Later when I emerged from the tent, the milking was over and Shermo Donker and her two daughters were bent double, spreading fresh dung on the ground. They used their bare hands, grabbing fistfuls of excrement, which they slapped on to the grass and smoothed out with their palms in a thin layer so that the sun could bake it to a crust. This was one job from which I was quite happy to abstain, but shit was fuel and fuel was life to them, and they rinsed their hands in the stream then came in for breakfast.
Inside the tent the family met around the clay fire, where a steaming pot of broth threatened to overflow as its tin lid danced up and down. It was customary for them to wait for Shermo Donker to finish her milking so that she could serve us our breakfast. But today there were complications to the smooth running of the family rota. Sanjay, her little boy, was wailing heartily due to some mishap and would not be comforted. He lay prone on the dirt floor, occasionally raising his matted head to gasp for air through a film of snot and tears, his protruding lower jaw jutting out rigid and determined. Amnye was cooing 'Babko, Baddo…' in his tender voice, reserved for the children. According to Tsedup he had a series of different names for them. He was an adoring grandfather and especially pampered Sanjay, who slept inside his tsarer with him most nights. But today Sanjay was having none of it.
Tsedo was simultaneously laughing at his son and attempting to suppress Sanjay's tears with a few of his own comforting words, though they were delivered somewhat gruffly. It was not common for a father to demonstrate his affection too much for his own child, that was left to the grandparents. Tsedo appeared redundant, embarrassed at his son's tantrum but amused, too, which I found a little cruel. He was a young man, two years Tsedup's senior, with unusually delicate features, a calm stare and an air of gentility, which was frequently punctured by bouts of wicked sarcasm and fits of rasping giggles. He looked older than his years, weatherbeaten and lined, skin scorched, hair tousled, and was incredibly clean for a nomad. He always had a new shirt on, and often glanced in the mirror. A formidable horseman, he had been the dashing prize-winner among the nomads in his earlier years, famed for his agility, with a history of shooting targets from the saddle and plucking flowers from the ground with his teeth while galloping. A nomad girl's dream.
His wife threw him nervous glances from her side of the tent. It was time to defuse the situation. She scurried round to the men's side, placed one hand firmly on her son's collar, the other on the waistband of his soiled trousers, and wrenched him perfunctorily from the floor, causing him to choke then renew his vocal assault. She carried him to the other side of the fire as Amnye urged her not to use such force, Tsedo swore and Annay, who had remained deferential up to that point, began to laugh her peculiarly girlish laugh. Then Shermo Donker lifted her blouse and pushed Sanjay's screaming mouth on to her shrivelled breast. She held his head there in her vice-like grip, as he kicked and resisted, then gradually he became limp, quietened and began to suck.
I knew that Tibetan mothers usually suckled their children for a year or two – but a six-year-old boy at his mother's breast! I was stunned and fiddled with some loose stitching on my shoe, while struggling with an astonishing sense of the impropriety of the act. I was amazed at the feeling that it aroused in me. I had always been a liberal sort of girl, hadn't I? Was it not the most natural form of comfort in the world for a child? These people clearly thought so.
When Sanjay had nursed long enough, he slunk, subdued, from his mother to his grandmother. She embraced him and I watched, astonished, as he lifted her shirt and nuzzled into her aged breast, sucking again. She smacked his head lazily and told him off, but her protest was weak and as she let out a long, contented sigh I could tell that she was happy with her maternal role.
When the last bowl had been licked clean, the men smoked awhile, the children ran off to play and Shermo Donker heaved the huge pot of the morning's milk on to the fire to boil. The daily milking process was central to the nomads' survival. From the milk they churned butter and made yoghurt and cheese. While the milk boiled Shermo Donker set up the turnkor, churn, comprised of various components, which had been dismantled and cleaned the day before. It was a wooden box with a metal basin on top and a metal funnel, containing rotating discs, with two spouts protruding from each side. On top of the funnel was a metal bowl into which the milk was poured and around it was tied a thin piece of muslin, to sieve the milk and trap yak hairs and grass. On the side of the box was a handle and when the milk had boiled Shermo Donker sat on the floor beside the churn, began to pour in the milk and turn the handle vigorously. As the milk passed over the rotating discs and was separated, the cream dripped in a thick stream from one spout into the metal basin and formed pools on top of yesterday's solid yellow butter. From the other spout the skimmed milk rained into a wooden pail at twice the speed and formed a moussy white froth on the surface. She had milked forty yaks that morning and, not surprisingly, after a short while her arm was aching with the effort of turning the handle. I offered to take over, much to everyone's delight and amusement, and took her place as she went off to some other task outside. I began earnestly turning the handle, a little faster than her at first to prove that I was capable.
Tsedo congratulated me. 'The Amdo namma knows how to do her work,' he called, over the whir of the machine.
But as soon as they had all resumed chattering I faltered with the effort of my task. It was a lot harder than I had thought it would be and soon my neck muscles had stiffened into a twingeing knot. Still I smiled and declined the offer of a rest from Tsedup's father. I had to show them I could do something. If dung-spreading wasn't on, then surely milk-churning was possible. I feigned ease and focused on some faraway mountain beyond the open tent door. This had to get easier. In a week I'd have it nailed.
When most of the milk had been separated, Shermo Donker poured the remainder of the cream into a bucket and covered it over with an old sheepskin. She placed it in a dark, cool corner of the tent where it would quickly ferment into yoghurt. She relieved me and praised me, and I rose to my feet as graciously as I could with pins and needles cascading through my legs. If I could have disguised the discomfort, I would have proved my worth. But I was unable to put a foot forward. I just stood resignedly right in her path, as she laboured under the weight of the huge pot of skimmed milk, which she wanted to place on the fire. I gestured to my feet and looked pleadingly at Tsedup for help with an explanation. As he spoke the whole tent burst into hysterics. I would have to be content for now with my role as the incompetent foreigner.
I left the cheese-making to her and breakfasted while she boiled up a pulp from the milk then strained it in a mesh bag. She crumbled the curds thinly on to a plastic sheet outside to dry in the sun, then poured the whey into a bucket for the tzorgin, half yak, half cow, who awaited this treat outside the tent each day. He was drinking it as Sirmo and I left to wash the clothes.
We walked to a stream in a valley between two mountains, she carrying the load in a wicker basket on her back. Then we sat in the sunshine and scrubbed in the warm flow of fresh water as she sang Tibetan songs in her sweet, husky voice. 'Yucka!’ I proclaimed. 'Beautiful.' As she laughed modestly, the tiny, silver chains on her earrings jangled on her shoulders. Then she urged me to sing an English song for her. This didn't feel as awkward as performing in front of the audience at the karaoke bar in Labrang, but I was running out of ideas for good tunes. It seemed so humiliating when the Tibetans had so many lovely folk songs. Most of the chart hits at my disposal would have been a bit too progressive for nomad ears. Progressive or downright ugly, I wasn't sure. I found a compromise in Simon and Garfunkel. Like the Beatles, they were the least offensive and most melodious examples of contemporary western music I could muster, and I remembered that Tsedup had liked them when I first met him in India. I sang the first lines of 'Kathy's Song'. The words, on the breeze of that wild land, appeared more and more uncannily inappropriate, since they were about rain drizzling on a house.