On the High Grassland
September 9, 2012
Losang Rabgey
I milked a dri (female yak) last week on the high grassland of Dzorge, Tibet, adjacent to the great Machu River, truly a place of overwhelming majesty. We usually spend most of our time with farmers and semi-nomads. My friend kindly brought me home to meet and stay with his full-time drokpa (nomad) family. Standing behind my expert instructor, Drolkar, a drokpa woman of typical Amazonian strength, there was no way I could have predicted the feeling of gratitude that would wash over me once I began milking. This huge black creature allowed a stranger to talk its milk intended for her weela (new calf).
Before beginning, I felt some anxiety about how to properly assume the stance, kneeling on the right knee with the milk pail half sitting on the ground and half suspended from the sholong (traditional pail hook) tied to my waist, and actually milking properly. So when I kneeled down in the moist early morning mud, it came as a lovely surprise that my shoulder and right side of my face felt a warm and enveloping sensation leaning against the belly of the dri. Outwardly, yak hair appears wiry and tough, which it is in some parts like the tail (to which my mother likes to compare my hair). But the dri’s belly was remarkably soft. It occurred to me that the last time I felt such strong warmth and generosity while extracting nourishing milk from another being was as an infant. The dri’s teats are black and fairly short and feel like tough rubber. This is necessary as the young weela often push and pull with anxious hunger. The teats quickly became very slippery once my neophyte fingers fumbled around and sent milk flying in every direction but into the milk pail. Clearly, my main job at the moment was not milking but rather entertaining my hosts whose laughter and bemused smiles were at least gratifying. I marveled at Drolkar milking the dri beside me as she made the strong and steady swish swish sound of the warm milk hitting the pail. After about 20 minutes of kneeling and grappling, I somehow managed to glean enough milk for….one cup. In that same time, Drolkar had filled a huge wooden pail. After carefully boiling the milk, my friend kindly handed me the product of my morning efforts. Milk from Tibet’s organic, high altitude, grass-fed, free range dri. It doesn’t get any better than that. Morning tea never tasted so sweet!
Losang Rabgey
I milked a dri (female yak) last week on the high grassland of Dzorge, Tibet, adjacent to the great Machu River, truly a place of overwhelming majesty. We usually spend most of our time with farmers and semi-nomads. My friend kindly brought me home to meet and stay with his full-time drokpa (nomad) family. Standing behind my expert instructor, Drolkar, a drokpa woman of typical Amazonian strength, there was no way I could have predicted the feeling of gratitude that would wash over me once I began milking. This huge black creature allowed a stranger to talk its milk intended for her weela (new calf).
Before beginning, I felt some anxiety about how to properly assume the stance, kneeling on the right knee with the milk pail half sitting on the ground and half suspended from the sholong (traditional pail hook) tied to my waist, and actually milking properly. So when I kneeled down in the moist early morning mud, it came as a lovely surprise that my shoulder and right side of my face felt a warm and enveloping sensation leaning against the belly of the dri. Outwardly, yak hair appears wiry and tough, which it is in some parts like the tail (to which my mother likes to compare my hair). But the dri’s belly was remarkably soft. It occurred to me that the last time I felt such strong warmth and generosity while extracting nourishing milk from another being was as an infant. The dri’s teats are black and fairly short and feel like tough rubber. This is necessary as the young weela often push and pull with anxious hunger. The teats quickly became very slippery once my neophyte fingers fumbled around and sent milk flying in every direction but into the milk pail. Clearly, my main job at the moment was not milking but rather entertaining my hosts whose laughter and bemused smiles were at least gratifying. I marveled at Drolkar milking the dri beside me as she made the strong and steady swish swish sound of the warm milk hitting the pail. After about 20 minutes of kneeling and grappling, I somehow managed to glean enough milk for….one cup. In that same time, Drolkar had filled a huge wooden pail. After carefully boiling the milk, my friend kindly handed me the product of my morning efforts. Milk from Tibet’s organic, high altitude, grass-fed, free range dri. It doesn’t get any better than that. Morning tea never tasted so sweet!
