yesterday...

had a bit of an experience yesterday, in fact from start to finish it was a fairly eventful one.
In the morning I got up really early to shoot screentests of Lhamo Tso selling bread on the street. It wasn't quite what I had expected - I thought she would have a market stall in a busy market, but actually she just had a small box and sat by the side of the road, selling big loaves for 20p, small ones for 4p. It was actually really nice - it was the first time I had spoken to her properly, she actually speaks ok English.
Then I interviewed her niece, who is fifteen and like a fifth child to her, before going to the school that three of her children were at (in boarding). Jesus Christ, I was totally unprepared. I had all the questions and all my equipment ready to go, but what I hadn't really thought about was the prospect of asking three young children (one is nine, one is twelve and one is thirteen) how they felt about their Dad being held in prison by China, most probably being tortured daily, and the prospect that he might never come back. As soon as I saw the nine year old girl I was just like "what the fuck am I doing here." I felt miles out of my depth. Fortunately they were very talkative and relaxed and even spoke and read pretty good English.
The school was an experience in itself - its massive, housing over 2500 kids from 5-18. They all live in dormitories on the site. One thing really stuck with me; a massive sign on one of the wall's reads: "GET READY TO SERVE..."
I asked one of the girls what it meant, thinking it was some kind of communist slogan, and she said 'it means when we finish school we should be ready to serve the community' Just like England, then. Ha. Yeah right.

I met a sound American bloke called Matt the other night and we've been playing snooker a fair bit. We played last night and lost against some old local bastard who cheated right through the game. We had a couple of Kingfisher Strong's to console ourselves then I took a taxi back up to Bhagsu - another town just up the road. The reason I'm saying all this is because when I got to Bhagsu, I didn't have a single rupee left on me, so I went to change a travellers cheque. It was gone 1am so they were closed, but I bumped into a guy who runs one of the exchange shops. He just gave me 1000 rupees (15 quid) and said, 'just come back tomorrow.' I love the people here. Their society has such a beautiful cohesion that ours totally lacks. We are actively encouraged to be indivualist, competitive and even spy on our neighbours. There is no trust amongst strangers - something we completely take for granted because it has been like it for so long. Our society is totally fucked. There is no going back. Our world revolves around power and money too much for anything to ever change.
Anyway. Sorry about that rant but had to get it out. At least we won the cricket!
x