Early March 2007. Zhongdian is still cold, and we only stay there for one night, leaving for Waka on the following morning. Dorjee promises warmer weather at Waka, which is located on the Yangtze River, some 50 km North-West from Zhongdian, and some 500 mtrs lower.

(Zhongdian, by the way, is now officially referred to as Shangri La, but the Chinese cannot pronounce it, so it is called 香格里拉, "Shang Ge Li La" in Latin transliteration. Zhongdian won the title of Shangri La in a competition with several other cities, including Lijiang and even Chengdu.)

Our minivan is waiting, and there is hardly any space for our luggage as the trunk is full with boxes that we are taking from Zhondian to the school. These are donated clothing and other stuff that Dorjee has collected in Hong Kong in the past few months. He then takes it across the border, to the Shenzhen’s Post Office at Lo Hu, and mails to an address in Zhongdian, a Tibetan restaurant that he used to own and manage, and handed over to a friend when he moved to Hong Kong.

Still in Zhongdian, we make a stop at a Tibetan goods shop on the main street to buy katahs. We are meeting some officials from the Derong County government, and a katah exchange is certain to take place; we must be prepared.

Our small group consists of four people traveling together since Lijiang: Dorjee, his three year old daughter Chuji, his cousin-sister Droma and me. From Zhongdian to Waka, we first follow route 214, the Yunnan-Lhasa Highway, and I count kilometers to Lhasa: by the time we reach Yangtze River crossing, it is 1980 km between me and Lhasa. But, instead of crossing the river and continuing to Lhasa, we turn right just before the bridge and follow the river for about 15 minutes and finally arrive in Waka: 我们到了！Directly across the river Waka I can see a town called Benzilan; in Waka itself, I count one guest house, several restaurants, and a few tiny shops. Our car climbs a little bit uphill towards a modern looking small residential compound and comes to a hault.

We are being greeted by: kids, wearing the traditional Tibetan dress; their relatives, some of whom came from very far away, and yet some could not come because the mountain passes that separate their village from the nearest motorable road were closed because of snow; and by the school staff. Each of us newly arrived receives a welcome katah, one from each child, and several katahs from the group of relatives, so I end up with least 30 katahs on my neck. I notice Dorjee and Droma dispose of their katahs quite quickly, I envy their skills in taking the katah off discretly and handing them over for re-use; there must be rules in katah handling which I need to find out.

There is a pause in the reception as we are waiting for the jeeps from Derong to arrive. 

Fifteen minutes later, the officials from the Derong County Educational Department arrive, and a new katah exchange follows. But there is only several of them, so we finish quickly and proceed to a restaurant at Waka main street for a lunch with our guests from Derong and the school’s staff (headmuster and the Chinese teacher). Not all of the Derong crowd are Tibetan, but where they are from, I have difficulty to guess. Part of conversation is taking place in the local Tibetan dialect, part in putonghua, with a strong local accent (Sichuan??), and for me these two don’t sound much different, my ear trained to recognise the so called ‘Standard Putonghua’ from my study tapes.

The Chinese teacher with English name Doris, a young woman with a degree from the the Chengdu Normal University, asks to sit next to me to practice her English. Her main job, however, is to replenish the glasses from a bottle of Chinese spirit, 白酒，that I am drinking today for the first time (第一次 – there is plenty of things that I was doing for the first time on this trip, and this was the least foreign of them). Although the alchohol smells awful, it actually tastes OK, and I manage to raise glasses with each of the new acquaintances at least once. This was a rare occasion for me to appreciate my university drinking years that left me with indifference to the taste and smell of the strong, cheap alchohol.

After lunch, we head back to the school, for the official part of the day: the meeting with relatives of the students. It is held in a small house where the kitchen and the the dining room are located. This house later becomes our hangout place, our office, our meeting room; it is warm and cozy, and a supply of chu kyima (Tibetan for “boiled water”) for tea is always available.

The first, official, part of the meeting, between the school’s staff, Derong County officials and students’ relatives, lasts for about two hours. After the Derong officials leave, everyone relaxes a little bit, and Dorjee explains to me the key points of the discussion.

Later, I suggest to our guests to pose with their respecive children for a portrait photo that they would later receive and keep as a memory of that day. What a nice and enjoyable photo assignment it was! At exactly the same spot, on the steps of the dorm building, each couple relative + child managed to look different from all others, and so similar one to another, through their face expression, their posture or just the way their eyes looked at my camera.

That first day at the school was a long day. After some more group photos (that day’s assignment of a photographer of the Waka school have been the most satisfying job I have ever had) our attention turned to students. Dorjee gathered them all in one of the dorm rooms and started off by checking their hands; unlucky were those with dirty hands!

We open several of the boxes that we brought from Zongdian and start the fitting process; senior students first, then, if the item is too small, it goes to the next junior student, and so on. As I work in a sports goods company, where some of my colleagues own more than 20 pairs of adidas shoes alone, it is difficult for me to observe that these kids may only have one pair of cheap shoes each. I have an urge to go buy a pair of new shoes for each kid… only the nearest town, Benzilan, would only have fake or poor quality ones, as I find out later.

Next, we give out sweets from another box, the last one for today, and immediately several children start offering their sweets to Hua Hua, a local dog who, like any dog, even in Tibet, loves sweets. Those who own so little find it easy to share that little with the rest of the world.

(I later find out to my amusement that Hua Hua also loves drinking butter tea, and her usual meal is pieces of mantu, Tibetan bread, soaked in the butter tea.)

There are still several boxes left, and Dorjee would open them tomorrow, sort out the donated goods by size, and distribute them using the same principle, from senior students to the younger ones. Tonight, it’s too late; I take my bag to the guesthouse and come back for a dinner in the kitchen with Dorjee and his family.

Meili Snow Mountains

The following day is the excursion day for me, as directed by Dorjee (sometimes his professional guide side overtakes and he may even insist that I take a look at such and such place J). Droma and I are going to see Meili Snow Mountains, 梅里雪山。The 100km trip from Benzilan to Deqin takes about three hours and costs RMB 280 if you hire a mini passenger van at Benzilan’s main street. Of course, there are no winter tires on the van, and of course, there is snow up on the passes, and we get stuck a couple of times, and have to be pushed by bystanders, and also slip on the ice once or twice, but without consequences. (If you travel in these areas, even if the road is all paved I still recommend a 4X4, to manage the icy road). Snow Mountains were half-covered by mist and fog, but the views en route to Deqin are very beautiful on their own, I don’t know why that particular viewpoint is advertised, but, again, I haven’t been able to enjoy it fully because of the mist.

We are back to Benzilan by 5 pm, but we do not get back to school until at least six, as it take us an awfully long time to cross the river to Waka:  (1) to find the way down to the ferry point on the Benzilan side; (2) to locate the ferry person at the Waka side and give him a shout and (3) to wait until he comes to collect us. The ferry service is government-managed between 9 am and 5 pm, and costs RMB2 per person; outside these hours, the ferry runs at its own discretion and we paid 10 yuan per person. Market economy!! 

About 7 pm, students come to dinner, and Dorjee rehearses with them the Tibetan food prayer that he taught them earlier in that day. It sounds a bit rusty, and they lose the rhythm half way through, so Dorjee sings the prayer once more for them, and, on his own, he does it beautifully.

The dinner over, students go back to the school rooms to do their homework before their official bed time, 9 pm. Very tired, I go back to my bed, too, as the trip to Meili Snow Mountains exausted me, whether it is the alititude change from 2,800 m (Waka) to 4,200 (pass en route to Deqin) and back to 2,800 m; or extremely bumpy ride on the road laid with stones all the way up to the pass. In fact, I am so tired, that, on my return, I chose not to sing any praises to Meili Snow Mountains but have only one comment to make, in my rudimentary putonhua: 西藏有雪很多（There is a lot of snow in Tibet）. I don’t remember seeing so much snow in one place since I left Russia.

My last day in Waka

On my third, and the last day at Waka, I chose to stay around. After tsampa for breakfast, most of the morning was spent hanging around the kitchen. Midday, Dorjee and Chuji, Droma, Dorjee’s brother and his daughter, we all make an outing to Benzilan, 买东西 (do shopping). Because of its location right on the Yunnan-Tibet route 214, Benzilan is a popular stopover for tourists on their way between Zhongdian and Deqin, and the town boasts several hotels and souvernir shops. On that day, I did see a few Chinese tourists, but otherwise the place was quiet, in a way that a small provincial town is quietly taking its residents though their week-day routines. However, we met a lot of monks, who came from a monastery some 25 km away from Benzilan. I asked Dorjee what these monks were doing there, and in such quanitities, and when he answered 买东西 (mai dong xi – shopping) I was still not satisfied as I believed that 和尚 不要东西 (he shang bu yao dong xi – Buddhist monks don’t need or want things).

Our 东西 that we were looking to buy at Benzilan included new sets of steel bowls and cups for the students. Unfortunately, none of the shops had them in the quantities that we wanted (30), so we came back to Waka empty handed. It took us another 30 minutes to navigate the ferry crossing back to Waka (actual crossing time: 5 minutes). Then I noticed that the ferry boat was decorated with at least three or four different phone numbers and a note, "please call this number if you need my service". I am still not clear which one of the several numbers actually works, but I decided that, next time I would need a crossing, I’d call him from Hong Kong, so that the ferry guy is ready by the time I arrive.

I spent the remaining of the day wondering around, and I didn’t want that day to finish. Leaving was not a happy thought. There was something I found there that was not available where I was to return to; unreserved, total kindness; humbleness; resourcefulness; resilience. I watched the kids play basketball in front of the school; an old basketball, partially deflated, as it would hardly jump off the court, a ring, and a piece of level court is enough to make them deliriously happy; them who have so little - a place in a dorm, a a few possessions like a bowl and a cup. The dinner that night was simple, rice and butter tea, but they savoured every bit of it. To appreciate what you have, and never complain about not having more, this is the quality that would make our lives so much easier to bear. Instead, we yarn to possess more, and waste our lives on accumulating things that we cannot take with us when we leave this world.

About the Waka school

Local Waka community fully supports the orphanage school, and fully appreciates help from outsiders. Waka is a small village with population of only a few hundreds. There is only one primary school, Waka Central Primary school, which offers Primary 1 to Primary 6 education. The basic subjects taught here are Tibetan language, Chinese language and Mathematics. Besides the twenty seven students, that Dorjee’s orphanage supports, and takes care of, the school is attended by other kids from the village and surrounding areas. The children supported by Dorjee are either orphans, or from single parent poor families which otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford to send their children to school.

Dorjee was born in Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture and is very familiar with limited schooling opportunties available for kids from these areas. When he worked as a tourist guide in Zhongdian, he often had to visit remote Tibetan villages and towns and saw a lot of poor kids who reminded him of his own childhood. He decided to do something for those kids. A friend of his, Sanji, suggested to start an orphanage school. Together they wrote a proposal to raise funds, and met with local education department officers. Unfortunately, before the work was completed, Sanji died of stroke; but the work of the orphanage was continuing. The orphanage school of the Waka village was opened in September 2004. Now Dorjee is in charge of everything, including ensuring the continuity of funding. Many times he has had to put in his own money to provide for students’ subsistence.

Dorjee’s main area of speciality is Tibet, Tibetan culture and travel. He is a licenced Tibetan guide, speaks fluent English, several Tibetan dialects and travelled extensively in Tibet. If you wish to engage his services as a guide or ask for his help or advise in organising your trip to Tibet, his email address is tenzindorjee@yahoo.com.   

The school now has its own email address wakaorphanageschool@hotmail.com. However, as there is still no internet at Waka, the email is checked either by me, or by Dorjee, or his wife Lhamo, when they are near an internet access point.

Leaving Waka

We left Waka early in the morning - Dorjee’s brother, Droma and I, in a borrowed minivan. Dorjee’s brother and Droma were going to Zhongdian to buy supplies for the school, including the bowls and cups that we didn’t find in Benzilan. The trip took only two hours, and it was still cool morning when I said good-bye to them in Zhongdian.

Dorjee is still at Waka, he plans to stay at school for a while, as there are many things that we would like to build or fix. On the Sunday of the week following my return, Lhamo and I went to the Lo Hu Post Office to mail to Zhongdian some apparel samples kindly donated by my Marketing colleagues; these will later be forwarded to Waka. Lhamo told me how she used to go to the very same post office with her Mum, when she was little, to mail goods to their relatives in China. I hope we return to the same post office, many more times.