August 9: Day 11
This morning everyone received multiple 6 am wake-up visits from Tsewang, who flew in last night from Vancouver, Washington and was charged up for his first day on the walk. After breakfast and a brief khata presentation to our gracious hosts, we met the four new young Tibetan walkers who are going to do the remainder of the walk with us. Thanks to Tsweang la, we started our walk at 8:40 am--the earliest start yet!
For most of the morning, the shoulder on Route 1 was nonexistent, and there was a lot of construction. Public reception was not especially warm as there was a white supremacist meeting in town, and we were harassed by some skinheads driving by. There was still much local support, most notably by Foot Solutions in Orange, Connecticut who kindly donated a pair of much needed supportive and cushioned socks to one of the walkers. Also in Orange, three walkers (Cassandra, Allison, and Paul) joined us for the day. They had heard Tracy's announcement about the March yesterday on WPKN, Bridgeport public radio and were enthusiastic to join the walk. Incidentally, Cassandra was also a member of the NYU Chapter of Students for a Free Tibet with Tracy.
After a short rain shower, we stopped for lunch in the parking lot of Home Depot and Wal-Mart. A delicious Tibetan feast was provided by Tibetans in West Haven. As we entered Stratford after lunch, we were provided with a police escort that allowed us to walk in the right lane of traffic, which was a huge help although sometimes we had to run to keep up with the patrol car! The 25 of us kept up a fierce pace as we entered into Bridgeport. Along the way, we were asked to be in a hip hop video that two local men were working on. While one of them filmed, the other rapped in front of us sitting there with our signs. It turns out the video is for a cultural preservation project called Freedom Fighters, and although we may not make it on MTV, we may be on local access!
We kept walking past our stopping point and ended up reaching Fairfield around 5 pm for a total of 17.5 miles (our longest walk yet!). We drove back to West Haven and were treated by the local Tibetans to dinner at the Hometown Buffet. After much confusion, our sleeping arrangements were finally figured out, and we slept well among 4 different Tibetan family's homes in West Haven.
