I lost my yak!

I haven't started teaching yet . . . I have another ten days to go. However, my Tibetan students (who are not really my students, but undergrads who regularly come to my office hours) called me and asked if we could get together on Tuesday. Of course I said yes!

While discussing summer events and while answering the question, "Did anything exciting happen this summer?", the response, "I lost my yak," came up.

I couldn't help it . . . I howled with laughter! This is just not something you would hear someone in the United States say!

Here's the whole story. One gal, Ronnie, taught for three weeks in a summer camp program. While she came to my office hours quite frequently, I can't say that I ever heard her speak much English. However, she lived with an American girl during this three week camp and it was either sink or swim . . . speak English with her roommate or not communicate. Her English flourished during this time and when she met in my office, she almost couldn't stop talking!

But I digress . . . back to the yak. After the camp, she joined her nomadic parents (Yes, most of my Tibetan students come from nomad families) and helped them out. She was sent out to herd yak one foggy morning. While she could see the yak directly in front of her, she couldn't see the entire herd. By the time the sun burned the fog off, it was discovered that she lost 40 head! There are only 130 yak in the herd to begin with so this was a significant number. Her family laughed at her and called her a "city girl." After lunch, the men went out on horseback and all 40 yak were found.

Not only was I amazed at the story, I was amazed at her ability to tell the story. She has improved a thousand-fold. She had all the inflections down and she told punchlines at the right places. I so loved her story and I can appreciate the stress she felt at the time.

I lost my yak. Indeed!