Summer months in Kargyak

From the end of June, great number of volunteers found their way to the village to help us with the project. Most of them were young people from the Czech Republic, either the friends of us or just those who had heard about SURYA and decided to help needed in Himalayan village.

Besides the Czech ethusiasts, till now we have welcomed many of different nationalities such as French, Swiss, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Polish, Izraeli and many others who were just passing Kargiak while trekking in Zanskar. They simply joined our team for some time and some of them stayed with us for even more then a couple of days. Good example can be Martin from Switzerland who has been here for more then one and half month.

We really appreciate everybody’s help and support. Some people didn‘t have time to stay so they made donation with some useful things for kids or money for the school equipment. To those we thank a lot as well.

Special thanks goes to Jirka who came in July and helped us a lot. He was transported by heli to the hospital in Delih after a landslide of one steep wet slope close to the village. We all are praying for Jirka and wish him a quick recovery and heaps of will and strenght.

In the construction site we managed to finish all the necessary before we start making walls. We have faced many difficulties and unexpected problems but thanks to Jindra – the masterbuilder and the team of construction engineers we adjusted the schoolbuilding.

according to current conditions and possibilities.

Every day in a week except sunday there were local labour workers working, hired from Manali and Padum supported by local working team. Villagers were coming everyday to help with bricks production or in the construction site.

Now we are strating with outside walls, having more then twenty labour workers from Manali. Due to circumstances (problems in labour hiring, administration duties, rainy weather etc.) we have some one and half month delay in construction. We will try our best to finish the most of it before winter and bad weather comes, still full of optimism and in a good mood.

The kids from Kargiak and surrounding villages are being taught by Karolina and Lenka in the summer school. That is either under parashute tent or outside. In the beginning of the last month government teacher was here to teach them, anyway he left suddenly so it was again only our responsibility. The girls have managed very well and kids truly loved their way of teaching. In the middle of July we organised aThe Childrens‘ Sunday. A fun day for kids from Kargiak, Chi and Tangso. We played games, football and lot of skills-training activities that were really enjoyed by the energic and always-smiling kids.

In case the new school building is not finished this year we have discussed with local people the alternative plan for this winter. There will be one room provided by locals for teacher and another one as a classroom. One well known Lama, a monk from village Kuru is willing to come to teach the kids in local Zanskarie language, english and hindi adding his buddhism teaching.

Days here are running quite fast even when it seems to flow in a slow motion. Every day is little different and unique, for those of us who are staying couple of months even more intreresting. We all are fully involved in village life, getting local food specialities and liquid spirits. Also having fun with kids and chatting with adults even when they dont speak english at all.

Every free sunday we go for trekking to the nearest mountain sites, having dinner or lunch with locals or going with them to doksa – the place where every summer nomad girls are taking care of yaks, sheeps and goats. There you can get freash curd or butter, milk and cheese, the things we are seriously missing in our daily menu.

In the kitchen there is hardly a day without any surprise like old czech cuisine specialities, cake, custard, popcorn and other amazing things.

We have to express our greatfulness to everybody who are interested in our project.

Many thanks to those who helped us here in Kargiak, who are supporting us from Czech and other countries, and of course to those who gave us financial and non-financial donation so we can continue working on the project.

Yours

Team SURYA

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