Norbulingka is a Tibetan Cultural Center that is modeled after the Dalai Lama's summer palace in Lhasa before the Chinese desecrated it. The gorgeous facility not only houses thanka painters (traditional Tibetan wall-hangings) , woodworkers, metal workers, seamstresses, and various other crafts people, it also provides free health care to the Tibetans. It's an amazing place and it's where we ended up doing most of our volunteer work.

The "Too-Much-Time-And-Not-Enough-To-Do Syndrome" manifested in us going to Norbulingka to clean up 3 little scabies ridden puppies. Now it's two months later and we've injected, washed, fed, de-wormed, and lovingly jammed pills down the throats of over 20 canines. Across the board they are the sweetest animals I've ever dealt with. The three we started with sadly became two. We named the two sisters Tingmo and Daisy. A tingmo is a very fat, round-shaped Tibetan Bread. They were very close to hairless when we started, their joints swollen and we suspect their organs affected by the parasites. Now they look great as they went from bloated and starving to becoming two beautiful young ladies. Along the way we've had some really sad cases, but with a lot of drugs and patience we've turned them around. On one occasion I went into a pitch black stairwell to give a dog two injections in complete darkness. We named her Twinkle and she was so sweet and cooperative that we were utterly shocked to find that she was a he. There was also a big, black dog we named Baskerville (as in "The Hounds of ") because he was so old, scary, almost bald, and the entire side of his face was an infected and puss-dripping wound. We fixed him up and at last sighting his hair was beginning to sprout again. His picture is actually an "after" shot because we were too freaked out by his condition to take any "before" shots. Another thing I have to write about is on the last day that Helen and I went to treat the dogs, as if to say goodbye, Twinkle led a procession of dogs and puppies that escorted us to our taxi. Then, as if on cue, Tingmo and Daisy made an appearance to give us stinky kisses on our noses before we left. I'm talkin' a full-on Disney moment with hugs, tears, and waggy tails.

In the process of all this dog stuff we've met some really nice local villagers who on several occasions invited us into their single room homes for tea and hand-gesture assisted conversations. We also met some of the other interesting personalities as well.

Naturally, every time you get things under control they spin farther out of control and there is no better example than that of the dog we've named Shanti. In the upper grounds of Norbulingka we found a mother and five puppies. The next time it was four. For two weeks we treated the four until their ailments were under control. Then Helen found the fifth puppy. She was a small, boney heap of fur covered with flies that were attracted to the stench of her rotting flesh. The only problem was that she was still alive. Upon closer examination, Helen found that the sores caused by her scabies had attracted a several flies that layed their larvae under her skin resulting in 3 deep wounds that were crawling with maggots. I pulled about 10 maggots out on the spot and we decided she was sure to die if left there so we took her home. And to be honest, tthat's why we named her Shanti, it means peace in Hindi and we thought if she were with us she'd at least have a quiet and peaceful passage out. It took 3 days to clear the stench of death and we stopped counting the maggots after we'd plucked out 50. After several sleepless nights and a huge amount of western medicine and eastern healing techniques her dwindling health finally turned around and now she's gone from being awake only 1/2 hour a day to never sleeping. In the last week she's discovered her voice. Granted she looks a bit like an old, slightly patchy stuffed animal left over from the depression era, but she's coming along. Of course, the bigger issue is that she's got both of us wrapped around her tiny little paw. We're such suckers for little hurt critters. Those who knew Flossie in her later days would recognize the personality instantly.

Shanti addendum: yes, we found a loving home for her with a Tibetan family.