual and have all worked with us for over 18 months now, one over 3 years. They are bright, motivated Lhasa-dwelling people, but have amazing compassion and commitment to their rural, much less fortunate countryfolk. It's a rewarding part of being here to work with them and support and teach them. They do the important stuff.In the midst of all this, Eve taught an ultrasound seminar at the menzikhanghospital (the traditional tibetan hospital). They had 2 patients lined up and 3 more appeared and eve did a great job teaching. We didn't have any early pregnancy patients so I volunteered and got to look at our little sprout. The little bean looked great 4.4cm now, moving around, good heartbeat, Now, we've been working all day this saturday... at least it's been raining. Tomorrow, I'll try to insist that we take the whole day off. and then Chris arrives on Monday (yippee!). We have another busy week next week and then take off next weekend! chris and I will head to Thailand to rest on the beach, ah. eve's going to bali! so, don't feel too badly about ourscheduleshere!

Road trips out to clinics and dam construction

The road trips out to the countryside clinics are incredible. The countryside clinics/towns are usually 1000-2000 feet higher than Lhasa. (12,000). The photos don't do justice to the scenary and light. The rivers still run wild and there is tons of barely being harvested right now. A dam is currently being built on one of main rivers and a whole town was moved and rebuilt. The barely is then harvested and makes up part of the staple diet of the folks that live in the country. They make it into a paste called tsampa and eat also yak butter, yak butter tea, and yak meat. Above are pictures of Tsashue terraces, valley and barely fields.

Below is the dam under construction.
Click to enlarge to see damn, old town of Nyima Changra now gone and moved to higher ground, 3rd picture is new Nyima Changra