Dharamsala/TCV Photographs

In the spring of 1998 I had the good fortune to travel to Dharamsala, India during His Holiness the Dalai Lamas public teachings. I had studied Phil Borges’s powerful photographs in Tibetan Portrait: The Power of Compassion. My first real introduction to the Tibetan people, though, came in Rodger Kamenetz’s book, The Jew in the Lotus, which chronicled discussions on living in exile between His Holiness and American Jews. Before arriving in Dharamsala I listened to many songs of praise for the Tibetan Childrens Village(TCV) which is home and school for approximately 3,000 Tibetan refugee children. What I found when I visited the TCV was an institution that combined love, caring, compassion, and academic excellence. Children arrive daily, sometimes after long treks from Tibet that are both dangerous and treacherous. The children, like all Tibetans in exile, live in a somewhat schizophrenic world. While they expect to someday return to Tibet, they also work hard to succeed in India and the West. The TCV teaches English, Hindi, and Tibetan; and children are immersed in Tibetan, Indian, and western culture. When I met the children I was immediately affected by their high energy and sweetness. But as I photographed them their eyes taught me that they were both sad and hopeful. Included in this presentation are both black and white and color prints -- each a story in itself and collectively a partial story of the Tibetan children in exile.

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