Donate to One Heart Tibet!

What do cosmic cupcakes have to do with Tibet?

… Absolutely nothing. But my 25th birthday is coming up and in lieu of a gift, I’m asking for donations for One Heart Tibet, which works to save Tibetan women and children located in the Tibetan Autonomous Region of the People’s Republic of China.

The Tibetan society is one of the few in the world where there is no tradition of trained birth attendants. Poor nutrition, lack of trained health personnel, long travel distances, and limited access to emergency care place Tibetan women and infants at high risk of birth-related deaths. The vast majority of births take place at high altitude, in a cold environment, and without access to electricity or health care. More than 95% of Tibetan women give birth at home. Most babies are delivered with the help only of the mother or the mother-in-law whose sole assistance is the cutting of the cord. Amazingly, many Tibetan women deliver their babies completely on their own.

CLICK HERE TO DONATE.

You don’t need to have a facebook in order to donate, and even though it will ask you to donate $25, you are able to donate less (or more!) money. The money goes straight to One Heart Tibet.

I chose One Heart Tibet because it’s not one of the big popular causes, and people gravitate towards photos of children, especially Tibetan children.

And who wouldn’t? 🙂

The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country: Part Six

This is the sixth and final part of the series “The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country.”

Read Part One.

Read Part Two.

Read Part Three.

Read Part Four.

Read Part Five.

The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country: Part Five

This is part five of the series “The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country.”

Read Part One.

Read Part Two.

Read Part Three.

Read Part Four.

The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country: Part Four

This is part four of the series “The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country.”

Read Part One.

Read Part Two.

Read Part Three.

The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country: Part Three

This is part three of the series “The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country.”

Read Part One.

Read Part Two.

The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country: Part Two

This is part two of the series “The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country.” To read part one, click here.

The Best Thing I Can Do For My Country

“Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country.”

As I’ve mentioned before, a majority of my students wished to become teachers or work for the Tibetan Government in Exile after graduation. This was how they conceptualized “doing something” for their country, a country many had escaped from as children and others had never seen.

But under the surface, there were other things they deemed as “good” for their country, and those things fascinated me more than their educational or pseudo-political goals. They ranged from taking up arms to fight the Chinese to marrying Tibetan and having eight children (“a minimum” a friend once told me).

It was those responses I was trying to elicit from my students when I wrote the topic, “The best thing I can do for my country is…” on the chalkboard. The responses I received did not mention any of these aforementioned things, although when I asked the students what they thought about having eight children, the men in the classroom usually said they wanted to have a lot of children, and the women had looks of quiet terror on their faces.

Instead, the responses showed a deep sense of responsibility that does not seem to match up with the external options within reach of a Tibetan refugee. At the same time, their concerns include the preservation of their language, customs, and culture at large– things that most of us will never have to worry about.

Over the next few days, I’ll be posting scanned versions of my students’ responses to the topic “The best thing I can do for my country is…”, along with a transcribed and slightly edited version.

The World’s First Tibetan Astronaut

photoshopped by Stephanie

“Hey, I know you.”

I looked over at the teenage boy sitting beside me in the computer lab.

“You do?” There were a ton of little kids running around Sarah’s campus for their winter break.

“Yeah. You stayed with my dad and me. I go to TCV Suja. You have a black camera.”

“Ugyen!” I smiled, remembering how I had stuffed a bag of M&Ms into his NASA backpack before he left to walk back to his home, telling him not to check his backpack until he got there. Apparently, when he discovered the candy, he and his sister plowed through the bag before dinner-time.

They Blinded Me With… Science!

Tibetan Monks and Nuns Turn Their Minds Toward Science

(Something for discussion: I only recall seeing monks in the workshop last year. I do not know if this project was recently opened to nuns, or if it just “happened” to fall that way.)

I lived in the Sarah College guesthouse during the month of June 2008, alongside the Western professors and Tibetan translators of the Emory Tibet Science Initiative. While it is true that some of the professors treated me rather coldly and I witnessed some of them really struggle with the culture shock, others I met were totally awesome.