Shanka Orphanage
by Sabrina Liu, 2023
Finally, back in Tibet.
This year, we stayed at a new place. A new temple, mountain, tulku, and a new group of children and lamas. Of course, we still kept in touch with our past location, Tade Temple and continued to send them donations (we sent them a huge shipment in the first week of August), but we had to stay at a new place because of dangerous weather conditions and mudslides that prevented us from going on our normal route. So, we were introduced to Shanka Temple and Living Buddha Renzhenzewang, who ran an orphanage and school for village children from the mountains whose parents could not take care of them.
We were well-equipped this time to combat altitude sickness. I did my homework and got my doctor to prescribe some mountain-climbing medicine, and we had plenty of oxygen tanks and cylinders to last us. This preparation allowed me to roam free in the mountains, following the children wherever they went, and I truly felt a sense of bliss that I've never consistently felt before. I loved interacting with them, teaching them, playing with them, and letting them teach me.
On the first day, I gave them a shipment of donations that filled up three, heavy duty luggage. There were sleeping bags, pillows, special jackets (that kept the wearer cool during the summers and warm during the winters), hygiene kits, Legos and more toys, art tools, books and more books. Textbooks, fiction books, graphic novels, nonfiction books.
Using textbooks purchased by the Helping Tibet Foundation, I taught the children arithmetic, from adding to subtracting to multiplying. I also led them through art sessions, where they used new art supplies I had brought to draw and paint wondrous portrayals of their surroundings. The children possessed a certain maturity and ability to grasp new concepts beyond their years, and they were always respectful, fun, and eager to learn.
Outside of the classroom (which was actually also their living quarters, as their school just started its construction process), the children led me through the mountainous fields, teaching me how to herd goats and which flowers and plants I could pick and eat. Every day, they also brought me to the Shanka temple, where lamas were chanting and praying and making incredible music with their scriptures and horns.
In the evenings, I would go to nearby villages and interact with the young girls there, since the orphanage mainly consisted of boys. I brought the girls the same gifts, and also monetary donations since many of them had their parents working in the cities and their elderly grandparents simultaneously taking care of them and the family farm.
Before I left, I presented Living Buddha Renzhenzewang with a monetary donation to the new school’s construction process. I feel tremendously grateful to have worked at the Shanka orphanage, meeting and gaining new friends with whom I will continue to maintain contact. I am proud to know that the Helping Tibet Foundation has expanded the scope of people it benefits. I cannot wait for the next time I stay at Tibet!
