Lepcha Village Homestay
There are two groups of "indigenous" people in this region, Nepalis and Lepchas. After visiting a Nepali village, we moved on to stay a few nights in a Lepcha village. This homestay was in the house of Charles Lepcha, a teacher at the Awake and Shine Pre-school.
On a beautiful clear and sunny day we started out with Charles to make the walk from Awake and Shine to his village. Once again we travelled footpaths that wound their way down and across the slopes through terraced rice and millet fields, close to many homes both Lepcha and Nepali. One of the most remarkable stops along the way was at the home of a local shaman who was 'in' that day and at work. He had been visited by a mother with a very sick child and this aged man was doing his business of providing healing. I took no photographs because the situation was clearly very grave and I didn't want to spoil whatever he could do for the sick child. He finished by preparing a bunch of special herbs etc. that came from a large tin with a magic incantation marked on its side... USA.
In the afternoon we had a great walk to other homes in the area with Charles and later that evening a group of local young people came by and entertained us with Lepcha songs and dances as we sat in the seat of honour and sipped our 'chang'. It was all very special.
Click this link for a slide show of 50 photos from this section of our trip