The office and the monastery

Thursday, September 10

Clai is still in a man on man fight with altitude sickness. The dry mountain desert is not agreeing with him.
No breakfast for our American friend. At this rate he’ll be vanished by the end of our assignment.
On our way to work, we stopped for some medication to help him in his fight against the evil mountain decease. The end is near. (of him being sick that is)

The TISS offices in Leh, are situated in a beautiful domed building. After our meeting in Mumbai with the professor, lots of insight from expert and program director Jorghesh and a meeting with our colleagues Titiksja, Ramesh and Tashi today, we identified a number of areas we’ll be working on:
• The empowerment and enablement of local people
• Identification of SB applications to focus on (based on revenue and value)
• Buy in of local people involved in the value chain
• Creation of identification parameters for partners (both fair trade and commercial)
• Recommendations for optimization of supply chain
• Creation of an information kit
• Line up a branding strategy
• Partner negotiations

One traditional Ladakhi lunch later, a big moment of truth awaited: a field trip to meet the source of it all: the Seabuckthorn berry. (see other post)
It grows in the wild on thorny shrubs, only the female plant bears berries and after tasting them, I can confirm: they taste bitter.

Later on that day, Jorgesh took us to a Buddhist monastery, beautifully laid out on a mountainside. A very serene and spiritually loaded environment that made for a very special experience. Something to share later, face to face.


After numerous unsuccessful attempts to connect to the outside world (hey, who’s still trying?), we went for dinner at an outdoor restaurant.
Bit chilly (we áre in the mountains) but the open fire, the veggie food and the Bollywood movie ‘Luck’ (oh my G… the drama of it all!) made up for it.
The bill didn’t hurt too much either: 230rp (about 4,5€ for 2).

Thanks Vanessa for the winter sports coat, it was put to good use.