Tashi Dalek

Sept. 16, 2009

Tashi Dalek. This is the traditional greeting in Tibetan and roughly speaking, translates as "may the inner light from my heart reach out and meet your inner light."

The first several days in Delhi are best characterized as recovering from the long flight, adjusting to the 10 1/2 hour time change and, most significantly, addressing the disorientation related to the cacophony of sensory overload that defines Delhi; its sounds, sights, smells and the waves of humanity on the streets everywhere. After a day of rest, our first full day in Delhi was spent at Mother Thersa's Institute for the Dying and Destitute. Our preparation for this and our debriefing afterward included discussions of many of the realities facing contemporary India.

There are more than one billion people in India and the vast majority of these people live on less than $2 a day. There are more children born on and living their lives on the streets of Delhi than there are people in New Orleans. Everyday, thousands of people die in Delhi because they cannot get simple medical care. Tuberculosis is rampant and preventable and untold thousands die each day from this as well. Dental care in Dharamsala, where we are now, is virtually non-existent or unaffordable. Yesterday, my good friend Tsering Lhamo, a Tibetan nurse who tends to the elderly living throughout the mountains around this village, exclaimed that she is seeing many, many elderly Tibetans going blind from cataracts because they simply cannot afford the small amount of money for simple cataract surgery.

So, being at Mother Theresa's on our first full day and seeing the impact that one person can make with a vision and the passion and drive to shepherd her vision to reality was inspirational.

Beggars in India are everywhere, on every street and they are tenacious. This too, like the reality of the vast needs readily visible everywhere, was an opportunity to address the possibilities of social work and public health interventions in a world filled with such vast social and economic injustices. Doing so in this setting always seems to have an extraordinary impact and allows for a very deep integration of affective and cognitive learning.

For the last several years I've offered this experience I've required a rigorous journaling assignment in which the students are required to move far beyond the description of their experiences and reflect on the meaning and value of their individual experience and its relationship to their development as a professional social worker. Their reflection is intended to encourage critical thought, promote conscious integration of these experiences and offer a space to try out new ideas and perspectives without the need for them to be fully formed or understood at this moment.

I've found that the act of journaling engages the more analytical side of the brain and allows for the integration between the intuitive and cognitive. It's fun to hear almost on a daily basis from the students "I need to go back to my room and catch up on my journaling."

After the first few days in Delhi, the second leg began with the long train ride to the north, to Dharamsala, our base for the next two weeks. There, each student was paired with their mutual learning partner with whom they had begun an e-mail exchange several weeks prior to our departure, which has enabled an opportunity for quick immersion into the realities of this refugee community. Mornings are spent together in conversation, our students learning of their partner's journey from Tibet across the Himalayan Mountains escaping the persecution in Tibet and learning of their present living conditions. Meetings with select individuals and organizations in the afternoons offers the chance to see even more of the valuable work being done to meet the needs of this community and engage with its compelling realities.

For example, one of our first afternoons was spent with Ama Ahte, an 80-year-old Tibetan woman who spent 27 years in a Chinese prison. She was imprisoned with 300 women and was the only one to survive the horrific torture, starvation, and cruelties. She said she was able to survive, in part, due to her faith and desire to tell her story to the Dalai Lama. She left Tibet in 1993 and did tell her story to the Dalai Lama and later fashioned it into a book "The Voice that Remembers." This book is one of many on the pre-trip reading list and one that, although not one of the required ones, I had strongly encouraged the students to read. I was happy to see that not only did every student read it, they brought their copy half way around the globe for Ama Ahte to sign!

This is a physically, emotionally and intellectually demanding trip, and we always have our share of difficulties in each of these domains. A few students have gotten the inevitable "Delhi Belly" and sore throats, though none too severe. There have been a few bumps along the way in the manner which anxieties manifest. Though again, these too offer teachable moments.

Today is the second of the Dalai Lama's teachings and the students were ready to hike up the mountain to his Temple by 6:30 a.m. to sit with the hundreds of Tibetan monks and nuns in their safforn robes. This is a rare opportunity to sit with and experience the energy of a man whose very existence defines the ultimate in ethical behavior. After the third day of the teaching tomorrow, we've arranged for a debriefing with one of our guides, an expert on Buddhist philosophy. I'm looking forward to this and hearing the thoughts and feelings its generated among our group.

Overall, this is an adventurous group and one whose signature seems to be care and concern for each other and a real eagerness to derive as much as possible from this opportunity.

I'll stop now since I have a feeling the electricity is about to go off!

Be well,
Ron Marks