“When I was small, there was no school in my village. Parents would send their children to the monasteries instead. It was only on 1999, the first school opened. Due to lack of resources, the people in the village decided that only one child from a family would be able to attend. I used to live with my uncle then. He had no children of his own and I had told him my desire to attend school but he would not say anything. I wanted to learn, not just look after the house and the animals. The kids who were going to school would come back with their ‘ABCs’ and that would add to my determination. One Sunday morning, I ran to the school without permission. I was 8 then. Everyone had their lunch and I remember I didn’t. That was my first day at school. Every winter the school would shut down. The villagers would migrate to lower altitudes looking for warmth. Some would take their entire herd of yaks. Many times I would be among the ones to stay back. I remember, every evening after the day’s toil, I would sit down to practice my handwriting. We had a school but no pencils and no notebooks. So I would use the rubber shoe sole as eraser, battery lead as pencil and knife as a sharpener.” (1/3) (Pema Dolma Lama, Saldang, Dolpa)