Scholarship Winners: Dawa Dolma

Dawa Dolma fundraising at RCNUWC. That's Dawa on the left.
Here's an update from Dawa Dolma.

Dear Shirley,

You shared with me about writing monthly narrative report on the way to airport when I was leaving to Norway after the summer break. I thought it was a great idea and I haven't forget about it. Sonam and I even took some pictures and planned to share with MDS about our lives here. But somehow, we remained behind. Peter's same idea and emails that  I got from you again refreshed my mind and finally I send you my report. I enjoyed writing down to share my time and life away from home.

I have also attached some pictures from the "Operation Days week";the day when Norwegian students raise funds to help poor youth in developing countries. Its falls in  the month of October. This time they sent money to Nepal.We cooked momo to raise funds and sold some souvenirs from Nepal that I bought in Summer. Sonam and I will share more about it when I get back to home in Summer.

Now here goes my story.

Dear MDS,

Tashi Delek and Namaste to everyone. Though I haven’t been writing to you, MDS has always been in my heart and always will be. I miss you all.

Just as I am curious to know how things are at the school and with my family members, so also you might be curious to hear what those of us a distance away, are up to. Keeping in touch always brings you near, though we are far apart. The full days in school and workload pulls us back from writing and sharing our time with our family members, which I regret. For this, I blame myself for being disorganized and allowing myself to delay news from here.

Last term was quite a busy time here because the deadlines for all the major assignments were before December in addition to class tests and tedious university applications which required attendance at numerous presentations and interviews, not to mention pages and pages of forms to fill in. We had one month off over winter break which was sufficient time to rejuvenate after a rather frantic time.

I spent my 2005 winter vacation and Christmas with my sponsor and her family in Germany . Meeting my sponsor at long last was such a happy occasion. Believe it or not, it was a dream fulfilled to finally meet my sponsor; I used to pray for it. She showed me all the letters and pictures that she had received from me since I was in class UKG. It was so much fun and I laughed a lot reading my childhood letters. She had a whole pile of correspondence from me. I had a good time there but one month was a long time to remain in one place.

I therefore decided to spend my 2006 winter holidays in three different places. I went to Portugal to visit Ugyen for a week. Tim (Ugyen’s host father) and Ugyen came to pick me up at the airport. It was nice to see him. On that night we went to a Nepali restaurant to eat dal bhat . It was delicious. Ugyen can really eat. Ha! Ha! I went to his school and attended some of his classes. We also went to the beach for a walk and Ugyen took me around the city. We managed to squeeze in a film, too. I had a good time there. Got to enjoyed sunshine for one whole week. The weather was great!!!!

After a week, I went to Spain to stay with a friend from the college. I spent a week with her and her sister.  I had a truly marvellous time there. We visited a lot of places like art galleries, the Science museum, neighbouring towns and others. After a week there, I left for Germany early Saturday morning. I spent two weeks in Germany with my sponsor and celebrated Christmas and New Year’s with them. I had a good time there as well because I got to eat noodles, not Wai Wai, though but good, delicious Asian noodles.  I called Sherab from my sponsor’s home and we chatted for a long time.

I got back to the college on 7 January full of energy and inspiration to work hard. This term has been a fairly relaxing term as I am done with all my major assignments and university applications. I applied to six colleges and got into one of them. I haven’t yet decided if I will go there but will make my final decision after I hear from other colleges.

We have an exam coming in a month’s time, a trial exam. I shall have to prepare for that.

Thank you so much for the Losar card. I was really happy to receive it.

With love,

Dawa Dolma