After almost one year of strict lockdown, some openings slowly happened again in India in March: our school Jamyang Ling in Raru with attached hostel and our hostel for graduate students in Jammu opened its gates. Teachers and managing committee are doing a good job. There are even more good news: most of the teachers landed in Padum last Sunday in February 2021 by helicopter flight from Leh. They couldn’t continue their way to the village, because the road had been blocked by a landslide. So this time luckily there had been no wet feet, no more breaking through a thin ice cover for our teachers on the Chaddar, the frozen river.......and what is most essential: all our teachers from last year came back to continue their service in our school.
The students in Jammu had celebrated the last full moon in February "Chotrul Duchen", one of the most important Tibetan festivals (full moon in the 1st Tibetan month, also called the festival of miracles).
The hostel reopened on 1st March for the board classes 10 and 12, one week later for classes 9 and 11. Classes 10 and 12 had been fully in attendance exams in April.
What was surprising in a very positive way was, how mindfully all the elder students handled Covid tests for all, specially for the younger ones. In addition they managed amazingly well to keep the hostel in very good shape. We really can be proud of them.
At the end of April 2021, due to the increasing Corona numbers, a new lockdown with school closure in Raru and hostel evacuation in Jammu was ordered by Indian Government. The teachers in Raru are making all efforts to go to different villages, hand over homework and check and correct the work already done.
