Tibetan women’s national uprising day

It was a fine day for a march, bright blue skies and brilliant sunshine in the cool mountain air of McCloud Ganj. Hundreds of girls from the Tibetan Children’s Village School, in their royal blue trousers and checked blue and white shirts, marched down from the school to the temple in McCloud, stopping at the entrance to the temple courtyard to have their faces painted with slogans, such as: I love Tibet; China out; stop the burning.

In the temple courtyard Tibetan women gathered round the symbolic coffins of the five nuns who self immolated and died in Tibet. There were groups of red robed nuns, older women in Tibetan dress and striped aprons, even the odd Tibetan man. The symbolic coffins were draped with the Tibetan flag and photos of the smiling young nuns. More photos of the dead nuns decorated the walls of the temple courtyard. A group of musicians in traditional Tibetan dress tried to make a PA system work for several minutes, eventually giving up and starting their performance to a crackly sound.

A spokeswoman for the Tibetan women’s association spoke, first in Tibetan, then in English, about the courage and bravery of Tibetan women. This was followed by a speech by a representative of the Italian Tibetan Association, who said that the media had ignored the sufferings of the Tibetans for too long. He hoped that the sacrifice of the nuns and monks who self immolated would not be in vain and that finally world media would wake up and start to pay attention. More speeches followed, as the sun beat down on the courtyard and the women tried to protect themselves, holding their placards and flags over their heads.

Then the procession set off, waving their Tibetan flags and shouting slogans alternately in English and in Tibetan. The girls from the Tibetan Children’s Village were tireless, keeping up their loud high pitched cries all the way to Dharamsala, where a platform had been hired next to a petrol station, in a space full of parked cars and motorbikes and fruit stalls. Unperturbed, the protestors sat on the motorbikes, munched the fruit and listened to more speeches.

I decided to walk back, by the shortest, steepest route, through the trees. I climbed steep steps for what seemed like forever. It was probably about four kilometres, but already tired from the walk down, I thought I would never get to the top. I arrived back late in the afternoon, went to bed and slept for two hours.   

In the evening I went to watch "The Artist" in a makeshift movie theatre in a basement with a rather wrinkly screen. It was better than the old sheet they used to use in one of the 3 movie theatres in McCloud years ago. That used to blow about, distorting the image disconcertingly. The artist is a silent movie, so sound quality was not particularly important.

I was woken in the night by a tumultuous thunderstorm.