Tibetan Foothold
Tibetan Foothold, Dervla Murphy's second book, was published by John Murray in 1966. Following her epic journey from Ireland to India on a bike, as described in the first book Full Tilt, Dervla stayed for a while in Delhi, and rapidly found herself being pulled into the expat community. This was, by all accounts, not quite her scene! On Page 8 she notes that 'Even a week spent in such a cosmopolitan pocket of luxury tends to blunt one's perception of the realities of Indian life...' She was intrigued, then, by the mention of the elusive Mrs. Buxton, herself an Englishwoman, but one who eschewed the relative luxury of expat life, and who was well informed about India's social problems. She might, Dervla had heard, be able to provide information about volunteering opportunities.
Dervla's recollections on P10 of their first meeting suggest that, on getting to know one another, both recognised a kindred spirit (Mrs. Buxton - Jill - had driven to India two years previously in Arabella, a Land Rover which she then made her permanent living quarters!). Jill was soon able to point Dervla in the direction of a Tibetan refugee camp in Northern India where assistance of all kinds were desperately needed. So squalid were the conditions and so varied the needs of children who were housed there that anyone working there would have to be prepared to live in the most basic of circumstances, and be hardy in the face of illness, death, displacement and despair. Dervla fitted the bill, but after her first day she wrote (P29) that 'I must confess that to-night, after my first day in the camp, I'm feeling as depressed as anyone could be among these jolly Tibetans. It seems to me mathematically impossible that four Europeans, assisted by a handful of overworked, untrained ayahs, could ever make any significant impression on such a mass of misery'.
Nonetheless, despite misgivings and a lack of resources, conditions for the refugee did improve as a result of the volunteers' work - infection rates for diseases such as scabies lowered, fruit started to be available for the children, and the children benefited emotionally from the relative stability life in the refugee camp offered them. After several months' work, and prior to returning to the refugee camp for final farewells before her flight home, Dervla took time to hike and cycle through the Himalayas, overnighting often at Tibetan Road Camps, where she received a warm welcome: '...one suspects that (it) is also connected with the Tibetan temperament and with their freedom from religio-social taboos; these people display a splendid mixture of ease and formality whilst receiving you into a simple tent and before many moments have passed they managed to make you feel completely at home. There is no English speaker in this camp, but the language barrier has long since gone crashing and we're all the best of friends on a system of smiles and gestures. ' (P156)
This recollection of friendly, uninhibited charades as a lingua-franca between Dervla and her hosts is telling, as it is an early record of the type of interaction which would go on to serve her so finely in her future travels, allowing her to gain the trust and acceptance of what must run into many hundreds, if not thousands, of people in remote, rural and urban settings across the world. Surely, something about Dervla's own personality must probably have made communicating in this way especially easy or effective - a genuine lack of inhibition coupled with a natural and heartfelt inquisitiveness about fellow humans' lives, perhaps? On the other hand, though, there is something so natural and inevitable about this form of communicating that it is easy to get the feeling that we have learned our inhibitions towards communicating with those who don't share a language with us, rather than them being innate, and in throwing off shyness and awkwardness in favour of openness and willingness, Dervla shows herself to be an admirable role model for travellers in this respect.
And hey, she must have been doing something right, as during her time in Tibet, Dervla even met an exceptionally important Tibetan VIP, twice....and not many people can say they've done that!
Sarah Ledger 2012
Dervla's recollections on P10 of their first meeting suggest that, on getting to know one another, both recognised a kindred spirit (Mrs. Buxton - Jill - had driven to India two years previously in Arabella, a Land Rover which she then made her permanent living quarters!). Jill was soon able to point Dervla in the direction of a Tibetan refugee camp in Northern India where assistance of all kinds were desperately needed. So squalid were the conditions and so varied the needs of children who were housed there that anyone working there would have to be prepared to live in the most basic of circumstances, and be hardy in the face of illness, death, displacement and despair. Dervla fitted the bill, but after her first day she wrote (P29) that 'I must confess that to-night, after my first day in the camp, I'm feeling as depressed as anyone could be among these jolly Tibetans. It seems to me mathematically impossible that four Europeans, assisted by a handful of overworked, untrained ayahs, could ever make any significant impression on such a mass of misery'.
Nonetheless, despite misgivings and a lack of resources, conditions for the refugee did improve as a result of the volunteers' work - infection rates for diseases such as scabies lowered, fruit started to be available for the children, and the children benefited emotionally from the relative stability life in the refugee camp offered them. After several months' work, and prior to returning to the refugee camp for final farewells before her flight home, Dervla took time to hike and cycle through the Himalayas, overnighting often at Tibetan Road Camps, where she received a warm welcome: '...one suspects that (it) is also connected with the Tibetan temperament and with their freedom from religio-social taboos; these people display a splendid mixture of ease and formality whilst receiving you into a simple tent and before many moments have passed they managed to make you feel completely at home. There is no English speaker in this camp, but the language barrier has long since gone crashing and we're all the best of friends on a system of smiles and gestures. ' (P156)
This recollection of friendly, uninhibited charades as a lingua-franca between Dervla and her hosts is telling, as it is an early record of the type of interaction which would go on to serve her so finely in her future travels, allowing her to gain the trust and acceptance of what must run into many hundreds, if not thousands, of people in remote, rural and urban settings across the world. Surely, something about Dervla's own personality must probably have made communicating in this way especially easy or effective - a genuine lack of inhibition coupled with a natural and heartfelt inquisitiveness about fellow humans' lives, perhaps? On the other hand, though, there is something so natural and inevitable about this form of communicating that it is easy to get the feeling that we have learned our inhibitions towards communicating with those who don't share a language with us, rather than them being innate, and in throwing off shyness and awkwardness in favour of openness and willingness, Dervla shows herself to be an admirable role model for travellers in this respect.
And hey, she must have been doing something right, as during her time in Tibet, Dervla even met an exceptionally important Tibetan VIP, twice....and not many people can say they've done that!
Sarah Ledger 2012