17 February 2008; Set up at SECMOL

SECMOL main building, mid February

I hope you are all well. My apologies if you've heard some of this. If you haven't heard from me, I pasted a previous email below with some background about what I'm doing.

I've been away for 17 days; or two and a half weeks. It feels like a lifetime. There has been so much adjustment and adaptation to new environments. Our time in Delhi for three days involved nonstop stimulus, from the sights, smells, sounds, and tastes in the streets to the appointments at the hospital, news room, government office, meeting with Indian students to be shown around parts of the city. At the same time we were all trying to get to know the individuals of this group; to Daniela's credit, she has done a great job of leading group activities and touchy-feely sharing in circles that have opened people and avoided cliques from developing and spoiling the overall unity of the VIS group.

The morning we flew to Leh, all of a sudden there was a new town to become acquainted with, and that evening I became quite ill. There was some sort of combination of altitude sickness (dizziness and nausea), a cold from the students which came along unchallenged by a weak immune system due to the traveling and little sleep in Delhi, and possibly even some bad food caused some symptoms for half a day. Regardless, I was able to walk through Leh the next day, although I then spent a lot of time in bed to recuperate. Arriving at SECMOL was a relief since I could unpack without the expectation to repack within a couple days and I felt much better and could appreciate the natural beauty that surrounds us here. The food has taken some getting used to since it is all vegetarian, usually one or two pot meals of some kind of rice, pasta (often made from barley flour), or lentils. There are some winter greens and occasionally yoghurt and flat breads that are fried and served immediately. Sometimes for breakfast there is tsampa (roasted barley flour wetted with some water or milk and squeezed in a ball) which is often eaten with lentils or a spicy broth with turnips and carrots. We've had dessert once and that consisted of local apricots cooked so that they were in a syrup. I've got a good supply of chocolate for special occasions throughout the day! We have tea at breakfast, 11am, and 4pm. The "milk tea" is strong tea boiled in milk with quite a bit of sugar and is very tasty. We rarely have the Ladakhi/Tibetan butter tea because the group as a whole is not excited by it—it is quite salty and unappealing.

The Ladakhi students here at SECMOL are very friendly and I've been getting to know many of them well. I have taught economics to some of them and have also played hockey with them; I brought my own skates just for the purpose because it's very popular. They know varying amounts of English, and we can communicate most crucial information, and often hold a conversation. I'm doing my best to learn a bit of Ladakhi language. So far I know hi, bye, goodnight, goodmorning, thankyou, please, and you're welcome—they use the word "Jullay" for all of them. Oh yeah, I can also count to eleven and ask if someone is well!

I'm still trying to work out what exactly my responsibilities are here. I am a VIS volunteer, but I am also available as a volunteer to the school. Just the other day I was working alongside one of the Ladakhis crushing local clay to a powder to be mixed with water and glue to make a whitewash (or more like a "crème-wash"). So I am being stretched a bit thin between some teaching responsibilities and being handy at helping with some maintenance; the intention was that I would be an organizer to get the students to do most of the work during their work hour, but it is difficult to organize when I'm not familiar with where to find materials or how exactly they want something done—it's quite complicated. In one week we leave to go on a trek through some small villages for about five days or a week, then will return to the school and resume our daily lives here. I do miss home, New England, and being close to family, and everything familiar, but here I am learning a lot and being seriously challenged. There are so many similarities and at the same time so many differences between myself and the people I have met here. Meanwhile, the method by which everyday activities are accomplished can be so different here in India—it requires a lot of flexibility, patience, and persistence to say the least.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Love, Bennet

Here is some background from a previous email that I've written to others:

I'm here for the next three months with Vermont Intercultural Semesters (VIS), a high school semester abroad program, as a volunteer (traveling expenses paid, which is nice) and teaching the students some geology as well as doing some other odd jobs. We are in Ladakh, a region of northern India, basically in the Himalaya, and known as "Little Tibet" because the people practice a form of Tibetan Buddhism and there are even many Tibetan refugees that live here. So far it has been quite an adventure. India is pretty crazy; many people, dirty vehicles, and nothing gets done without a bribe. Here in the mountains at the Ladakhi school we call home and known as SECMOL, we use solar electricity and solar hot water (hardly exists at the moment since it is so cold and the pipes have been freezing every night!), and there are two enormous solar cookers that use a large array of mirrors. Oh yeah, and the composting outhouses have really been strengthening the leg muscles! It is pretty barren here and the only trees that grow are those that the people tend carefully. Somehow the Ladakhis are able to do enough subsistence farming, while many others are nomadic and move their animals over large areas. Today we climbed up a good sized peak and had a great view of the Indus River as it passes by the school, marking the suture between the Indian subcontinent and the Asian continent.