Fieldwork with Tibetans in Nepal and Tibet

In the winter of 1969, I wandered through the hills of Solukhumbu before deciding to conduct my doctoral research in a Tibetan refugee village near Salleri, Nepal, composed mainly of Dingri people, farmers from hamlets clustered in the north shadow of Mt. Everest who’d fled into Nepal after 1962. Many of them had family members, monks and nuns who, when they arrived in Solu, joined a monastery, Thupten Choeling, newly established by Trukshik Rinpoche the young former abbot at Rhongbuk on the periphery of Dingri. (Above I’m pausing at Ringmo Pass during my search for an appealing research site.) A day’s walk apart, these two settlements would become my home for 11 uninterrupted months. From 1000s of interviews with Dingri-wa, I was able to assemble an ethnographic portrait of their homeland (published in Tibetan Frontier Families, and report on Pha Dampa Sangyas the renowned 12th C Yogi of Dingri Langkor. In 1985 I was able to step foot in Dingri, Tibet itself. I moved freely across Dingri plain stopping at villages and holy sites I knew from oral historical accounts by the refugees in Nepal. Drawing on several forays into Dingri we produced a new edition of Tibetan Frontier Families in 2011. These photos tell the story of my work at Thupten Choeling, my excursions across Dingri between 1985-1987 and my 1981 meetings with Chinese scholars in Beijing and Wuhan.

Arun River Valley, East Nepal

Poet Parijat and BNAziz became good friends through their devotion to Yogmaya Neupane, 1982, Kathmandu

It began in during the end of my decade of work with Sherpas and Tibetans in the hills of Nepal: I had encountered travelers at mass assemblies and on solitary treks, and from all cultures, seeking the blessings of divinities residing throughout the Himalayan landscape. My curiosity led me beyond the boundary of anthropology, setting me free to accompany worshippers to holy sites, from caves and lakes to confluences of Nepal’s rivers. This came to a climax with my arrival in the Arun River Valley where I uncovered a compelling story. Following faint traces left by two remarkable women Yogmaya Neupane and Durga Devi, I settled into a community of Hindu ascetics living on the shores of the Arun River to learn about them. Heir to a Silent Song (2001) and the newly published Yogmaya and Durga Devi, Rebel Women of Nepal (2020) are my accounts of those rebel women’s careers. Here is part of the story in pictures, along with photos of me and Nepali poet and political dissident Parijat and pictures from my visits with Limbu women in Terathum (see blog “Women’s Art and Other Work”).

Zhi-Jhe Manuscript of Pha Dampa Sangyas’ Teachings

In the then new Tibetan monastery of Thupten Choeling in 1970, I came across a set of relics known as Langkor Nangten whose custodian, Ani Chodon, removed from her case and displayed for pilgrims to the monastery. Through those nine relics, she related to visitors the legend of the birth and arrival in Tibet of the 12th Century South Indian Yogi Pha Dampa. These treasured items had been secreted out of Dingri Langkor where Pha Dampa–“the black one”– had taught the philosophy known as Zhi-jhe. One of his best known disciples was MaChig Lab Chi Dolma who is now regarded as a chief practitioner of ZHi-jhe and its associated chod. My translation of the Legend of Langkor (see under books) and my talks with Abbot Trushik Rinpoche led to his revealing to me the treasured 12th C. manuscript. He invited me to photograph the entire text and with the help of the revered scholar E. Gene Smith the photographed material was eventually published in five volumes in Bhutan (and later in India). The exquisite illustrations which I observed I observed in the original and photographed are absent from those later reproductions. The original manuscript is no longer publicly available. To facilitate further research on the document, we post here for public use some of my original photographs of the illustrations. I also include other visualizations, tangka paintings of Pha Dampa and MaChig which I searched out and photographed over the years. The above illustration is from the ‘Ka’ volume of the manuscript (the tag 96 I assigned to help me during my work). Below are other illustrations from Volume 1 and 3.

Nepal Earthquake 2015

Nepal Earthquake 2015 Amrit School
When the earthquake Naya Baazar neighborhood in Kathmandu Amrit School’s sports ground became a shelter for families in the neighborhood

Heading to Nepal on April 25, 2015 for ongoing work, I was airborne when the earthquake struck Kathmandu Valley and nearby villages. Like many sympathizers I witnessed the fear and uncertainty everywhere; we all gazed in trepidation at crumpled buildings and newly cracked walls. around us. All through the night for the next 10 days, we heard the roar of transport planes arriving with emergency supplies. The only thing to do was gather material help. So I became swept up in collecting funds for needy families whom I knew at Amrit School. When the second upheaval struck on May 15, hitherto unaffected areas in Solu were now calling for help. The huts of nuns at Thupten Choeling monastery were among those badly damaged, so I used funds I’d gathered sent there until their shelters could be rebuilt. Across the country, the death toll from the earthquake was limited to under 9,000 people. Still tens of thousands of homes, schools and other structures as well as historical monuments suffered severe damage.

In the aftermath of the quake, families camped alongside neighbors and strangers in any open spaces, including gardens and school yards.

The Arab American Literary Community Comes of Age

RAWI authors’ table at a literary conference; calligrapher Nihad Dukhan at left, with samples of his modern calligraphy on display

On my assignments in Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon writers and other artists were among those I interviewed. Since recordings were in English I broadcast them on RadioTahrir along with my talks with others from across the Arab homelands. Those interviews attracted Arab writers in the US and I began reading their books and speaking with them on the same airwaves, right up up to 2013 when we wrapped up our successful weekly magazine. From their books and our interviews, I realized the extent of Arab-American literary talent; so I founded Radius of Arab American Writers Inc. (RAWI), and organization to link writers and promote each other’s work. Poet and artist Etel Adnan became our president. Together with RAWI’s board we published a 3x annual newsletter, convened conferences, arranged public readings, and sponsored writing contests and programs to support emerging talent. RAWI is honored to count eminent novelists and poets, filmmakers, and a few journalists in our membership: Naomi Shihab Nye, Lisa Majaj, Fady Joudah, Susan Muaddi Darraj, Laila Lalami, Khaled Mattawa, Mohja Kahf, Sahar Mustafa, Hayan Charara, Steven Salaita, Habeeb Salloum, Laila Buck, Cherine Dabbas, and Randa Jarrar.

On Assignment in Baghdad and other Arab Capitals

Starting in 1987, through the Persian Gulf war of 1991 and reaching a peak with the 2001 and 2003 US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, these countries along with Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon and Kuwait were highlighted in mainstream media by conflict and the publicly applauded pursuit of ‘terrorists’. My earlier familiarity with the Arab World was a timely resource I drew on during the next decade of journalistic assignments to the region. Tapping my network of Arab writers, artists, doctors and teachers I wrote about educational and cultural issues of little no concern to other reporters. With the imposition of the cruel global embargo against Iraq’s population following its military misadventure into Kuwait, being already familiar with Iraq, I joined a handful of international activists in what would become a 12-year effort. We published and spoke to sparse audiences about the cultural and humanitarian impact of the US-led and UN-endorsed blockade. I reported through Pacifica Radio and wrote in alternative press outlets. My book Swimming Up The Tigris was published in 2007 only after the American and European public’s taste for that war subsided somewhat. (The 1991 photo above is at the Baghdad Press Center when satellites were newly introduced and not widely available so several news outlets shared one facility.)

Damascus, Syria – Teaching Media 2009 – 2012

Between 2009 and 2010 I was a staff member in a fledgling educational exchange program that brought together college-aged Syrians and Americans, first in New York, then in Damascus. I remained in Syria during 2010-2011, hired as an instructor at the prestigious Arab Institute for Media and Broadcasting, a pan-Arab agency based in Damascus. There I conducted workshops for Arab media professionals . Based on my courses on interviewing and sound editing, I was asked to produce handbooks. The first, Short Features for Radio: A Manual for Broadcast Journalists, was published in 2010 (in Arabic, with an English CD supplement). (Accompanying photos from both programs are from a Syria unrecognizable after 2012, a Syria unknown to people without the good fortune of visiting the country before then.)

Fulbright Year in Algeria

A Fulbright Year in Algeria Provided an Eye-opening Experience to the Western Side of the Arab World. A train along the northwest coast linking Oran with the capital was a weekly delight, passing orange groves and Olive tree farms, with occasional sighting of the Mediterranean to the north. Between semesters from the University of Oran, I was able to travel by road further east to Constantine near the Tunisian border, and south to the desert cities in Al-Oued. Even though El-Oued seemed like a distant land, it was still relatively near the coast. The vast Saharan deserts that would border Mali far to the south remains many thousand miles south and west of El-Oued.

The Catskills of New York Becomes a Modest Alternative to The Himalayas

The Catskills region of upstate New York went through a neglected phase between 1950 and 2010. In pursuit of solitude to write and continue her radio productions. In 1998, I found a quiet riverside retreat, and relocated to its utter dark and silent hills from an increasingly crowded, flashy Manhattan. From my new home, I took breaks in order to revisit Nepal and Arab capitals on journalistic assignments and for followup research. Returning from abroad to my upstate home I found new pleasures in my dramatically changing environment abundant with wild life. But I still enjoys occasional excursions into familiar neighborhoods of Manhattan.