Happy Birthday Martin Luther King

“Through our scientific and technological genius, we have made of this world a neighborhood and yet we have not had the ethical commitment to make of it a brotherhood. But somehow, and in some way, we have got to do this. We must all learn to live together as brothers or we will all perish together as fools. We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality. And whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly. For some strange reason I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. And you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be. This is the way God’s universe is made; this is the way it is structured.” – MLK, Remaining Awake Through A Great Revolution

Northern Morocco Travel Thoughts

Over the holiday I went to Morocco for 2 weeks, here are some observations and thoughts from that time, more to come:

28 December 2009, Fes

The medina area of Fes does not allow car traffic, yet it remains the tourist and cultural hub of the city – making it one of the quietest busy city centers I’ve ever seen.  Narrow lanes, brick and plaster buildings rising up 3-4 stories on either side, neither radiate from a center point nor follow a grid pattern, but rather follow twists and turns like the veins on a leaf or the fractal pattern of brittle cracked glass or glazed pots.

We arrived in early evening on a Ryanair flight from Madrid, and were immediately thankful that our little Pension had arranged to pick us up.  A 30 minute taxi ride ended at the boundary for motor vehicles, where our driver was allowed to go no  further.  From there we were guided in first by a man calling himself the driver’s employer and then by someone from the pension.  The lanes are unmarked by signs – much of the population being illiterate – so finding our way there would have been impossible the first time and since then, we find it by landmark and feel.

Fes exists in an area occupied by urban inhabitants for several thousands of years.  It was this area from which the Berbers, Morocco’s indomitable semi-nomadic clans, successfully fought off wave after wave of would-be conquerors, from Roman times onward, making complicated webs of alliances and enemies, going through times of great strength and times of weakness.  This history is felt in the streets, the twists and turns revealing courtyards with fountains, arched doorways, fortified walls, all ringed by large city walls.  Markets and stalls for produce, clothing, tailors, barbers, souvenirs, restaurants.  A surprising array of pickled fruits and vegetables  are proffered, as are dried fruits, nuts.  Pottery, leather goods, and lanterns are hung along the walls of souvenir stalls.  The city is a veritable maze. With few vantage points, it is hard to get one’s bearings. From on high, one cannot see the streets – for all the terraces and walls in the way – so even a vantage point is of limited use. The bustle is familiar.  Mosques are the only open space, full of quiet while the city cranks outside.  The culture set aside space for quiet, for space. Yet I think I will choose another example, not to set aside space, but to bring space into my interactions, wisdom and kindness.

It is fun to be in a strange country, where I speak a bit of one of the common languages a little bit.  Locals don’t speak French much to each other, but it is still a lingua franca of the area. While my brief experience is that many people have some English, when they find out I can understand most of their comments in French they are happy and switch over.

The air is moist and cool, evening air lit by bright half moon.  Dust, a fine dust, seems to layer everything in a sort of golden hue, but maybe it is just the tenor of the light.  Against that, the sharp blues of pottery and clothing contrast in perfect complementary color, like the ancients imbued their traditions on advice of the color wheel.

I’ll write more about other places and some thoughts on traditions, culture, society, history, as I have time.

Hello blog, remember me?

I’m now finished with my first term at LSE, a veritable whirlwind of reading, lectures, events, writing, meetings, library time, cocktails, workshops, papers, presentations, study groups, summaries, weekend retreats, weekends away, visiting, visitors, holidays, working on holidays, arts, music, creativity, drudgery, inspiration, confusion, ideas, differences in perspective, custom, accent, study style.  A lot of things got put on the back burner this fall, like regular reflection and writing up thoughts on this blog.  I haven’t been keeping up on my usual information sources, either.  My RSS feeder says I have 13,473 (and counting) unread posts.  I suppose when you add hundreds of pages of academic reading to someone’s schedule, other reading goes out the window!

The past few days I disappeared off to southwest Ireland, visiting and unwinding.  Enjoying simple things like un-pressed-for-time conversations, cooking, crisp clean air.  The winter light cuts a low arc in the sky now, short days and long nights.  I’ve never seen a silver lining to this, until one day in Ireland when I was taking pictures on Moher’s Cliffs, and a misty low angle light gave ‘magic hour’ all day.  This elusive combination of shadow and bright — honey yellow light that usually only appears in late afternoon, lasted from dawn to dusk.  Quite lovely.

Back in London now where it’s been alternately snowing and blowing wintry gusts.  Campus is quiet, and I’m working on a few projects while I don’t have the pressure of term time.

What’s on your walk?

Tower Bridge, first night here

Now in London and starting my master’s at LSE, I walk often to school.  It takes about a 35 minutes, from Borough on the south side of the Thames over to campus in the city center.  I pass a lot of famous places, like the Borough Market, the Globe Theatre, the Tate Modern, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the Royal Courts of Justice…. and the bar that was used for Bridget Jones’ house, which is apparently one of the most popular tourist stop-offs in the area.

My flatmates and I were discussing our famous-place walk over a pint last night, one mentioning that he had been raving to friends back home about how interesting the route was.  He threw in the views as well: London Eye, Tower Bridge, Big Ben (which is sort of around the river bend, but I guess if you squint?).

It got me thinking about what I really look at when I’m walking.  First day, the big sights.  And my map.  Second day, I started noticing more.  The winding streets of the old neighborhoods offer innumerable sidewalk pubs and cafes, brick residences covered in ivy and potted plants on doorsteps.  Newer parts are a contemporary style, aluminum accents and trendy furniture.  Small colleges, like a school training accountants (whose population seems to be mostly South Asian), and design-oriented businesses occupy some of these newer buildings.  Many are also empty, and the most common sign I see is “To Let”.  Which I invariably skim and read as “toilet” at first.  In this one sense I do prefer the American “For Rent” as a more clear message.

I’m certainly not the first American to be amused by British signs and bulletins.  Signs are something I often notice when I’m traveling, but here — perhaps it’s the coming training in Anthropology — I’m noticing more.  The first is one of my favorites, on a narrow lane I cut through.

By whose definition?

Yeah, I get confused by the left and right here too.

Men's and Disabled. Ladies room?

But the real reason that all of this is here is not for my cheeky enjoyment, it’s for the people.  And the people make the city.

The Millennium Bridge, a footbridge that spans the river between the Tate and St. Paul’s Cathedral, is a particularly good place for people watching. And depending on what time of day I make my pilgrimage to the city center, I encounter any array of characters.  Early in the morning, it’s runners and walkers, a few teenage boys dressed in suits going to the City of London School on the north bank.  A bit later, more suits go to work, women in skirts and walking shoes, heels in handbags.  Mid-morning, are the school groups, the tourists, kids cutting class.  And everyone is just passing through: it’s a transit point.  At most, a quick stop on the bridge for a photo or a chat.  And later on, the runners come back around lunchtime, and the process reverses for the rest of the day.  Suits go back the other way, walkers come out to enjoy the sunset, and so on.

Busker's viewpoint

Like everyone else, I pass quickly over the bridge.  Really, I don’t see much of this movement on any one day.  For that, one would have to stop and observe.  The only folks I’ve seen so far who do this, are the panhandlers and buskers who set up on the entrance to the south side of the bridge.  What a vantage point, to watch the city rush by.

Evening on the Bridge, same (almost) point.

It’s interesting — it’s not necessarily the most famous or the biggest place that can be the most instructive.  And, while I actually don’t think this is the most photogenic place in London… at all… I might consider taking photos here regularly, just to see how this very busy place looks over time.

Sacred spaces at 19,500 feet

Glacial Moraine on Kailash Approach

One of the holiest places for Tibetans lies on the massif of Mt. Kailash itself. Geologically, Serdung Chusum (Tibetan = gser dung bcu gsum) is little more than a horizontal crack in the southern side of the massif, but culturally and spiritually it is the sacred heart. Tradition holds that it is a restricted place. The outer kora of Kailash, a 51 km loop around the river valleys and the pass of Drolma La (sgrol ma la) must be completed 13 times before entrance to the so-called inner kora is allowed.

The whole region of the inner kora is encapsulated by high, rugged ridges that point southwards from Mt. Kailash. There is now a road that goes up from Darchen, switchbacking up to Gyangdrag Gonpa on an eastern fork or Serlung Gonpa on a western fork. It’s wild country: the Serlung river streams down from glacial remnants on Kailash itself. Round-bottomed glacial valleys are sided by cliffs and glacial moraine. Loose talus is the only kind of footing.

Evidence of permanent human habitation tops out around 5300 m in the Serlung river valley, a good hike above Serlung Gonpa itself. This is the Zhang Zhung site Sheldra, in another horizontal cleft in the cliffs of the valley wall. Beyond this point, the environment turns harsh: no surface water, exposure to the weather and the wind. At the base of the Kailash massif is a large terminal and lateral glacial moraine. It indicates there may have been water and more glacier there at some point, but I speculated at the time that it couldn’t have been much — there simply isn’t room for a glacial nursery there. A steep, loose footing, sometimes hand-over-hand climb brought us to the thirteen chortens at Serdung Chusum (chusum – Tibetan = bcu gsum, meaning 13). There are actually 14 chortens, 13 main and newer ones and 1 older, lone one beyond the actual cleft. An ancient, and powerful place.

The ledge is maybe 2 meters wide, and several hundred meters up from the base of the valley. Above, the hulking shoulder of Kailash looms straight up. The place is windy and shaded. It’s far from water, and impossibly cold. The temperature on the day I visited was 20 degrees Fahrenheit at 1:30 in the afternoon. In mid-June. On a sunny day. This climate, in this place, has a merciless quality to it. The site is rarely visited and only in the most special of circumstances, and seems utterly timeless. It is not quiet and serene, like a retreat site, but formidable. One could imagine ancient adepts going there, though it is fairly clear that no normal human could have lived there.

A few years ago, a National Geographic article shared the acclaim of the place, the author visiting during Ta Lo (rta lo), the year of the horse, when one outer kora would suffice before heading to the inner kora.  Since then, a few western visitors to the Kailash area have been requesting to go there.  According to our porters, they entertain such requests 3 or 4 times per year.  Yet these kinds of places have a feel that they are meant to be left alone.  I hope that the ruggedness and remoteness and sacredness of Serdung Chusum will keep all but the most respectful away.  That is the best kind of preservation we can go for, in this delicate place.

Archaeological Exploration

As I will soon be heading off to London for grad school, I figured I should hurry up and finish writing about my last adventure — so I have room to write about the next. Yet archaeological exploration in western Tibet cannot be rushed — in practice or writing — so, let’s get to western Tibet:

The southern lap of Mt. Kailash and the outer kora are sprinkled with ancient ruins. The environment is so high and harsh that soil hardly accumulates on the rocky terrain, meaning that most ruins are visible on the surface, not buried. However, the ancients built their homes, retreat areas and temples on high rocky outcrops and in high cliff caves. This makes the finding and surveying of them quite an adventure.

Each day, breakfast early and out the door with a paltry lunch and a few liters of water. A route mapped out to cover both new and familiar terrain. The goal was twofold: to document anything not yet surveyed, and to determine the highest ruins in the area. This meant hiking to the highest perceived one, then hiking above it. If no more ruins, or prospect of ruins, was found, then the previous one could likely be the highest. It’s quick and dirty archaeology, on the ground and running around. Asking around for advice from locals. Serious discipline is required, to make sure that exploration remains systematic — not running in different directions at each exciting possibility on the next ridge.

The environs of the highest ruins have several common characteristics: they are above water, but no more than around 1000′ in elevation. They are on high ridges, but protected from the north by some kind of natural barrier. They have stupendous views of Mt. Kailash, the sacred lakes of Ma pang or La ngak, or other power places around the area. And they are often (just barely) within the realm of environment where grasses and other hardy vegetation grow.

The ruins are the enigmatic Zhang Zhung all-stone buildings, with stone walls that stand sans mortar and stone roofs supported by stone beams. Rooms tend to be small, though some complexes are quite elaborate with a number of interconnected spaces, and walls with niches. The highest was found just under 5500 m above sea level — quite a feat of survival at those altitudes. Many questions surround who lived in these places, and how. There must have been quite a support team to supply the inhabitants.

Next we’ll go to Serdung Chusum, a pilgrimage site above 19,000′.

Found at 5470 m, this high ruin had spectacular views of the western outer kora

View of outer kora valley from high dokhang site

This large ruin has a tall front wall, built up from below to support the structure on a steep slope.

Layers of stone corbels support thinner stone roof slabs

Much more than a few tents

Old timers say that not so long ago, maybe 15 years ago, the town of Darchen, at the base of Mt. Kailash, was mostly a few tents, most of the year. Permanent houses, tucked near the mouth of the canyon that leads to Mt. Kailash’s sacred inner kora, were small traditional homes. Pilgrims and traders who came for the summer season would pitch their nomad’s tents in the plains, a transient summer mecca.

Today, Darchen is a district capital and slated for new development. This spring, while I was there, a road was being paved through the town and out to the highway that connects towards the west and east. Lower in the plains, new homes, hotels, restaurants, shops, and government buildings rise against the dust of the plateau. The older buildings, closer to the ridges and valleys of Kailash, remain.

Darchen is a staging area for any visit to Mt. Kailash. It is also home to a trio of exciting projects: a traditional Tibetan medicine factory, medical school and clinic. And a small guest house. This spring there were several dozen medical students arriving for class.

For us, Darchen was to be a base for 10 or so days of hiking around the inner and outer kora areas. Dank hotel rooms, electricity from 6-10 pm, no Internet, and no running water, made it not the most luxurious accommodations, but it would do. The locals, called gang ri wa (Tibetan = gangs ri ba), make it an especially interesting place. Many, especially the elders, still dress traditionally and are happy to talk about those good ol’ days when the town was mostly tents. A jovial community, thus, is findable in the winding alleyways of the older part of town.

Kailash First View

After a brief hiatus from writing up notes from my trip in Tibet, here’s another installment.

Mt. Kailash is Asia’s most holy mountain. Set off from other major mountain ranges, it stands alone, snow-capped, in a vast plain of flats and lower-lying ridges. The final day’s approach passes Ngari Pusum and ends at Manasrovar, where I noted the following:

Puppies play and a family cards/brushes sheep wool from a small flock of pashmina goats and sheep. Later, at a checkpoint a patroller wanders around stopped tourist and supply vehicles, peering in at the passers-through. He plays patriotic Tibetan music on a cell phone that probably doesn’t get service. Blustery wind buffets a small encampment where we stopped for lunch — sandwiches, cold pakoras, tea, and a chocolate ration of 1 Dove bar per day.

After crossing the 5200m pass of Maryum La, we dropped down to a final long valley, passing the length of Gung Gyu Lake. Dust devils, like small twisters, spring up and die down. I danced with the khyang (Tibetan wild asses) this morning, angling for a close photo. Fox, marmot, pica also abound today.

The first view of Mt. Kailash is from far away, at the eastern edge of the sacred lake Manasrovar (Mapam Yumtsho to Tibetan Buddhists, Mapang Yumtsho to Bonpo). On this day, clouds cover most of the mountain and only dissipate enough to provide brief glimpses of the snow-covered peak. We speculate about snowfall on the area we are expected to explore in the coming days.

Two nights at Manasrovar provide acclimatization and rest time. The first night it snowed a dusting, which sublimated by noon. Snow higher up may have stayed a bit longer. Clouds hovered on the Himalayan range to the south, and we went back and forth between wishing for the rain to cross over, to water the parched Tibetan grasses, and hoping for clear exploration weather.

An Illuminating Day

There are many holidays throughout the year that celebrate the Buddha. Saga Dawa is, perhaps, the most important. It marks his birth and his death and contemporaneous reaching of enlightenment. It takes place on the full moon day of the fourth lunar month, otherwise known as June 7 this year. I was in Lhasa. Though celebrations were necessarily subdued, Saga Dawa was palpable — especially on the Lingkur, the 8km loop that demarcates the old city. Locals, pilgrims who manage to get into the city, grandmas, children, workaday folks, rich, poor, educated and illiterate all walked the Lingkur in the lead-up to the holiday. The walk circumambulates what used to be the city limits; now much of it is on busy sprawling streets, and on a regular day, those on the Lingkur blend in with the regular street scene. Not so on Saga Dawa and in the few weeks leading up to the holiday, then the walkers are a crowd. One part, considered the heart of the walk, was closed, perhaps because it was too narrow to handle the throngs. It is a walk that takes several hours, and some would start as early as 4AM to finish in time to go to work. Some would hit the sidewalk again at night for another round. A hardy few do the whole thing prostrating, which I understand takes several days if you keep at it all day. It was a small, almost unmarked Saga Dawa by historical standards, but it felt like the whole city turned out for this walk — a quiet way of celebrating.

Along one arm of the river

Leaving the quiet part, heading into the city

Carved prayer stones for sale

Route crossing a wide city street

Behind the Potala, many do extra loops

In the newer part of the city

Busy Lingkur

the new Lhasa

Picture Taking, Knit Hat Making

Photos are posted!

West of Saga, the towns are smaller, and begging is less.  It’s hard for me, seeing beggars, but I can’t blame them.  So much traffic is tourism, and many locals are only tangentially affected by the tourism business.

Locals take a turn at knitting my hat (her mask is for dust, cold, warmth, sun)

This area is poor — yet left alone, it does provide for its people a rough and tumble life.  Impossible beauty of landscape and tradition.  I wish I had time to compose, pontificate, write a poem.  At the last camp, some girls take interest in my knitting and take over for a few rows.  Their skill is unparalleled, yet they do not do for themselves.  Mostly, they buy clothes from the stores in town.  Wives and mothers do knit sweaters for the family while they are in the fields with the animals.  But if the family makes yarn from yak hair or sheep wool (most do), they sell it — for knitting sweaters, I only see store-bought acrylic yarn.  I never quite got a clear answer on why.  I suppose the wool just simply isn’t valued.  Still, they were excited to see this foreigner using it.

I don’t know what to call it, perhaps ‘cultural support’ for knitting a sweater is still there.  But for being self-sufficient, using one’s own produce, it is fading.  Young people don’t eat what their parents ate, or dress in the traditional clothing.  And the older generations are beginning to prefer store-bought to handmade.  The convenience and price of a manufactured product, and its fashion, seem to be outweighing the independence of using what is created locally.

A snowstorm closed one pass (June 12) that is often taken by walking pilgrims.  Some people following our trip were worried that we might have had problems with this weather, but so far it remains dry.

In evening, the light is a beautiful, Changthang, honey yellow.  Stunning time for photography.  Actually, the only time for photography.  Mid-day photography creates subjects that are white on top, completely in shadow below.  And it’s difficult to photograph a face without their eyes being in shadow from the an ever-present wide-brimmed hat.

Light angle needs to be at around 90 degrees to the subject so it creates some depth.  Light behind the photographer is too bright; backlit, too intense.  A photo of the girls knitting would never have worked in the middle of the day.  The evening is truly magic hour, though, and I’ve been finding myself wandering out with my camera after setting up camp.