Olympic mania

This is an blogg I meant to post some weeks ago, I put it on my Mp3 and took it to town to send but unfortunately my bag and all its contents were stolen, so their was a delay.
So far this year all my bloggs have been posted out of order and at different times so I guess you will have to get use to it or stop checking them. Hope you are having more luck than me!!

So it is Olympic time again. Have you been gripped by Olympic fever too? Even here in our little Tibetan Buddhist nunnery in a valley somewhere near Dharamsala, India Olympic fever is slowly taking hold, but you know these nuns will get for just about anything. The mango season is definitely over so I guess they needed something new to occupy their time. I found the mango frenzy much more enjoyable.

The are several mango trees with in the nunnery boundary and some of them are as tall as a three story building. They were throwing rocks, sticks, cushions, sandals and just about anything else they could get their hands on to coax the mangos out of the tree. In the end our teacher out shined us all by procuring a huge piece of bamboo (taller than the tallest tree), so then the question is how many people does it take to collect mangos? Well, one giant Khampa monk to tap the top of the tree, three small nuns to stop the pole from sliding backwards and ending up in the Khampa monks bedroom window and several, rather brave nuns to run under the tree and collect the fall out without receiving a concussion from stray mangos falling from more than 40 meters above them, yes every one had a good time. (I did the Indian thing and stood around and watched)

But now the mango’s have dried up or been infested with bugs and we are left with the Olympic boxing tournament.

I must say I wasn’t anti-olympics until I recently spent some time watching CNN Asia on telly while staying up in McLeod during the teachings and realized that yes, in fact the world is willing to turn a blind eye to the torture and genocide of modern day China.
Several months ago Chinese soldiers swept into Amdo (far Western Tibet) and arrested all the children between the ages of 8 and 25, most of the kids fled to the mountains and hid, some weren’t so lucky and were taken to “holding facilities” in China until the games were safely over. I have friends here who’s relatives are monks in Lhasa, Tibets capital and have been arrested and taken to prison, ‘incase they decide to protest’. Even Han Chinese people have not escaped unscathed, losing their homes with no compensation and various other human rights abuses, but when the 8th of the 8th rolled around, all was forgotten and the world tuned in to watch people with light bulbs strapped to their bodies making birdy shapes, and the commentators harped on about peace and harmony. It was all a bit sickening.

I guess it just confirms what we all probably suspected, that no matter how much the world may have improved as far a human rights charters and what not, in the end as far oppression, torture and exploitation is concerned, as long as there is enough money on offer, the world is willing to look the other way and we all have a part to play in this. For me it also seems to signal the end of Tibet for good, because for as long as the Tibetans continue to suffer, in the end it is in vain as ultimately, (although someone out their may care) China’s got the money and the world wont let its conscious get in the way of a good business deal. I hope you enjoyed the olympics!