american dragons in sikkim

SIKKIM: American Dragons conclude their experiential trip of Sikkim

GANGTOK:22 JULY 2009: The Himalayan State of Sikkim has its fair share of dragon mythologies due its proximity with Bhutan ‘The Kingdom of Dragon’ and Tibet Autonomous Region. These legends are being brought to life by Directorate of Handloom and Handicraft where local youths are being trained in the traditional art of carving woodcrafts of the dragons.

Interestingly, Sikkim has attracted the attentions of an atypical dragon from the far West-‘Where There Be Dragons’, a commercial venture based in Colorado in USA which specializes in sending students for ‘experiential trips’ in several nations as part of Dragon programmes.

The company’s Dragons programmes are authentic, rugged and profound learning adventures that expose the beautiful and complex realities of the countries in which the students are sent for learning trips in exotic corners of the world including the Himalayan regions as part of ‘Himalayan Studies Semester’ which is a college accredited abroad programme focusing on culture and religion.

In this ‘Himalayan Studies Semester’, the company has designed a special Dragon programme for Sikkim during summer break and has been sending batches of students along with their instructors annually to the Himalayan State for experiencing and learning on ground levels.

“The students are here to learn about the culture, spirituality, religious practices and getting to know about the local communities through homestays in rural areas”, said Germaine Barlett-Graff, the instructor of the American study group sent by ‘Where There Be Dragons’.

As another instructor Dan Meyer puts it that earlier the company used to focus its programmes in Nepal but due to the political turmoil in the recent years, the company has now detoured to Sikkim where American students have been regularly visiting this State since 2004.

Due to the political circumstances in Nepal we started thinking alternatives, Sikkim was the logical choice for the Dragons programme and we started bringing students here, said Mr. Meyer.

A total of nine students which included seven girls in the age group of 15 to 19 years and studying in Grade 10 to first year in college had come to Kalimpong and Sikkim for a month long study trip this summer.

The trip concluded today and the students today packed up and left for Kolkatta from where they will catch a flight to USA.
Speaking to media today morning, Ms Graff and Mr Meyer said the students stayed for one week in Kalimpong for coming to Sikkim for a three week tour.

The participating students were Alex Henderson, Aaron Guggenheim, Ella Samuel, Birgette Barneto, Sarah Rundolph, Sarah Blau, Arnie Salzman, Oliva Marder and Cecila D’ Anastesio.

“We gave more focus on homestays as the idea of the programme was to have intimate connections with the locals and homestays were the best way to see how the daily lives unfold here. The students and the host families get to know each other more”, said Mr. Meyer.

“The students were given numerous lectures and talks by local people and through these lectures, the students have got a solid base. The feedback from the students has been positive who have food Sikkim at the top of most experiential tour”, said Mr. Meyer.

“Dragons will be back again in Sikkim next summer”, said Ms Graff.

Apart from the general course, each student took up a short apprenticeship in varied fields like Tibetan cooking, Indian sweets, jewelry making, Sarangi, NGOs, photo journalism, yoga and Muglai cooking.

Local photo journalist Vishal Cintury had given a five day training on photo journalism to the American student group.

During their stay in Sikkim, the American students toured parts of West and East Sikkim and also visited several monasteries like Tashiding monastery, Pemayangtse monastery and Chorten monastery.

Regarding the company’s name as ‘Where There Be Dragons’, the 15 year old company says in its website that on ancient maps dragons were drawn to symbolize the unknown and to travel beyond the familiar world was to go ‘where there be dragons’.