Presentation
2009 Tours to Tibet and Current Political Situation 
Friday, November 6, 4pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Insurgentes 25
50 pesos

The Dream of the Turquoise Bee
By Atención staff

Dianne Aigaki gives a presentation focusing on the tours to Tibet in Summer 2009, Tibetan landscape, life in the nomad camps and villages, her work in Tibet as a botanical illustrator and the current political situation there.

She will show photos of the families of Tibetan political prisoners who were arrested during the 2008 Olympic demonstrations, and those who received donations for food and medical care from San Miguel residents.

Mexico has seen a growing interest in Tibetan Buddhism over the last 15 years. Mexico City has one of six Tibet Houses, centers set up by the government in exile to present Tibetan culture to the world. San Miguel has an active Buddhist community, with two meditation centers giving classes and presenting teachings from lamas. The Dalai Lama blessed the botanical garden El Charco del Ingenio as a zone of peace.

Although the situation inside Tibet is grim, with flagrant human rights abuses and disregard for environmental integrity, Aigaki’s presentation focuses on Eastern Tibet—where the water is pure, nomads herd their animals and villagers stand up to the Chinese police and display photos of the fourteenth Dalai Lama in their homes.

Tibet still enjoys one of the richest expanses of flora in the world. From late May until September, wildflowers carpet the hills, meadows and mountainsides. Many of these plants are rare and endangered or have been used for centuries in traditional medicine to treat asthma, arthritis, cancer, blood pressure, parasites and other ailments.

Aigaki is involved in a flora documentation project including 108 scientific botanical illustrations of these wildflowers growing on the Tibetan Plateau, at altitudes of 11,000–18,000 feet. Her paintings are exhibited worldwide and she speaks at museums, universities and botanic gardens on “Botanical Art as a Vehicle for Cultural Diplomacy,” “Botanical Illustration Field Work in Tibet” and “Women Explorers.”

The project is part of a cultural diplomacy exchange whereby she takes letters, gifts, cassette tapes and paintings of wildflowers between families in Tibet and the Tibetan refugee community living in exile in India.

This past summer, she led three eco-tours to Tibet. Gail Tobey and Barbara Morse, both San Miguel residents, were along on the tours. “The Dream of the Turquoise Bee” tours are a partnership with Tibetan villagers and nomads, the concept born after an evening conversation about the 2007 drought in eastern Tibet. The Tibetans were facing a financial and environmental crisis—no crops would be harvested, they would have no food for their families or for bartering, and would be unable to earn even the usual pittance from working in neighbors’ fields.

The families worked with Aigaki to design an eco-tourism project that would allow them to support teams for the tours, generating income while they trained as guides and medicinal plant experts The eco-tours give guests the opportunity to be in the pure, clear air while spending time with the people who make their homes in Tibet.

Buy tickets for this presentation early; last year’s sold out. Half the proceeds go to the Biblioteca scholarship fund and the other half to the fund for political prisoners currently languishing in Chinese prisons as punishment for demonstrating for a Free Tibet.

Dianne Aigaki is a member of WINGS WorldQuest and she carried their flag into Tibet in 2007. She is also a member of the Society of Women Geographers, the premier international organization of women explorers. Her website is www.dianneaigaki.com  and she can be contacted at dianneaigai@yahoo.com.