The Tibetan monks

A kind red-robed friend offers home-cooked food to sleepy, belly-ill traveler.

I follow him to his modest one-room cement dwelling

Sipping Taiwanese tea

They have fled from Tibtet to study at monasteries in India

Because in what is now China, religious freedom does not exist

Their families remain there

Living under communism

The refugees have trekked 23 nights across the Himalayas

Escaping persecution

From a place where culture is demolished and protesters murdered

Land invaded, nature ruined

They illegally cross the treacherous mountains

Threatened by the weapons of military border guards

To find a new home

In a place where they do not know the language,

The food and climate make them ill,

And they do not earn a living

They seek only a life where human rights are respected

They are the nomads of simplicity, faith, and gentleness

Loving the Dalai Lama

Loving humanity

Loving me, for some reason

Serving me bakchoy-alu with rice and kimchee, home-cooked on their gas stove

No money, they insist

I am shocked, surely they expect money for generosity, like everyone else in India

I kindly find my next meals outside

But return for their company

Kalsang shows me the Tibetan herbs they grind and eat for medicine; all natural

They dedicate their days to yoga, meditation, cooking, reading, English language, and Buddhist study and prayer.

It is a life of luxury
And a life of loneliness.
They support themselves by the grace of foreign friends

Normally their families would support them

But they can never return there for they will be certainly imprisoned
Do you like India?
I do not like India people
Always about money money money
Just money thinking only
Selfishness
In Tibet, if I don't have, my neighbor give me,
If he don't have, I give him
No money
Here, we give because we want to give
It makes us happy to give

They offer me free accommodation and food

Which I accept with a gift in return

But what fills me with joy
Is the hug that is filled with compassion, understanding, and trust

The sheer gratitude

Of sincere companionship

Too jiche, thank you.
For I have finally found my first friend in India.