The final week (of teaching)

During this week, it just feels like it's very close to my departure. I need to pack my things on Thursday as we are having another momo party on Friday afternoon so I may not have time. I just went into Dharamsala to get some money from a bank and also to buy some chains to secure my bags when I go on the train for the first time.
About my plans, I will go to Amritsar on Saturday, hopefully ariving there mid-afternoon and I hope I can stay at the golden temple as it is free. This is the Sikh capital city and it is their custom to offer free food and accommodation. I will stay there for two nights, then tak an overnight train to Agra, where the Taj Mahal is. I'll stay there one night, then go into Delhi the following evening (Wednesday). I don't need to stay there as my flight leaves at 2.15 am on the 5th, arriving at 6.45am in London.
My event so far this week is that I had my hair cut by one of the students. He's really good at it even though he's taught himself, so he did a good job for me.
Otherwise, the weather is nice and warm and right now at 6.30pm, I have my window open and am in a t-shirt. A big change from the chilblains a month ago!

As this is a short post, I will give you some more extracts from Tears of Blood:

-Tibetan women were given forced abortions and sterilised on a great scale, like 2000 cases by one team in a three month period. One woman described how foetuses are aborted at an extremely late stage: “The foetus is often removed at 28 weeks and over, when the heartbeat is already being heard. The woman is forcibly aborted and when the healthy foetus is removed, its head is immersed in a bucket of water.” “They forced me onto a table, inserted an electrical device into my uterus and left me like that for hours... Then they came and inserted some kind of spatula and twisted it round and round, scraping the foetus out in small pieces.” This was in 1990.

Since 1997... “Tibetan buildings have been torn down to make way from endless vistas of ugly concrete... Discos, gambling dens, brothels everywhere, are an insidious ploy by the Chinese to promote decadence and so to wean the Tibetans still further from their traditional way of life. Then, once they have been sucked into a life-style that is totally dependent on drink and drugs, they are no longer fit to be employed. They're finished.

In 1997, reporting on the abortion issues, a woman cried “They come and drag us from our homes, they throw stones at our husbands, they terrorize our children... The woman in the next bed to me was eight months pregnant, but they killed the baby and threw it to the dogs.”

So this is as up to date as the book goes, but it is well-known here that such atrocities are still going on and they are not showing any signs of  stopping.