Penpa Lhamo
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Penpa Lhamo, age 73, Bangalore

LIFE IN TIBET

I was born in Ghantse. At the age of twelve, my mom would carry me on her back, and never let me work. [But] when I was thirteen, my mom died, and then, when I was fourteen, my dad died. After my parents died, I stayed with my sister, and I looked after her children and did babysitting.I had to be responsible for myself and do my own work.

Sometimes my job was to look after sheep and goats. In the village outside of Ghantse where I was then staying, we had more than a thousand of them. There were about fifteen people, all Tibetan, taking care of them. There would usually be two people taking care of the male goats, two people taking care of the female goats, two taking care of the male sheep, and like that. Part of the job was to protect the goats and sheep from the wolves. When I would return alone at night to sleep, I would get scared, because the wolves attacked the animals.

The animals were kept in the mountains, far from Ghantse. Once a year we would take themfar from Ghantse for the summer. Along with one other lady, I would also milk the animals. There were so many animals that it was a really big job. Sometimes we would trade jobs [so] I took care of both sheep and goats. One of the biggest jobs was to herd them together into their pens for the evenings. We slept close by to the animals. Food was made for us, so when I got back, there would be tsampa for me in the house. It was a simple temporary house for sleeping, along with some tents, just for the summer. I was around sixteen years old when I did this work. It lasted about six months, from before summer until just after summer.

Then I would go for harvesting. In Tibet, we had royal families that owned land, and we had to go at harvest time to help harvest the crops. Mostly we grew tsampa, but there were other grains and some vegetables, too--radish, potato, like that. But we only harvested the grains.

COURTING AND MARRIAGE

At the age of eighteen, many men were coming to me offering their hand in marriage. So many came! But I didn't accept. I didn't like it, because whoever I liked, they already had a woman. My sister and my family were mostly trying to get me a wealthy husband who would give me lots of money, but I didn't like that. One night they were going to send me to see one boy at his house, and that evening I had to go to the city to sell cow dung patties they use for fire. They sent me with one lady who was older than me to sell these round patties. So I spoke to this lady who was going to go with me, and I told her, "You know they're sending us to the city, and then they're sending me to this boy's house, but I don't want to go. So let's run away somewhere."

So I went to the city, and we sold everything we brought with us that day, and we came back, but we had made our plan. That night we slept with the sheep, and the next morning we ran away. I went to Paré, where I had one brother, a half brother from the same father, so I went to my brother's to hide. I escaped.

I used to do lots of work with wool..... spinning, carding and knitting. And there were lots of families that asked me to work for them, making designs and chubas and things, and many families wanted to adopt me, for me to come and stay with them. But my brother didn't send me to another family. So I carried on at my brother's house. My brother had one boy and one girl.

And one day they had a program, like we have in Bylakuppe now sometimes, with some dancing and music, and we all went to see the program. Everybody was there, and it was like a big happy party. My brother and his son and daughter were there, and I went too. I was new to Paré, so everybody was staring at me, because they didn't know me, and I was the new person. Since I was with my brother's son, some people thought maybe I was his son's wife, even though I was older, and people were gossiping and everything. It was quite funny, really.

But there was one family there that was quite wealthy, and they were looking for a wife for their son. There were some five or six girls from Paré to be considered, and that one boy's father went to a high lama to find out which of the five or six girls would be the best wife for his son. When they did some special prayers and tests it turned out that I was the most suitable for their son.

So my brother, since I was always telling him I didn't want to get married, he fooled me. My auntie told me that we were going to visit a high lama who was going to India, so we had to get dressed up and go visit him. They told me we were going to the monastery. So they brought me to this family's house, not to the monastery, and there I was. The members of both families were all there, dressed up, and there were lots of khattas, the traditional white scarves we Tibetans use for special occasions. So I got married to this young man, and I was actually quite happy, and I felt my destiny was with him. Soon I was carrying a baby, and my first son was born when I was about 25 years old.

THE ARRIVAL OF THE CHINESE ARMY

The Chinese were already in Tibet at this time, but there didn't seem to be any major problems. We were busy doing work, and our lives just went on. In those days the Chinese used to buy land from wealthy Tibetans, and then build a house, and make a big party and invite everybody to eat Chinese food. And there was work for laborers there, for both men and women, because women have also done this kind of work for a long time in Tibet. It's traditional. Things were very equal in Tibet, for men and women. Sometimes men might do the very hardest work, but usually men and women both did everything.

So one large piece of land was sold, and a large house was built, and there was a big party for all the laborers there. There were about a hundred kinds of different food and different dishes, Chinese and Tibetan, and it was so grand, but it was just to fool the people. We had never seen anything like it before, so much food and entertainment, and famous people there too, and drinks and whatever. But then slowly, problems started. There weren't any problems right in Paré, but there were protests happening in other places, and we began to hear about them.

Then, when they captured Lhasa, people began fighting against the Chinese. When they heard that even women were carrying small weapons to fight, they made a rule nobody could keep a knife or weapon in their house. So we couldn't even have a knife just to cut food with, and if they found one, they would punish us.

We didn't hear anything about His Holiness, just that he had gotten lost. When he left, we didn't hear anything about where he was, so we cried a lot. But when we heard that he had reached India, we also planned to leave. And then we went to Bhutan.

But before we could come to Bhutan, the Chinese said that nobody could escape. They knew that people were leaving and trying to escape or planning to. We had to get permission to go anywhere, permission from the Chinese. There were many poor people there, many poor families, so the Chinese made them work, and we were now poor too, so we were amongst them. The Chinese would make us plant potatoes. They would make us dig holes and plant potatoes. Once I remember that what we did was to dig the hole, but instead of planting the potatoes, we made a shape out of mud like a potato, and took the potatoes home and ate them. We tricked them, and had a nice meal.

We heard that in the big cities there were lots of problems, and many people were being attacked and put in jail. In Paré this wasn't happening yet, but the Chinese were taking things away from the wealthier people, and forcing everybody to work. So my husband's family was no longer wealthy. Before, we weren't really wealthy, but middle-class. Then things got worse in Paré too. If you didn't work, there was punishment. I had one friend who was being beaten. I cried out and asked them not to hurt him, but they told me that if I didn't stop, then I would get the same thing.

The Chinese used to force us Tibetans to do things. They would make up stories whenever they wanted. They used to tell one Tibetan to punish another Tibetan. They would put a gun behind the head of one Tibetan and force him to punish another Tibetan or to say something that wasn't true. People were forced in front of other people to say bad things about their own friends that weren't true. There was one bad Tibetan who helped with all these things, and would then call all the Tibetans to come and give blessings to him with money. We were forced to go and do it by the Chinese. There were lots of beatings, and I would feel very sad when one Tibetan was beating another one.

I had one friend who was a Rinpoche, and the Chinese were doing many bad things to him and saying bad things about him. He was really worried that they were going to put a black chuba on him. If they put a black chuba on you or a black hat, that means you're bad, or doing something bad. So he was worried he was going to get a black chuba or a black hat. There was one man on the street who had a white colored chuba , and he took off his white chuba and put it on the Rinpoche, and put the Rinpoche's chuba on him. So the Rinpoche was happy that the people didn't see him like that, that they didn't think he was bad.

They even put my brother in jail. I didn't hear anything about him for a long time. Later, I met him in Bhutan, but for many years he was in jail. They would hit him with a gun, and they didn't give them food, very little food. If [the prisoners] found a worm in their food, they would eat it because they were so hungry. And [the Chinese] took all the household things, took them away.

ESCAPE TO BHUTAN

Then we made a group and planned to escape. It was 1959, I think. I was about 27 years old. By then my husband and I had two kids, so we put one on my back and one walked holding my hand. We packed up some stuff for cooking on the way. It took 24 hours to reach the road to Bhutan. We just had a few mountains to cross. We left, and the next morning we reached a big mountain. It was in the late autumn, just after the harvest time, and there was no moon. We had to hike over the mountain at night, we couldn't see anything because it was so dark. We just had to walk anyway. There might be bumps or rocks in between, and we would just knock into them, or sometimes fall down. We didn't have any torches [flashlights] or anything. I felt very tired walking down the mountain. I was so tired! It was more difficult than walking up. I was so tired that I would just sit and slide down.

When we reached the border of Bhutan, the army took all of our things. Inside Bhutan, they gave us only one space to stay in. We were so tired, whatever space or food they gave us, we just took it and didn't complain, and we just lay down to get rest. Our group was about a hundred people. But when we were planning the escape, nobody told anybody that we were planning to leave, not even our own friends and family, sometimes even our own parents, because we were worried that some of them might go and tell the Chinese.

REFUGEE LIFE IN BHUTAN

We stayed in Bhutan for twenty years, starting in the village of Batto, located right in the middle of the Bhutanese population. When we came to Bhutan, we were told that the only thing that could be provided for us was land--that there was no food or jobs or things to be given, only land. The land was in between different groups of poor Bhutanese.

Then we built a house. We got some help from the West to help build homes. And we would get some pay for our jobs. Most people got about one rupee and 20 paise, but those who were good and did the most difficult jobs got two rupees. In our village, there were about four hundred Tibetan refugees. A few of them were from the group I came to Bhutan with, but mostly our original group was scattered all over, some in different parts of Bhutan, and some on to India. At first, everybody wanted to go to India. Then the Bhutanese king told us to stay in Bhutan, not to go to India, and that he would give us land. So we all made up our minds between ourselves. We heard that India was hot, and there were diseases we didn't have, and that our children might get sick. Anyway, we had the idea in our minds that we would be back in Tibet in two or three years and we thought we should stay in Bhutan since it is closer to Tibet.

Later, more and more people kept coming from Tibet. The land we got was on the side of a mountain, and it was completely covered with forest. So we had to chop down trees, move rocks, and make fields to grow things. Everybody had something to do. The men mostly cut down the trees, and the women who were strong would chop up the wood and arrange and move it.

Then one day the Bhutanese people called us for a meeting. The King's father had given us land to stay in Bhutan, but at that time he was away in India for some business. The other people there called us for a meeting. They told us that they didn't want us there in Bhutan, that we were destroying the forest, that they needed the forest for themselves and the land for their animals to graze on, and that they just didn't want us Tibetans there. So we had a hard time.

In Dharamsala, there was an office to help with Tibetans who were in Bhutan. So we got some help, because they sent a letter from India. There was one man there who was quite educated and was a representative for us in Bhutan. He was quite strong and smart, so whatever they would say, he would give a good answer.

The King's father was away, and he didn't know anything about what was happening. So all these people were against the Tibetans there, and they didn't want us to use their land. They were afraid that we might work really hard and come out ahead of them perhaps. So they made all these problems. There were two different leaders of the Tibetan people there, and for three straight days they had meetings. Some of the Bhutanese said that if we were going to stay, we had to become Bhutanese citizens. But these leaders said that we couldn't become Bhutanese citizens because we had to get permission from His Holiness, and that we would have to go to India to get permission. Then two Tibetan leaders went to India and visited His Holiness and met with him.

When they arrived to see His Holiness, he said to them, "I know you don't have any good news for me, but please come in." They told him what the problem was, and he told them not to worry, to just go back to Bhutan, and that everything would be fine. By the time they returned to Bhutan, the King's father was also back. He met with both of them, and he asked what the problem was. They said that some Bhutanese people were making problems, and the King's father was quite nice to them at that time. He told us not to worry, and that these people wouldn't be able to do anything against us, because they would be going against the law. He said that people from many other countries were giving us money and things, and he couldn't do that, but he could give us land, and so he was doing that. It was his duty, and we could make use of the land. Bhutan was our neighbor, and they are also Buddhists like most Tibetans.

We didn't pack to go to India. The King's father knew who was acting against the Tibetans, and stopped them from doing it any more. The King himself was too young, so the King's father was the one who made decisions. We were getting ready to get packed up and go, but the King's father said that we didn't have to leave. Sixteeen or seventeen years later, the King's father died, and the same trouble started up again.

One of the King's father's wife was a Tibetan. He had one wife already, and then he met this Tibetan woman and married her and kept her as his wife. She's called Ashte Yange. She lives in India now and has two sons, the King's father's two sons. Even his first wife was a Tibetan. Ashte Yange's father was quite an important figure. When Tibetans first came to India in Musoorie, he was in charge of building homes there for them.

Because of the King's father, she has her freedom. There's more freedom in India than in Bhutan. Before he died, he knew that when he died she would have trouble from some Bhutanese citizens because she is Tibetan. When the King's father came to India once, he met Indira Gandhi and lots of important politicians, and he deposited money in several banks. He asked Indira Gandhi to help take care of her because of this situation. So she's come to India, and she's quite happy here. The King's father was sick and was hospitalized abroad, and knew he was probably going to die, so he spoke to his first wife's son. He told him that he had two brothers, and since they were from the same father he must love them as if they were full brothers.

Ashte Yange had to escape to India. Before he died, the King's father gave her some land and built her a house on it, so she was staying there. Later, after the King died, the first wife's sisters and brothers sent a guard to kidnap Ashte Yange because they didn't like her. But one servant knew what the King's father had wanted, and wanted to help if she got in trouble, so before they could kidnap her, this servant went and warned her, and she was able to escape.

My husband was a tailor in Bhutan. He worked for the military. Later the military asked him and his family to move away from the village to the city, and they provided accommodations for him and his family. So we moved to Thimbu, the capital. They called him there to do stitching for the Bhutanese Army, and I had to come with him. But we had to pay something for the land we had used in the village before we could go.

My husband did that, and on the side I got some loans and did some small business too. I would get some general provisions and sell them on the street. I had six children--three girls, and three boys. I had the two boys that came with us from Tibet, and one more boy and three girls born in Bhutan. So I was quite burdened with all of this.

There were lots of problems happening in Bhutan for Tibetan refugees, and other problems too. Finally, an official from the United Nations was sent to Bhutan to see what was happening. At the same time, my husband got six days of leave from his job. During his leave he went to another city to see about a loan to buy some more things for our little store. On the way, the police stopped all the buses and all the vehicles because of the official from the United Nations--he was passing nearby. Then this official stopped nearby to have lunch, and during lunch his vehicle was blown up by a bomb. Some enemy probably did that. But he wasn't killed, because he was having lunch at that time and wasn't in his vehicle. My husband was very close by and saw everything from the bus he was in. The bus was damaged and couldn't continue making the return trip to Thimbu. Of course, everybody still needed to go to Thimbu, so people got into various vehicles to continue the trip.

My husband was put together in the same vehicle with the United Nations official, because all the military security personnel knew him because he stitched clothes for them, and they thought they could trust him. So they put them together in the same vehicle. Then, while they were travelling, there was a landslide. Something happened at the top of a mountain above the road, and lots of rocks and earth came down, and their vehicle was directly hit. The United Nations official died right there on the spot after getting hit on the head. My husband was badly wounded with severe damage to both of his leg, one of them very severely. He was unconscious. The vehicle was a little bit like the autorickshaws we have here in India, but not exactly the same--a little bit bigger, but open, and not very strong. So later an ambulance came, but at first they wouldn't take him. The security personnel didn't know whether the landslide was natural or perhaps had been caused by the same people that set off the bomb earlier. They thought that perhaps my husband was involved, and weren't sure about putting him in the ambulance. But eventually they did take him to the army hospital.

His left arm had also been hurt in the accident. There were discussions that his leg would probably have to be amputated, but the man who brought him to the army hospital was a friend, and he asked them to do everything possible so that an amputation wouldn't be necessary because he had children and a family. He was in the hospital for two months. He improved a little, but it didn't do very much good. It was very difficult for me to be home alone with the children, and with him in the hospital without proper care. So we brought him home, and for six months I had to take care of him in the house. The government told him to stay in the army hospital, but he didn't want to take any of their allopathic treatments. He felt he would rather die than take their treatments.

There was a lake or a spring that had holy water, and that could be used together with Tibetan medicines and treatments. It's like cupping in Chinese medicine. They make a fire and they put a stone in the fire, and then they have the patient lie down. They put the stone in water, and the heat turns the water into medicine for the patient.

I kept selling provisions on my own during the long time my husband was at home in bed. But I couldn't go very far away. I would only go down the steet a short distance to do business. Before this I was able to go into the city or as far as I needed, but not then, so it was more difficult to make any profit. The only time I would go a little bit further was to the monastery to pray, or to get medicines for my husband. Because we were in the city, and hadn't been there very long, we didn't have any friends to really help us in a major way. We had some relatives in the city, but they weren't very close relatives, and they could't help us. They were too busy with their own work, just working to survive.

We just had enough to survive day-to-day. Each time I was able to take a single step forward, I would pray and thank God. I was quite friendly and talkative, and during this time some of my customers would give a little bit of extra money, and sometimes that helped, so we always managed somehow. The children were too small to help very much, but sometimes when people I knew were going shopping somewhere further away for wholesale goods, I would ask them to get 4 or 5 kg of something, like onions for example, and then I could sell that for a small profit. Getting wood for a cooking fire or to warm up the house when it was cold was very difficult, and the older children sometimes helped with that. The older children could also at least stay at home with their father sometimes while I left to take care of some important business. But not for long, because they wouldn't know what to do with a problem or emergency, so maybe two or three hours at the most. Sometimes if I needed some tea or oil or something and couldn't leave, I would borrow something from neighbors, and pay them back the next chance I got.

The treatments with hot stones and water helped and made my husband more comfortable, but he wasn't really getting very much better and had a terrible limp. It was difficult in the city to get stones and wood for the fire, and I was always wondering where to find them. Later, one friend told me about another spring with holy water that might help to heal him, so I sent him there with another acquaintance who was going as a patient himself. Soon I heard that one leg got a little better, that the bones started to heal a little bit better and the skin looked a little better.

But then later I heard that he wasn't following the proper treatments, but instead was getting drunk there with this other person that went with him. Apparently, he drank during the day, and didn't take his treatments in the evening. People were telling me not to leave him there. He'd been there for two weeks, and they said I should bring him home. So I called him back, and he didn't seem to be any better to me.

We continued with the hot stone and water treatments at home when he returned, doing it every day. Some people brought us some water from Kang Rinpoche (Mt. Kailash) and we used that too. Slowly he got healed, little by little. He got better, but still his leg wasn't very good. His leg was quite stiff, and he really needed to walk with a stick, but he didn't like to use one. I tried to make him use one, because if they thought he could walk normally, the government would call him back to work. I didn't want him to return to work until his leg was really better. They were paying a little bit while he was out, but not much. However, by then he could help a little bit around the house and in the store, and I wanted him to do that while he continued healing. But he would never listen to me. He would say, "Why do you want me to use this stick? Do you like seeing me with a stick?", and yell at me. So he refused to use a stick, and then somebody from the government did happen to see him walking without a stick, and they called him back to work. So he had to work, and he returned there. But then things became more difficult.

One day I finally put one child on my back, and walking with one child in each hand, I went to the head of the place where my husband worked. I told him that I had too many problems now, and so I begged him to let my husband return home. He couldn't do very much good work anyway. So I begged, and asked him why some people got leave when only one thumb was hurt, while both his feet were bad and he was still expected to work. I begged so much that they finally sent him home, but they still caused lots of trouble. It would have been better if he were not a tailor.

I was the one who was responsible for the family, and he didn't do very much to help. He was always telling me to do everything, and he would just want to hang around with his men friends. That's why he wanted to be at work, because at home he would have to do something to help. But people around me knew I was the one taking all the responsibility for the six children, so they had pity for me and tried to help a little when they could. There were so many expenses with the children--food and clothes and everything.

There was no separate Tibetan monastery, but I would go for prayers at the Bhutanese monastery there. There were also some monks who would come to the house and do special prayers, and sometimes I would meet them at the monastery. The Bhutanese people would often ask me about my religious practises, and which texts I read and things like that, or which sect I followed, and which monks I wanted to come to my house. I would always answer, "Any one of them is fine." The Bhutanese are mostly Khagyu, most others are Nyingma. They won't go very much for a Gelug. They were mostly followers of Karmapa, the older one before the present younger Karmapa. My mother was a follower of Karmapa who was there at that time, but after the King's father died, he went back to Tibet.

I learned to speak Bhutanese, and I was selling to Bhutanese people. People around used to tell me that I was a very nice lady. If I had something that somebody needed, I would always give it to them. This is just normal.

The problems for the Tibetans there in Bhutan with the local population would come and go, come and go. When it was bad, some of the Bhutanese would want us to change and become Bhutanese citizens and dress in the Bhutanese style, or to leave Bhutan. Even now, the Tibetans in Bhutan have to wear the traditional Bhutanese dress, not the Tibetan. So they would say that since we did not want to become Bhutanese citizens, they would take back everything they gave us. They would take back our identity books. We didn't have passports or anything, only these special identity books. So Tibetans started thinking about coming to India again. After the King's father died, the problems came and went, got worse and got better for about eight years. Our Tibetan leaders sometimes sent letters to the government in India because we felt that we would need to leave Bhutan, perhaps soon. There were letters and meetings for a long time.

In the villages, Tibetans were prevented by the people from doing any business. We were allowed to stay, but couldn't conduct any business or make any money. With all these problems, our leaders were sending lots of letters to the United Nations and to Dharamsala. One day, four people from the United Nations came to check on conditions. As they walked around, the Bhutanese people acted very well in front of them, telling how many things they did for us Tibetans, bringing them to the village and making up all kinds of things, and telling how happily the Tibetans were settled here.

But the Tibetans there had heard the United Nations people were there, and that the Bhutanese were giving false impressions, so we decided to meet them personally, and sent a delegation to them. With all the security, we couldn't simply go and approach them, so at night we snuck out to go to the place where the United Nations people were staying. Many of us went to show that we really wanted to go to India. First we hid near the forest and carried our babies. We were really afraid that our babies would cry out and make noise and that we would be caught. It was cold that night, and we were all shivering. So we locked our homes and stepped out and hid in the forest so we could then go really early in the morning and not get caught.

Along with me, four or five ladies who were brave enough led the way and stepped into the front. We didn't know very well how to communicate with the United Nations officials when we got to where they were staying, so we just said, "Namasté, namasté, please take us to India." We folded our hands and asked them, "Please sir, please sir, take us to India."

The four United Nations officials replied that they couldn't do anything right then, and that the Bhutanese had told them many stories about all the good things they were doing for the Tibetans and that the Tibetans were very happy. They told us that they would have to return and then think about it. So it was very similar to the thing that happened when the Chinese first came to Tibet and a few international people came to check on things, and there was security around everywhere. Later, the people who had approached the United Nations officials and spoken to them, some of them got into trouble.

It was four years after the United Nations team came before we could finally leave and go to India. But we were quite friendly with most of our nearby Bhutanese neighbors. They weren't the ones causing us so many problems. It was mostly people in the government who caused the problems. The local people were friendly, and since we weren't allowed to do any business, they would help us conduct business. They would sit in our shops and on the street and conduct the business, and then give us the money. They would sell the stuff, and when the government people would come to collect the rent, they would go away somewhere. The Tibetans would get the money later.

LIFE IN INDIA

Finally, we were allowed to go to India. The United Nations said that whoever wanted to go to India could put their name on a list. From our village, eventually four truck loads of people left for India. This was 1981. We were originally settled in Camp Number Seven in Mundgod in Northern Karnataka.

When we first arrived, there wasn't a camp for us. We were all placed in different homes around Mundgod. Later some funds were available, and we got some land and built small homes in a new camp for people arriving from Bhutan. We were in Mundgod for four years. But if you go there, you'll see there's not much there, it's not like Bylakuppe. There's only farming work to do. We were always waiting for rain, and there was never enough. We could only have one crop each year, not like in Bylakuppe where there are usually two or three a year. Everything depended on the rain, and it was very difficult. We heard there were more business opportunities here in Bangalore, so we came here where we could do a little business.

A few years after we came here, my husband died. He used to be a drunkard, however. He drank a lot, and his health got worse and worse. There wasn't much medical help available, and he wouldn't listen to anybody or change, so we all just gave up on him. We were too busy working to stay alive to be able to be so patient with him. So he drank a lot, and then he eventually died. We don't even know exactly what it was that killed him, whether it was a cancer or what.

The eldest son who came from Tibet was working in Dharamsala at TIPA, the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts. He was quite a good performer and teacher. They sent him to be a teacher in Dhera Dun, in Himachal Pradesh not so far from Dharamsala, where there is a Tibetan community. When he was still quite young, a friend or an auntie took him there to TIPA. There was a school for the children who had just come from Tibet, and he became a teacher at that school when he was older.

He got sick, and became quite weak. He ate some dried meat while travelling, and soon after that he got quite sick. We think maybe it was bad meat and had some poison in it. He was here in Bangalore and was quite sick for about a month. We gave him some medicines during that time, but after the holidays, he got a call from the school that they needed him back there to teach. There was a dance competition coming up, and they really needed him because he was the best dance teacher. We begged him to stay because he was still quite weak, and didn't want him to go back. But he had strong feelings for his school, and was worried how things would be if he didn't return, so he went back.

But then he got worse. So the school sent us a letter here in Bangalore, and I went up with his sister Sonam to see him up north. Not long after we saw him there, he died. That same year Karmapa visited there at my son's school, before he took the trip and got sick. And Karmapa spoke with him, and knew who he was because he had such a reputation for being a good dancer with TIPA. He told him that one year he would come and watch him perform. Anyway, after he returned and before he died, he was working really hard getting ready for the performance. They practised almost continuously, even though he was still weak. But he wanted to do it, he loved the dance and he loved the children. But it was too much, and he got worse. He had gotten so weak and thin, and then he died.

Now I have breast cancer, and have had several courses of chemotherapy treatments. It's very expensive. One of my daughters lives with me and sells sweaters on the streets in the Majestic area of Bangalore. She leaves the house at 6:00 a.m. and returns at 9:00 p.m., so I help take care of her son. When I'm not busy with something else, I knit caps for my daughter to also sell with the sweaters. Before I got sick, I did a little small business myself to make a little money.

I hope not too many people have had such a hard life as I have had. Right now, I just keep myself alive because I know my daughter and my grandson need me. I don't feel like eating or drinking but I know I need to, so I use my mind and force myself to do it. Otherwise, I wouldn't survive. Sometimes I think that maybe if I had died earlier than my husband then he would be here right now with the children.

[Here, her young friend Tenzin spoke up and said that Penpa is known by many for her generosity. When she goes to the hospital, she brings sweets or fruits for the people, even though she doesn't have much money, and she also gives fruits to the people in the area where she lives. She lives in a poor Muslim neighborhood close to a small mosque. She and her little family are the only Tibetans in this area. Even though she can't speak any language they understand, she sometimes gives them fruits, so they know her. When Tenzin goes someplace with her, and whenever Penpa sees a man or a woman begging, she gives them something. One day Tenzin was returning with her from the hospital, and she saw a beggar on the other side of the street. They were in a rickshaw on a very busy road, and Tenzin had to beg her not to ask the driver to turn around in such terrible traffic to give food or coins to the beggar. Penpa always feels very sad when she sees poor people.]

To young people, I would like to say that you should listen very closely to what His Holiness says. Each morning when you get up, you should say your prayers, and during the day when you're working or walking, always be nice to people.