It was nearly time to move on. The days were closing in and the nip of frosted air bit deeper with each nightfall. A cold wind blew from the east and as the seasons shifted, the family and the rest of the tribe busied themselves with preparations. We were moving back into the valley soon from the open grassland. The family had their winter house close to where we had been living when we first arrived and every effort was being made to furnish and equip it for our arrival. Apart from Annay and Amnye, who had their house in town, the family had never lived under a roof before; this was to be the first year. The tribe had decided to try to live more comfortably this winter and everyone was busy building and fashioning their new dwellings. Most of them were to occupy the 'railway arch' constructions, built during the Cultural Revolution. There were two rows of them in that valley and they were to provide a convenient, if somewhat ugly, shelter. Our house was separate and stood at the base of a range of hills that ran the length of the stream valley up to the mountain peak of Kula. It was a simple home. The front was covered in a layer of clay and, above it, white plaster. It had a wooden door in the middle with odd windows on either side and a flat, corrugated-metal roof. Inside, there were two small rooms, one with a floor of brick and the other of earth. The walls were made from turf and were plastered over. Shermo Donker had built a clay stove on the earth side and the bricked side awaited an iron stove, which Tsedo would buy from town. It was only partially habitable and a couple of Chinese builders were still finishing off. Tsedo went to check on their progress each day on his motorbike.

Behind the house was a corral with a central dividing wall, one side for the sheep and one for the yaks. During the winter months the animals would be penned inside at night for safety – the mountains around us were full of wolves. Tsedup, Tsedo and Gorbo pegged the exterior walls with sharp spikes to prevent the predators from jumping in and savaging our flock. I helped clear the corral of long grass, which the family had grown there throughout the spring and summer. Tsedo cut it with a crude scythe and Shermo Donker and I gathered it up into bundles and bound each one into a sheaf with stalks. We stored the sheafs in a pit at the rear of the house. This was to be fodder for the animals when the weather was too harsh for them to forage for themselves. At the end of each day after our work, our hands were mapped with tiny cuts, scratches and weals from the sharp stems.

Despite the family's insistence that I should not work, I continued harvesting a few days later at Annay and Amnye's house near the town. The more they spoilt me, the more pale and feeble I felt, like some wan character from a Jane Austen novel, and I wanted to be involved with the preparations as much as possible to prove my worth. Ama-lo-lun sat on the step outside the tumbledown house spinning her prayer wheel and watching us toil. It tried to snow, but we ignored the flakes and I ignored Tsedo, who kept urging me to rest. 'Mar sho! Mar sho!' he cried every five minutes, but I relished the work. When we did rest, we all lay in the piles of grass together and compared injuries to our hands and fingers. At night we slept in a row on the low platform of wood and straw, Shermo Donker cradling Sanjay inside her tsarer. I listened to their regular breathing in the dark and to Ama-lo-lun's small voice as she chanted prayers in the adjoining room, before she gradually ceased and fell asleep.

One morning when we were working at the winter house, I was given the responsibility of driving Rhanjer's enormous truck. I had to collect clay from a nearby hill, which was daunting, as I had never driven a heavy-goods vehicle before. Even more perturbing was that half of our family and most of the tribe's children were in the back. It was a challenge and I took it slowly. With much gear-grinding and screeching of brakes I managed to park precariously on a steep slope at the foot of a cliff. Everyone leapt off excitedly and began to dig then sling the earth on to the lorry with spades. Dolma and Wado were in charge of ensuring an even dispersal of clay, in case the truck toppled over, and they stood in the back, spreading fiercely with their hands. They laughed as the diggers lobbed their spades'-worth into the air and showered them with earth. Before we had use of the truck, we had laboriously loaded the clay on to two yaks and returned it to the house over the stream. This was going to make life easier. As usual it was also a chance for everyone to be boisterous and soon we were all covered in clay.

I drove the lorry through the stream and back to the house in first gear; my manipulation of the clutch had somehow failed. The noise of the engine was painful. Tsedo and Amnye laughed at me when I got back. To them, it was an amazing thing that a woman could drive a truck, as none of the women here drove, but it was amusing that she wasn't quite good enough. Women drivers. When their laughter had subsided, Shermo Donker, Sirmo, Amnye, Tsedo, Tsedup and I started making an extension to the house, the extra room were Tsedup and I would sleep. The men built the walls from turf and stone, and we girls spent the day slapping clay on top to create a smooth surface and block up the cracks. It was the hardest job I have ever done. The clay, which was mixed with water, had to be squelched in our hands to form a good strong mix, then slapped on the walls and spread with our palms.

Although the sun shone brilliantly from a perfectly blue sky, the earth was so cold our hands ached. It was even worse when we came to do the interior: it was freezing in the shade and there was no longer the psychological comfort of seeing the sun on our skin. I had to take a break as I had lost all feeling in my hands. To make myself useful I collected water from the stream for the workers, then rejoined them outside the house and enjoyed smearing in the sunshine, the feel of the sludge between my fingers. It was incredibly messy work and I couldn't help thinking that a manicure wouldn't go amiss; also a revision of the wardrobe situation, as I looked nothing less than eight months' pregnant in my multiple layers of mud-splattered clothing.

'You have a baby inside,' they teased.

When the walls were finished, the roof was put together from beams, bamboo and earth. Shermo Donker shinned up and set about spreading thick handfuls of twigs from the mountain bushes on top of the beams. She then spread plastic sheeting over it and completed the canopy with a layer of clay to seal it. Soon we had an extra room on the house. There was a hole for a small window in the front, which lacked glass, and a hole for a door to be put in. Although glad of a roof, I hoped they wouldn't forget these details. This was to be our bedroom for the next three months and it was below freezing at night now. Sometimes, by morning, my glass of water had turned to ice.

By sunset we had finished toiling and rode home. About fifteen of us made a caravan on horses and yaks back to the tribe over the hill from the winter houses. The evening light shone gold over the scorched grassland, and everyone was in jovial spirits. Soon they were whipping each other's yaks and racing one another. Shermo Donker, overtaking me on the inside, giggled devilishly and cracked a rope on the rear of my beast as she passed. It bolted and I shrieked into the wind, as I hung on for dear life. Ahead of me Sirmo fell off her yak and everyone teased her. My breath caught in my throat, not because of the wind but because I was overcome by an intense surge of emotion. I felt a strange sense of unreality, as if I was in a film. I think you would call it elation. If there had to be one defining moment that depicted Tibet in all its beauty and wildness, then surely that was it for me.