With all this in mind, it was difficult to see how a western woman who was also an Amdo bride fitted into this environment. I was still hugely conspicuous and felt self-conscious in town, even though I wore traditional Tibetan costume. This consisted of my cumbersome leopardskin tsarer, and a kirchi, a knitted tube of fabric that could be worn as a hat or pulled down over the face for warmth. All the women wore them. I had two, one luminous pink and the other lime green, since these were the fashionable colours, but although I felt as if I looked just like a nomad woman, I obviously didn't. I concluded that it must be my marble eyes and protruding nose that gave me away. Despite my attire, or perhaps because of it, I was still a constant source of curiosity for the nomads and Chinese alike.
Yet harder than this feeling of alienation, was the difficulty I was experiencing in spending time with my husband. After nearly nine years away, he was in his element hanging out with the boys in town. I understood why, he had missed them so much when he was in England. But somehow I had imagined he would enjoy the grassland more. Back home I had envisaged him as a nomad, riding, hunting and herding; it was these images that Tsedup had nurtured back then, when he had endlessly recounted stories of his homeland, but it was different now that we were here. I knew that he was a nomad at heart, but I could see that he had already made a departure from that life when he had left the tribe and gone to school. Yet this taming and 'civilising' had been a necessary part of his history if we were ever to have met and made a successful marriage. Without it, even if we had had the chance to meet, which would have been highly unlikely, I guessed that we would not have been able to relate to one another so well and our expectations of each other would have been irreconcilable. Certainly we would not have achieved the level of intimacy that we had. Somehow we had reached middle ground.
But now – despite his concern for my welfare – to have a wife at his side in this macho land was a slight embarrassment. And, as we sat in the restaurant, once again I felt extraneous. As usual there were no women present in our group and, after listening to the men's conversation for a while, I had to admit that gambling successes and recent fights had never been my hot topics of conversation. They had never been Tsedup's either. I was forced to accept that, in town, the new gender definitions I was encountering were certainly changing the dynamics of my marriage. What had been a symbiotic synthesis of shared time and experience in England had been transformed into a necessary parting of the ways. Sometimes he made me angry. I made my excuses and left the table; it was time to visit my female friends.
I walked to Dolma's house past the ditches of rubbish and snuffling pigs at the far end of town. Tsedup's cousin ran out to meet me with her small son, Gonbochab, who cried, 'Ajay Kate! Ajay Kate! Aunty.' The mongrel in the kennel by the gate strained on its leash and gnashed furiously in the direction of my ankles. At least I was welcomed by the family. Dolma showed me into the parlour and poured me black tea. She set down the gamtuk, the box containing tsampa, cheese and butter, in front of me and took up her knitting on the bench at the other side of the iron stove. Gonbochab played with a puppy on the brick floor and grinned at me. Then Dolma spoke to me in her high-pitched voice at great speed. She made no allowances for the fact that I could not understand her, and laughed at me when I made mistakes with my Tibetan. If I asked her to repeat something she looked at me with a glazed expression and repeated exactly what she had said before, but with different emphasis on the words, as if it would help. It did not. Then she would smile and mumble something to herself. Unlike Annay, Sirmo and Shermo Donker she did not gesticulate and simplify her language for me, but I enjoyed her company nevertheless. She was warm and kind, with the cheeky grin of a teenager and twinkling eyes. I'm sure she felt sorry for me as she was always asking if I missed home. In fact, everyone asked that. I supposed they could not imagine being so far away from their own home and thought I was suffering. I was not… but they could sense that sometimes it was hard for me.
That night Sando, her husband, tempted me to stay the night with the promise of an English-language wildlife VCD. I felt obliged to watch it as I suspected he had bought it specifically to entertain me. About thirteen of us squeezed into their tiny parlour. He had recently purchased a brand-new VCD machine, silver and shiny with a winking, spiralling electronic light display. He was most proud of it. However, there was insufficient electricity from the mains to power it, until after 10 p.m. We sat in anticipation, he rather frustrated, twiddling knobs furiously. Then when he had cracked it he played not one but five wildlife films all about the plains of Africa. I was touched, because I was the only one there who understood them. Typically Rhanjer, who was also there, wanted me to explain about every single animal that appeared on the screen. After the third film, I began to wilt and at one o'clock in the morning, after Dolma had collapsed with boredom and fatigue beside me, I insisted on going to bed despite his attempts to play me the latest Kenny G VCD of saxophone songs, which he told me was a big hit.
The next day Tsedup stopped by and I asked him to drive me to Tashintso's. As I stepped into her back kitchen our policewoman friend flashed a couple of tickets in front of me. 'We're going to a show!' she said. That night, along with half of the town, we made our way to the big local theatre. Nomads and townspeople collected around the entrance and filtered through the turnstiles. When we walked in I was amazed at the size and grandeur of the building. It was just like an auditorium at home, with a sloping floor and wooden flip-seats. But there were striking differences to the proceedings. There was no hushed anticipation as the lights went down and the curtain came up. Instead it was a riot. Nomads shouted and smoked, laughed and joked with each other. The women called from row to row. About thirty small children, who had rushed to the front, now fought each other, writhing around on the floor in a grubby rumpus. Meanwhile the dancers danced on and the singers turned up their microphones. When it was time for a comedy act the whole place was in uproar. I had never seen such an unabashed display of audience participation. All around me people were fighting to control their laughter, tears dripping down their faces. I laughed too, but since I didn't understand a word of the performance, I was really laughing at them. After each act the nomads burst into applause and whistles ricocheted around the walls.
It was a rare thing, to be out on the town, sharing time with men and women. Usually the only women I saw out at night were the platform-heeled barmaids in the karaoke houses. I missed going out with my friends in England and the ease of the male-female mixed social scene at home. This town was a difficult place for me to be and I was pleased to leave the next day. The haven of the grassland was calling me. It was where I preferred to be. I wasn't sure if Tsedup would be joining me, due to his self-imposed exile from his family, but I knew I had to go back. Before I returned, we made one more stop at Gondo's home nearby.
His tribe were still in their tents and that night the two brothers insisted that we sleep under the stars. It was sub-zero outside, but that wasn't a problem for them: it was something they had always done together when they were boys. Gondo's wife, Tseten, propped up the flap of yak fabric on one side of the tent with a stick and made a bed for us from sheepskins and thick quilts. Gondo, Tsedup and I lay three in a row with our balaclava-clad heads protruding outside and our feet facing the glow of the fire. Tseten, perhaps, had had more sense – she stayed inside.