The Story of A Black Tent
The life of Gase and Lamo Yongzang, nomads from the Batang grassland, began with a ball of yak down.
Spinning Yarn, Weaving a Home
At twenty-four, they had nothing but each other - not even a black tent to shelter them from wind and rain. Then, she twisted the yarn, and he wove those threads—still warm from her hands, along with the wind that swept across the grassland - into "རེ་ལྡེ།" (yak wool fabric). Inch by inch, they wove them into the long, unfolding years ahead.
The black tent was small at first, just enough for the two of them to sit side by side. But they were in no hurry—life was like the thread in her hands, always new strands to join. The tent gradually grew over sixty years of migration, until it became a home, a root, the entirety of their life.
A Lifetime in a Black Tent
Their six children were born here, learned to walk here, grew up here. It heard first cries and witnessed silent farewells. All the dawns and dusks, the wind and snow, the spoken words—all were woven into its deep and shallow warp and weft.
Since 2014, it has migrated no more. It stands quietly in its old spot, holding a life no longer jostled by journeys, yet guarding this land that witnessed a lifetime. Now he is eighty-three, and she is eighty-four. They have shared a lifetime.
And that black tent, born from nothing, grew to hold all the journeys - until, ultimately, it became the black tent of a lifetime - it became love itself - persisting there as the nomadic way of life recedes.
Ecrit par charuhimalaya
