Hiking the Himalayas

When Jamyang Tashi '12 was 10, he and his 11-year-old brother, Khenrap Yeshi, walked for a week across the Himalayas from their home in Tibet to a refugee center in Nepal, on their way to India. Their father had sent them off with these words: “Study hard, my sons. Your future is bright and boundless, don’t let us down. We have invested every cattle we had in you.”

Every day it rained and every day young Tashi cried. The boys had no blankets and often no food. Since an Indian passport was nearly impossible to obtain, the children, led by two hired guides, left Tibet on foot, walking rough, narrow mountain trails. Despite the hardships, they persevered until they arrived in India, where the Tibetan community in exile welcomed them, providing clothes, community, schooling, and the chance for a better life.

The brothers had previously attended school in China’s Szechuan Province. There the darker-skinned Tibetan children were obvious outsiders, subject to regular bullying. At 10 and 11 they were judged mature enough to make the perilous journey to the Tibetan refugee center in India, where students, many sans parents, pitched in. “People compliment me on my cooking,” says Tashi. “They don’t know I learned to cook in the refugee center where I took my turn cooking for a group of 30.”

The two brothers spent seven years attending the refugee school that served the Tibetan community in exile, established in India after the Dalai Lama fled Tibet in 1959. A decade ago the boys’ parents moved to New York City, where they began a new life with $100 in their pockets and no English. In 2006, they were joined by their oldest sons, and at 17 Tashi enrolled as a high school junior. It was a crash course in catching up. Fortunately, he had an advocate in his English teacher, Brad Arter ’78.

In Tashi’s senior year, Arter pushed him to complete his college applications, especially one to Macalester. When on January 15—the last possible day to do it—Arter found out that Tashi hadn’t yet applied, he told his student, “If you don’t apply to Macalester, don’t come back to my class.” Tough love worked.

During orientation, Tashi befriended Chinese student Mo Liu ’12 (Beijing). An unlikely friendship, given the tensions between their home countries, it has nevertheless withstood the test of time. Now roommates, the two men often travel together during school breaks and Liu’s parents have invited Tashi to visit their Beijing home.

Although Tashi knows that his peripatetic life strikes many as exciting, it has its limitations, he says. Although he speaks several languages, he feels proficient in none. And while he has friends across the world, he feels acutely the lack of lifelong friends.

Tashi’s disjointed schooling has meant his academic progress at Macalester hasn’t been smooth. But because his parents “worked so hard to give me opportunities and Macalester has offered me so much, I could never give up,” he says. Fortunately, his friends and the faculty in his major—Japanese—have helped him through the rough spots.

He also enjoys the support of the local Tibetan community, which connects him to the homeland he hasn’t seen in 13 years. Tibet is still home to his younger brothers, now 20 and 17, and his grandparents. The brothers stay in touch via Skype or the Chinese online service QQ.

With three other students, Tashi revitalized Mac’s Students for a Free Tibet, a group looking forward to the Dalai Lama’s next visit to the Twin Cities. If Tashi meets the revered spiritual leader in Minnesota, it will be his second such encounter. The first occurred when he was a shy eighth grader in India, who had crossed the Himalayas to fulfill a dream.