Da Hanu

My body is resting on a rock warmed by the afternoon’s sun. In all direction are expansive mountainous valleys of steep rocky terrain. The sigh of the crisp winds blow at my ears as I look in the direction of the valley across from me at its zigzag dusty path leading up to a rocky road ornamenting the mountain. Huge boulders rest between mounds of sand below the road in a very delicate sort of way. There is a stupa at the foot of the cliff across from me with a man sitting next to it, most likely someone from the military base that sits on the very top of the opposite mountain. It’s so peaceful here – giving me time to contemplate my life and take in my surroundings. To my right I can see an encircling snow-capped mountain that resides in Pakistan: only 3 km away (less than 2 miles). As I sit and stare off into the distance I reminisce about this morning’s work in the fields with Breton, one of the VISpas. When we first approached the women in the fields, they were unsure as to what we were looking for. Even the Ladakhi I have come to learn didn’t help too much. The people of this region, Da Hanu, are considered “Brokpas’ and are said to be of pure Aryan descent. They settled here 200-300 BC when Alexander the Great brought his entourage with him through the Himalayas from Greece and Persia (Iran). They speak their own language which I don’t believe there is yet a written translation for. They look quite different with more pronounced noses and a taller height. If you could mix Ladakhi, Indian, Arabic and Greek people I think you would find they look like these Brokpa people. Finally they handed me a rake and gestured for me to follow their motions.

The cool heat passes through my lungs as I breath in deeply pulling the wooden hand made rake towards my chest and then out as I push it away from me, creating a rich layer of soil on the earth beneath me. The grandmother of the household with her deep orange flowers resting on her head and turquoise beads flowing into her head full of jet black braids slowly moves behind me throwing barley seeds down. Her daughter is sitting nearby under a poplar tree-bringing her breast out to feed her beautiful baby. My feet become sweaty so I put them aside and step out into the cooling turned up soil giving my feet a sensational massage. Breton is using a pickaxe to break up the larger piece of cow dung and soil that the two dzos (cross of a cow and yak) and the grandfather had just turned up with a plough. The grandfather is singing loudly as he directs the black and white dzos in a semi circular pattern around the rest of the field. I can hear the trickle of running water flowing throughout the intricate irrigation channels that allow their fields to produce barley. The sound of the pickaxe slamming into the earth and its rocks is somewhat soothing to my ears. Finally, they invite us to sit down for some chiang – a barley wine. As I drink it, the mother quickly shakes her head and puts some tsampa (barley flour) into my cup creating the wine to fizz and quickly changing its taste to resemble that of beer. As soon as I take a sip, they fill it up again to the top which is when I realized THIS is how these people have the strength to do this all day every day. I can’t help but stare at the grandmother’s beautiful headdress and goatskin cape. We communicate with the very few of Ladakhi that we both know such as “Mah zimpo sura rak!” (This tastes very good!) I watch them open a small channel to allow the ground to saturate with water. Throughout a chang break I notice how the mother keeps an eye on the water’s progress until it has spread evenly through the field. She then gets up to block the channel with a spadeful of earth. The mother lies back and rests her head on a rock in the shade and motions for me to lie down with her. I watch the above clouds pass by and ready myself for another hour of work on the next field. Working with the family confirmed the fact that this Ladakhi way of life is self-sustaining and nonetheless provides them with time to bond with their family and passing friends.



It hard to grasp the fact that an entire village of people live in between these vertical bare mountains. I felt privileged to be welcomed in this Buddhist Aryan village; a place only discovered 9 years ago, a place so new to the outside world, a place that has been living self sustainably over 2,000 years. It makes me wonder what will this place look like in another ten? Already, the mud and stone homes dispersed on the side of the mountain are now unable to blend in with their surroundings as they once most likely did, with bright colored shirts on their washing lines and bright blue tarps covering their animal huts. Who is to say this place will not conform to the outside world and invite cheap plastic and machinery to replace their community? This is the way of our globalized world-it has happened everywhere. Perhaps though, I will return and these people will have learned from the rest of the world and bypass the mistakes we’ve made.