Tibet.

The problem is not lack of material. The problem is too much material. If you were to say to me, “Alex, write about Tibet,” my hand would never uncramp, my words would never stop flowing. It would be more appropriate for you to say, “Alex, write about a curtain.” And so I sit here writing in futility, writing about what I cannot write about.

Tibet is a place that God created to silence poets. It cannot be experienced in any other way but presence. The region is brimming with yak butter candles, and green Buddhas painted on rocks, and street vendors yelling "Looky looky, cheapy cheapy!”, and the odor of incense in the streets, and jade green lakes hidden beneath glaciers, and mountains dappled with prayer flags, and color every which way, and a sort of quiet that clogs your ears even in the midst of noise, and sunrises like pink flashlights in the snow.

Every morning we bundled in scarves and gloves, following our Tibetan guide Panang like a queue of ducklings through Buddhist temples and monasteries. Between sites we would engage in a game of Ninja, to the enjoyment of the Tibetan spectators, and then we would laugh as boys in our group tried to race both each other and altitude sickness. They would boldly sprint a few yards, then double over and gasp for breath, only to return to us red-faced and sheepish.

It snowed in flurries the first night we arrived, resulting in a curious conversation between summer and winter. The flowers were still in bloom, and the morning after our arrival each sported a fresh white hat of snow. The air was crisp and cool, yet the sun hugged us with her warmth as the sky blued.

In the mornings, our group bonded over waffles and yak yogurt and under constellations still clearly visible at 7 o’clock a.m. In the evenings, we played card games and ate Nepalese food and Dico’s, the Tibetan version of KFC, discussing marriage and the definition of success and the meaning of life, and finally we each snuggled up to watch the odd selection of English movies playing on HBO.

A journey to the “hospital” in the small mountain village of Shigatse was necessary for one of our group members during the middle of the night. The hospital, a one-roomed, trash-infested place, was described by our director as another Nativity scene, a place amongst the animals with baby Jesus lying on the floor. But instead of animals, there was trash, and instead of baby Jesus, there was a Tibetan family of woolly farmers crowding around the only other bed in the room. However, the most hauntingly funny part of the story for me, an anesthesiologist’s kid, was that my friend’s IV cost 13 kuai. Which is equivalent to a grand total of $2.00.

Tibet is an intriguing place, overflowing with a beautifully pious people entrenched in Buddhism. It is also a sad place, as the majority of the Tibetans are crying for freedom from China. On November 3^rd, while we were in Lhasa, a monk set himself on fire to protest the Chinese occupation of Tibet.  However, the situation remains shrouded in silence.  The coupling of two words, “Free Tibet,” feels dangerous even to write in this blog. You do not speak those two words in China. And so, the silence continues, broken only by the sounds of the prayer flags flapping on the mountainside.