Seven Weeks in Tibet:
A Summer in Nangchen with Lama Norlha Rinpoche
By Bari Pearlman
The pictures come to life
This past summer, I had the blessing to join Lama Norlha Rinpoche on
his visit to Tibet, a trip he makes whenever possible to visit the
people and monasteries of Nangchen. Every year at Losar (the Tibetan
New Year), I had been writing a check to NYEMA Projects in support
of that picturesque place, but I had never expected to actually see
it except through brochures and website pages. Now I was being given
the opportunity to witness it through the lens of a video camera, to
make a film about these people and bring their story to the world.
And it was Rinpoche asking, so the answer was of course, “I’ll make
it happen.” And on July 9, my bag full of Power Bars and my veins
full of hepatitis vaccine, off we went.
It was a long flight to Beijing, but surprisingly not an
unmanageable one. The trickiest part was over – getting all of
Rinpoche’s many suitcases checked in. He hadn’t visited Tibet in
four years, so there were many gifts and supplies to bring. After
overwhelming the bellboys in a Beijing airport hotel during our
four-hour stay, we flew on to Xining, where we were hosted by
Rinpoche’s cousin and her husband. For several days, we adjusted to
the altitude and the time zone while drinking sugary Mongolian tea
and eating too many sweet dried apricots. From there, it was a
17-hour overland journey to our next home base of Yushu, where
another of Rinpoche’s cousins would serve as our host and guide for
the remainder of the trip.
(Page 1 of 4)
Go to next page u
|
