Min tibetanska barndom i Zorgay - Life and Culture on the Tibetan ...

us for tea. We quickly nodded our heads in unison <strong>and</strong> were
much quieter afterwards.
The older students took firewood from our room, which
made us angry, but we bit our tongues <strong>and</strong> said nothing. We did
not tell report this to our parents or teachers because the older
students they would throw us into a nearby river if we did.
We cooked rice with fried potatoes for supper <strong>and</strong>
sometimes for lunch. While we were eating, many students
knocked on our door. Older students came to our room to eat, as
if they were our roommates. We cooked what we brought from
home, but we were unable to eat our fill. We complained among
ourselves about how bad those students were after they were
full <strong>and</strong> left, but said nothing in their presence.
I often thought of my family when I got into bed at
night. A week seemed as long as a whole year. I did not want to
return to school when I was home on the weekend, which made
Gr<strong>and</strong>mother cry. She was the first in my family to buoy my
spirits when I was reluctant to go to school, <strong>and</strong> gave me money
to coax me to continue to attend school whenever I was
reluctant to leave home. She respected my choice <strong>and</strong>
encouraged me to study hard ever since I had refused to become
a monk.
All the textbooks were in Tibetan in our middle school,
except for the Chinese language <strong>and</strong> politics textbooks, which
made it difficult for us to keep up with students who had
already studied Tibetan.
There were about sixty students in our school of whom
only ten were girls. At the beginning, there were three girls in
our class, but after one semester their parents forced them to
marry or earn money for their family by digging medicinal
herbs or working at construction sites. Girls seemed born to
benefit their families <strong>and</strong> then to marry the husb<strong>and</strong>s their
parents selected for them. There were no girls in my class when
I graduated.
We spent all our money during the week <strong>and</strong> had to
walk home on the weekends. We hid from the taxis because we
were ashamed that we had no money to pay. When we heard an
engine, we ran <strong>and</strong> hid behind big trees by the road.
Tjobajo went to play in a river near our school <strong>and</strong>
drowned during my time in junior middle school. This was a
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