Tibetan English: My Volunteer Experience

No Comments | February 5th, 2007 | Trackback

As an English teacher, and a traveler looking for some useful way to spend some time in Dharamsala, India, volunteering my time to give a local Tibetan resident the chance to practice their English conversation seemed a natural choice.

I found a couple of organizations in a volunteer newsletter that is widely available in Dharamsala and visited in person; the place with which I ended up cooperating was one which offered computer and other classes. They kept a list of students interested in English conversation practice, and I was paired with the guy at the top of the list. We arranged a time to meet – once a day, for an hour or so, for the next 5 days – and had our classes on the building’s rooftop. He brought up pillows to sit on.

Mostly I asked questions so he’d have a chance to talk – it was interesting to hear how he’d shepherded yak in Tibet, about the rural way of life where he’d lived – more rural than many parts of India, two men having one wife, worse roads than India! He said girls – female children – had it difficult in Tibet, but not as difficult as in India, he thought. He talked a little about Buddhism and different philosophical points about it and of how he’d made it to India. He’d paid a border guard something like $10 to let him in and had traveled with a friend without any map. He told me the story of a monk who had accidentally killed a dacoit (“thief” in Hindi) somewhere else in India and had become a hero because no local law enforcement had been able to stop the guy.

He also spoke about his brief stint as a monk at Sera Je, somewhere else I’d visited; he explained that it’s not so uncommon for a person to decide they will try “monkhood” for a while and then end up pursuing a path outside the monastery.

This was quite short term – five days or so – was it totally for naught?

I can’t say his English is going to be exponentially better because of it. But it was a chance for him to practice and for me to meet and speak with a Tibetan person in a one-to-one context. I didn’t take any resources from the organization – I was paying for my own room in a cheap hotel anyhow – and it’s not as if there was a school ready to provide free English classes that I somehow preempted by offering this time. I don’t pat myself on the back for it – it was as much for me as for him – but I think overall the balance tips in the favor of positive.