Arriving to a new camp and homestead, Omu sets about going through an unending list of ‘musts’. One of the musts is securing tent ‘fly’ lines of twined yak wool, hammered into the high-altitude turf.
Using a stone picked up casually from the surroundings, Omu pounds homemade wooden pegs at an angle that she will adjust and modify over the coming months. Soon after the tent was erected, tea was served. She remarked once, “when we make our first tea in a place, we are settled”.
Though over the years I’ve spent months with her family, it is her that the community revolved around and it was her that I marvelled at for all of the vital roles she occupied within her family. It was she and her quiet husband Ajo who decided when to move and when to allow the yak to dictate the journey to more luscious grazing and it was Omu who ‘felt’ when the seasons were shifting, precipitating a move of her tented household.
It was she too who cared for and understood the yak, it was she who prepared meals, and it was she who prepared tea daily in huge, rich doses. It was her too that was dared not defied. Her two sons and a nephew knew better than anyone that her words and intentions stood.
About JeffFuchs
Bio
Having lived for most of the past decade in Asia, Fuchs’ work has centered on indigenous mountain cultures, oral histories with an obsessive interest in tea. His photos and stories have appeared on three continents in award-winning publications Kyoto Journal, TRVL, and Outpost Magazine, as well as The Spanish Expedition Society, The Earth, Silkroad Foundation, The China Post Newspaper, The Toronto Star, The South China Morning Post and Traveler amongst others. Various pieces of his work are part of private collections in Europe, North America and Asia and he serves as the Asian Editor at Large for Canada’s award-winning Outpost magazine.
Fuchs is the Wild China Explorer of the Year for 2011 for sustainable exploration of the Himalayan Trade Routes. He recently completed a month long expedition a previously undocumented ancient nomadic salt route at 4,000 metres becoming the first westerner to travel the Tsa’lam ‘salt road’ through Qinghai.
Fuchs has written on indigenous perspectives for UNESCO, and has having consulted for National Geographic. Fuchs is a member of the fabled Explorers Club, which supports sustainable exploration and research.
Jeff has worked with schools and universities, giving talks on both the importance of oral traditions, tea and mountain cultures. He has spoken to the prestigious Spanish Geographic Society in Madrid on culture and trade through the Himalayas and his sold out talk at the Museum of Nature in Canada focused on the enduring importance of oral narratives and the Himalayan trade routes.
His recently released book ‘The Ancient Tea Horse Road’ (Penguin-Viking Publishers) details his 8-month groundbreaking journey traveling and chronicling one of the world’s great trade routes, The Tea Horse Road. Fuchs is the first westerner to have completed the entire route stretching almost six thousand kilometers through the Himalayas a dozen cultures.
He makes his home in ‘Shangrila’, northwestern Yunnan upon the eastern extension of the Himalayan range where tea and mountains abound; and where he leads expeditions the award winning ‘Tea Horse Road Journey’ with Wild China along portions of the Ancient Tea Horse Road.
To keep fueled up for life Fuchs co-founded JalamTeas which keeps him deep in the green while high in the hills.
