THE COUNTRY WHERE WE TOUCH THE SKY

I come from the highest place in the world. It is so incredibly high, that if you get on top of one of our mountains and you stretch yourself up on your tiptoes, you can leave an imprint in the sky with your fingers, as if the sky were a jar of blue jelly.

Do you know the game of the Chinese shadows, where you create animals using the shadows of your hands on a wall? This is what happens in Tibet when the shadows of low clouds pass over the land. They look like waves or black hands caressing the earth.

Tibetans love nature so much that they not only give names to their mountains and lakes, but they also treat them like human beings, dividing them into male and female. Therefore, mountains and lakes with soft curved shapes are feminine, and dark lakes and the highest mountains are male. The Tibetans thus create men and women all around them, which they try to bring close together. You can climb a male mountain in order to admire the beauty of his companion, or swim in a female lake, and after that, dive into the male lake while your hair is still wet. By doing so, you will bring them together.

Near where I live there are two lakes. They say that in one of them grows an invisible tree with roots extending across his surface. The second lake is said to be full of evil, and that you should never look at yourself in his waters, but I do not believe so, because I have lapped water from both lakes, and I liked them both.

There are many wild animals, animals that have no leader or master. They walk through cloudy forests, golden grasslands and pink mountains; they drink water from rivers and waterfalls, and when the night comes, they don´t have to clean their legs to go into any house. For instance, we, the oldest breed of dogs in the world, the Tibetan mastiffs, sleep outdoors, here and there in every corner, and we spend all night long barking at each other in the darkness, so that we know we are not alone.

In Tibet there are no snakes or scorpions. No animal with a desire to hurt another could ever live here.

THE COUNTRY WHERE WE TOUCH THE SKY