PHUNCHOK’S MOTHER

Phunchok, our trek organizer in Ladakh, arranges a special finale for our three-week journey, a visit to his mother in her village. She is a spirited woman in her seventies, who still actively works her own land. Doreen and I connect with her immediately on a visceral level, even though we do not share a common language. Perhaps, being close in age helps to create this bond. It is not often that I allow myself to photograph portraits of people on my travels, reluctant to turn them into exotic objects. However, her delightful energy shines through, and we share an intimate space that lets photography - my language - be a natural part of our conversation.

MAKING TIBETAN BUTTER TEA

The photograph was made while trekking in Nepal in October 2014 on the Tamang Heritage Trail, when we stayed an extra day at the home of our guide’s parents, witnessing daily life in the Tibetan Buddhist village of Briddim, his mother cooking traditional meals and making butter tea, his father, the village shaman, divining his clients’ maladies and fates – including ours. 

I love the chiaroscuro ambiance in the Himalayan interiors, the light always filtering through the windowpanes, bolstered by the glow from the hearth or burning stoves – with no lightbulbs on, even when electricity is available. On the other hand, though the scene here looks very traditional, our hostess was using a blender to make butter tea, rather than the traditional butter churning tool.

SAD EYES

I photographed this buffalo with his pleading eyes as we passed his shed on our way to have lunch at a teahouse on the Khopra Ridge trek in Nepal in 2018. A few minutes later, he was dead.

While we were having our lunch on a sunny balcony, we looked out on a grassy field, where a family was cleaning the slaughtered animal and dividing its meat into a dozen little piles neatly laid out on a colorful cloth. Doreen, who has always been a vegetarian, just could not look, when we realized what we were seeing. But I photographed the scene of family togetherness.

Several hours later, and much higher up on this route that is hardly traveled by other trekkers, we stayed the night at a small, cold, dark guesthouse. Its owner, Dil Bahadur, a rugged old man, but still younger in years than Doreen, was sharpening his knives, and offered us fresh buffalo meat that he just got from his relatives further down the mountain - it was from the very same buffalo I had photographed earlier...

Needless to say, I too refused.

********