A Tibetan Story

I am in the village of San Juan in Tenerife attempting to rent a vehicle for the remaining few days of my vacation (see post Cars With Memories), and inevitably my mind wanders to one of the many recollections encapsulated within those Cars With Memories.

We are approaching the end of the 1990’s, and on this winter's day in Helsinki Hugo, aged six and Sophia, aged two are seated in the back of their Mama's Tank, otherwise known as the Toyoya Land Cruiser (see post Tanks And Treasures). I am running an errand, to where I no longer remember for this detail is no longer of significance and a winter storm has arrived in Finland's capital city covering the streets with immense snow drifts. We are in a European city, yet looking around me it feels like Alaska, so deep is the snow, so cold is the wind, and so singularly beautiful is the surrounding landscape of trees and bushes all heavily laden with snow. My precious cargo seated behind me is happily occupied each with their own matters, and as I drive through this captivating arctic landscape I switch on the radio to accompany me on my journey. Sofia is blissfully sucking her thumb, whilst Hugo is transfixed with his collection of ice hockey cards, and the delicious tranquillity that reigns invites me to listen into the discussion which comes out of the radio channel I am tuned into. 

It's an in-depth interview introducing the Plan International sponsorship program which promotes the education of children in all countries and in all corner of the globe, via a simple and small monthly donation made by adults who become godparents to a child of their choice and in the county of their choice. I am intrigued by the entire concept; Mama always instilled in us girls the importance of an education, a career and a driver's licence. In this way, a woman is able to ensure her complete self-reliance and financial independence from men. Just like my Sister, Sis, I have achieved all three and the program I am listening to makes me realise that there are children 

Now I am mesmerized and listen avidly, and as soon as I arrive home I unload my cargo of children and continue following this fascinating topic on the kitchen radio. At this moment I realise that I too want to participate in this marvellous program and so help a young child somewhere on this planet to achieve what this little girl from an Island off the coast of Western Africa has attained and more (see post Share The Moon). After the program is finished and I have duly noted the contact details, I send an e mail to the organisation informing them that I would be honoured to join their sponsorship program and that I have a few simple requests; I wish to sponsor a young child who is a girl, and in addition to this she must come from a part of the world where her gender puts her at risk of possible discrimination. Aside from that, they are free to assign me whoever they wish and from whichever corner of our diverse Planet they see fit. And I duly let fate take its course and allow the River of Life to freely flow along its own path. 

Around this time, in a far away place from Finland, a nine-year old girl and her five-year old brother are in Lhasa, the capital city of Tibet with their father. The children have already bid goodbye to their mother in their remote village home of Eastern Tibet, and the father is now preparing his daughter and son for the unforgettable journey of their lives. For along with her brother, this nine-year-old will join other Tibetans and leave their precious homeland, trekking across the snowy Himalayas, into Nepal and finally onto India. As with many other rural families, the parents have decided to send their children to India in the hope that they will receive an education not attainable were they to remain in Tibet. If indeed blessed, they may well be fortunate enough to also meet with his Holiness, The Dalai Lama. It's deep winter and the Himalayan mountains are covered with snow so making it the best time to escape; with these difficult conditions underfoot, the chances of being discovered and detained by the Chinese Authorities are minimalised. 

Known as The Roof of the World and rising to over four-and-a-half kilometres above sea level, Tibet is home to the World's largest and most elevated plateau. Surrounding this plateau are the imposing mountain ranges that harbour the world's two highest summits, Mount Everest and K2. Whilst the world's top mountaineers regularly attempt to summit their forbidding peaks, the remote area surrounding these peaks is home to ethnic communities living lives largely untouched by the passing of time. One such area is the Buddhist region of Tibet, home to just over three million inhabitants. Now a part of The People's Republic of China since its annexation in 1951, every Tibetan dreams of the day when their country will be liberated and just as it was before this date. For now, it is but a Tibetan dream, but the possibility of giving their children the possibility of freedom and an education is an attainable reality. But this reality comes at a price, and for this reason this father is in Lhasa with his children on this day, at this moment and at this hour. 

Tears stream down the father's face as his bids his daughter and son goodbye. They have never seen their proud and noble father weep in this uninhibited way. Unlike them, he fully understands that they might never meet again, for he will not be joining them on this journey. The brother and sister join a group of twenty-five persons amongst them adults and children, and together they begin the long trek crossing the snowy mountain range to freedom. Sleeping in the day time and moving at night, they embark on a tortuous journey that lasts over forty days; confronting cold, hunger, soaring mountain peaks, sweeping rivers, and also death. Yet they never give up on their goal of reaching the safety of Nepal, and in moments of great distress the nine-year-old girl comforts her frightened younger brother. For she must, she is now his only family.  

The relief of reaching Nepal does not last long, for they are swiftly detained by the authorities and faced with the stark reality of being returned to Tibet, but fortune looks upon them. A Tibetan hears of their plight and they are soon rescued by a humanitarian organisation. Finally they have reached freedom. The children of the group are assigned to Tibetan children's villages in Northern India just on the other side of the border from Nepal, and so their parents dreams are realised. Amongst these children is the same nine-year-old girl from the small village in Eastern Tibet.

Six young girl pass through my life as sponsored goddaughters since that cold winter's day when I first become aware of this program. First from India, and then later Thailand. Some fall away due to life's natural attritions and are then replaced by newer ones. I still sponsor two today. One of these six girls leaves an indelible mark on the course of our family history; she grows into adulthood, duly leaves the program and our lives diverge, only to be brought together years later by an unexpected friend request on Facebook. Once again our life rivers slowly converge, and on a warm and sunny September afternoon nineteen-years after the initial sponsorship program began, the Finnair Delhi to Helsinki plane delivers our family a twenty-eight-year old young woman and unbeknown to us at that moment, a sister for Hugo and Sofia, and for myself a daughter. She was the nine-year-old girl of this Tibetan Story and our family of three once again becomes four.

To be continued....

Next post 11th August : Automatic Transmission


Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with occasional additions from private family archives.

Cars With Memories

It is the present moment, and I am once again back on my beach. On our Island of Tenerife we have known for exactly one week, that within two short months Donald Trump will become the 45th President of the United States of America. With his inauguration I will have lived through eleven US presidents, for I am just eight weeks old when President John F. Kennedy, Thirty-Five, is assassinated. At this moment and on this beach, Sofia is seated next to me, just as she was before I recollected the events leading up to Papa's death (see post Share The Sorrow); his Wake (see posts Gathering And Remembering, The Notebook, The Professionals); the Funeral that followed (see post Goodbye Mercedes Man); the search for The Missing Gravestone (see post Columbus And The Missing Gravestone); its discovery (see post Gravestone Mystery Resolved); and how the love story of Beatriz and Columbus tied up into all this (see post The River.  All these events have passed through my mind in a matter of hours, minutes and seconds, but in reality one complete year has elapsed and I am now back on my Island and on my beach with my own child (see post Share The Moment), contemplating on the fragility of this existence that we call Life.

It has been good to met with Mama, and in her old age grant her the gift of time spent with one daughter and two grand-daughters; myself, Zara and Sofia, for this even brief period of time. Twenty-one-year-old Sofia will be returning to Finland tomorrow joining her older brother Hugo, and I will still stay on with Mama and neice Zara for a few more days. After a hectic summer of uninterrupted work, I am in need of a respite and vacation of my own. What better place than on my own island of Tenerife, the Hawaii of Europe. The day of Sofia's departure arrives and goes and Mama, Uncle Fernando (chauffeur, historian and poet all rolled into one) and I drive the short journey to the airport as we usually do. Sofia messages to let me know that she has safely arrived in Helsinki and I then set about setting myself a challenge and stepping out of my comfort zone; 

I decide to be brave and rent my own car. The Island's ubiquitous twisting mountain roads with sharp drops down to dry ravines terrify me, and until today I have left the driving on my numerous returns home to the men of my life; first to Hugo and Sofia's Finnish Papa, and then later to Uncle Fernando. But the former is no longer a part of my life, and the latter will soon be eighty, and I realise that sooner or later I will have to take care of the driving myself. I reason to myself that I have successfully survived navigation of the Finnish roads for over twenty years come summer and winter, so this Island's meandering highways cannot surely present me with greater insurmountable challenges.

Before my determination wanes and along with it my courage, I walk over to the car rental shop in the village of San Juan, sit down at the desk manned by a well-dressed lady in her late-thirties to early-forties, and ask for a rental car. For today. A rental car with automatic transmission for this afternoon I add.  She nods at my request and begins to tap on her keyboard searching for my desired vehicle. She seems to be a nice woman and I try to imagine from this first encounter what sort of a person she is when she is not sat behind the desk renting me a car. What is her name? How old is she? Where does she live? Is she single? Married? Any children? How many? Their ages? What are their names? What car does she drive? I want to tell her all about the cars that I have driven and the stories that they could tell. You see, all my cars come loaded with memories. Memories that recall minute details of the vehicles that have passed through our family life and so much more. Memories loaded with joy, but also those weighed down with sorrow. If only I could get her to have a coffee with me, we could discuss all this and so much more. And all at once, a mighty river of words begins to cascade from within.

I want to tell her that I was born in Playa Alcala, the village next door to San Juan where we are now, but that many years ago, when I was just six-years-old, Mama, Papa, Sis and I bid goodbye to Mama's own family, and emigrated to England. That even though I look like you and talk like you, on the inside I am English. I want to tell her that I miss my Papa and that he died one year ago last month at a ripe old age, that four decades may separate today from yesterday, but that I am still the same innocent six-year-old who sat on his knee back then in our caravan, newly arrived in a strange land called England and reciting the new English words of the day in our terrible Spanish accents and listening to the wonders of The English Tea Break (see post Watching The English Part I And II). 

I want to tell her that the seeds of Papa's fervour for adventure germinated also within me; for many years later, freshly graduated from University with a degree in Mathematics and a passion for linguistics, I in turn bid farewell to Mama, Papa and Sis in England and departed for a new country named Finland. And so began my own adventure on the untrodden journey of Married Life (see post Grandma Elizabeth And The Hayshoes). At first we were two, then within two years we were joined by Hugo, then four years later Sofia completed our family of four. I want to tell her all this and so much more, but I think that she just wants to rent me a car.  

 

I want to tell her that our last and most recent family car was a snow-white BMW-520i called HIJ-550, or The Executive Milk Float. It was the colour of milk and the sleek engine purred softly like the electric milk floats of my English childhood. I helped to pick it out at the showroom and these were comfortable times of plenty; Hugo and Sofia were transcending from childhood to adolescence, the hectic days of our adult late thirties would soon give way to the calm years of the early forties, and the few scant clouds in the distant horizon were white and fluffy, soon melting away to reveal a backdrop of blue skies. Life was good. I want to tell her that, many years later during the darkest days of my divorce, I would drive in my Executive Milk Float anywhere and everywhere around Helsinki to obliterate the pain of the moment and to contemplate the life I had lost and the one ahead of me erased before it had yet been written. 

I also want to tell her that I was married for exactly twenty-five years, two months and two days when, on a thirteenth day like no other, my life imploded. Please do not ask me for the hours and minutes, for I cannot say. On That Day, the measurement of time as we know it ceased to exist, and in its place appeared the simplified categories of yesterday and today, for tomorrow had just died. That soon three years will have elapsed since That Day when time stood still and my calendar reset itself at zero. That the torrent of divorce pain has now given way to a calm sea of tranquillity. That my new unexpected and unwanted life is blessed in more ways than I could have ever imagined. That I have said goodbye to a marriage, but gained a daughter I never knew I had. 

I want to tell her that I have dated many men since my divorce, but that only one has captured my soul and along with it a fragment of me which I cannot retrieve. That the heart is circled by many, but conquered by few. That you are lucky if just one such encounter crosses your path in a lifetime, but that I have been blessed with two and that exactly twenty-nine years separate them. That neither was meant to be, and that the wave of sadness washes over me now as it did then, for it is not every day that you say goodbye to that which conquers the heart and captures the soul. I want to tell her all this and so much more, but I think that she just wants to rent me a car.

But let's not dwell on the sorrow, for this will only incarcerate us both in a valley of tears. Rather let's look upwards, towards those peaks of joy that Mama told me about (see post The River), and remember the happier moments of those Cars With Memories; Before the Executive Milk Float came into our life, there was a colossal sky-blue SUV Toyota Land Cruiser BJS-355, or 'The Tank'. This car was the first car that I drove in Finland and cemented my dual role as a mother and driver, for Sofia joined our family soon after the arrival of The Tank. Its sole mission: to keep the new generation of Hayshoes alive on the slippery winter roads and it stepped up to the challenge with honours (see post Grandma Elizabeth And The Hayshoes).

This is the car that left an indelible mark on Sofia, for aged not quite three she one day informed me that, ' I-is-a-big-girl, drive-a-car, look-like-a-you-drive-a-car, go-voom-voom-not-vam-vam'. Even at this tender age, Sofia clearly understood that her Mama was driving a Tank (see post Tanks And Treasures). I have no recollection of similar conversations with her older brother Hugo years earlier at the same age. He showed no such interest in cars. Rather, as we prepared to leave the house, Hugo would resolutely inform me that he would not be divesting himself of my high heels or 'slippers' as he called them. He needed to wear them at all times so that he would stand a good chance of 'marrying Prince'. Unlike his younger Sister who was entranced by cars, the fairy-tale story of girl meets prince, or Cinderella captivated this two-year-old.

Equally important, this was the vehicle that across the radio air waves on a cold Finnish winter's day brought a nine-year-old Tibetan girl into my life. The warm office with its drowsy heat momentarily numbs me, and my mind transports me back to that time and place....

To be continued. 

Next post 28th July: A Tibetan Story

Note: All written content is the intellectual property of this Author. Image material is drawn largely from Pixabay with some occasional additions from private family archives.