Myself, Ankush and my colleague Vijay Bhadwaj represented Nishtha at a round table meeting of Tibetans and local people held by The Tibet Association at Norbu House in McLeod Ganj. The aim was to discuss how Indians and Tibetans can live together peacefully and how to work to make Dharamsala more beautiful. We talked about Tibetan and Indian culture and the problems we face in this environment with too much traffic, garbage and the very real risk of forest fires. It was a great opportunity to put forward our views and we learned a lot from each other.

The students are busy practicing their songs and dances and our stitching ladies are busy making new costumes for the local Jalmakia dance they are going to perform for our British cycle group. Everyone is very excited and looking forward to welcoming them!

The monsoon has retreated allowing us to re-build our clinic wall next to the new road. It is delightful to see how lovingly local mason Rajinder approaches each rock and river stone, shaping it with his hammer so that it fits exactly to build up the wall. This method of dry-stone walling is traditional in this area but it is difficult these days to find skilled masons to do this work.

This week our new season tuition classes have begin. We started with Indu helping four little children who are not keeping up with their classes but very soon the other children wanted to start so they can prepare well in time for their exams. Now, even though it is still September, the community centre is full of children wanting help with their school work.

This week, Arvind and Sunil repaired the climbing wall on the bigger kid’s adventure play equipment, reviving their interest in using it.

The new batch of students sponsored by Nishtha efficiently held a clean up program during their Sunday program. Now the drains and road sides are clear of the masses of garbage that washes down every time it rains. It is a mystery who continues, without thought for the consequences, to throw garbage in the irrigation channels.

During this heaviest part of the monsoon the children bounce between jumping on the trampoline during bright spells and watching movies and playing indoor games when it rains.

Azad and Goodie are expert in making cough linctus from plantain leaf collected in the fields, basunti & bay leaves, along with crushed brown sugar, black pepper and long pepper.

This week the schools went back after their summer break. Our team loaded fruits and vegetables into the car to deliver them to all the schools. Thathri is 11 kilometers from Nishtha, and now because of a landslide they had to walk 2 km to reach the anaganwari and school which serves the laboring families who live in scattered clusters on the hillside.

After 10 months of working with us as an Austrian civil service volunteer we are sad that Ravana is leaving us this week. He has been a huge help on the farm, assisting our team with all kinds of innovative and useful ideas and techniques. Our compost has never been better and the vegetables are loving it. Thank you Ravana for your hard work and inspiration.