Living in Ladakh: Seeking a Shepherd

Sunday, April 14, 2019

Seeking a Shepherd

Himayalan Ibex -- Skyin -- Capra sibirica

We are searching for someone who loves walking in mountains to carry the shepherd work through this summer in Tar village in Ladakh. This is something that people in the village consistently identify as a need, and specifically they approve of the idea of a friend or acquaintance of ours coming to fulfill this role for a time.

If you or someone you know would seriously consider it, living with folks here, eating wholesome food from this land, bringing bundles of wild fodder back all summer for winter storage, please be in touch with us. The best time to come would be before June so we can overlap with you, and we would need you to stay for at least two or three months.

village sheep in the yok ma (lower village)

Lots to learn, an amazing place to explore. Homestays are available for less than the price of a hostel, with skillful and willing teachers in the crafts of the village. If you come before June, we can get you started on language. Plenty of flexibility to this job, but a serious commitment is needed, spending most days taking the herd from the village and tending them in the mountains and high pastures where they graze. The village is at around 11,000 ft (3230 meters) elevation.

The slopes are steep and the footing is challenging. The days are not terribly long, but it will take time for anyone's body to transition to this altitude. Expect camping conditions and amenities -- the village is not on any road. Living here is inexpensive compared to the US, and if expenses for the flight, passport, and visa are a limiting factor we can certainly find the needed funds among our networks. India is newly offering a one-year e-visa which makes that process much faster and easier.

We're delighted at the idea of introducing someone new to our friends, these amazing people in the village. If you have a serious interest please comment here or find me as "Jason M Chandler" on facebook.

Please see the last two blog posts (Ice Melting and Returning) and the rest of the blog for more context and the reasons we make this ask.

Abi Yangchan Lhadzom, spinning sheep's wool

2 comments:

drb said...: Wow, kudos to you for your work and vision. Cynthia suggested you might be free to come house and dog sit in Maine while I go to Bhutan to volunteer teach. It sounds like you are committed to an idea to assist Tar but I would love to discuss some options if you are interested. We met at the Common Ground Fair when Cynthia was visiting me. tblesh@maine.edu . Tamara; April 18, 2019 at 5:20 AM
Unknown said...: It's possible you may see this before you read your email; I sent a message last week and have tried calling too. Thought I'd leave a note here as well, just in case. When you are able, please write to anevin (it's a gmail account) so we can connect :); May 5, 2019 at 8:39 AM

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Living in Ladakh

Ladakhis: village-rooted people of a portion of the vast Himalaya, who have raised families and built soil for thousands of years on glacial melt, in a land where each year only four inches of water fall from the sky. Most Ladakhis are Tibetan Buddhist or Muslim. Paved roads have been built only in the last fifty years, and the passes still close for about six months each winter. The sun is hot, and the nights are cold. Roasted barley flour, wheat bread, vegetables, noodle soup, butter tea, meat, and apricots are standard fare.

Caitlin & Jason: we are white middle class US citizens who recognize the disastrous folly of American economic imperialism and feel great joy in working with people of real resilient cultures still deeply rooted in land. We feel deep desire to know the plants and to learn how to draw food, shelter, and clothing directly from the land. Even while we seek nourishing ways of living, we participate in and benefit from systems of white supremacy in the United States and abroad, and we seek to challenge those unjust systems and dismantle them in every way we can. We come to Ladakh to live and work and learn language and song with a highly skillful community of farmers and a web of youth and educators centered around SECMOL. We feel like family here, and we find in our relationships with the people of Tar a great source of inspiration. We are always reexamining how our lives interweave between here and the lands and people where we were born and raised in occupied chkuwabonakik, "the land where the sun's rays first look our way," in Maine in northern New England.

We long for a lived understanding of humans as part of the natural world, reciprocal, responsible, and striving for justice while cognizant of past and present lived understandings of racism and injustice. We see practices of meditation and mindfulness as central tools for bringing about meaningful, long-lasting change in the world. We love simple good food, the exquisite beauty we find each day in observing other living beings, music, and making our own tools, clothes, and gear. We strive to live mindful of our ancestors, awake to the reality of what we do today, and mindful of the consequences of our actions on lives of many generations to come.

Living in Ladakh

Sunday, April 14, 2019

Seeking a Shepherd

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