Jack, the coolest Tibetan in the world.

This is Jack. His real name is Tenzin, but he let us call him Jack because every other Tibetan person we met along the way had the same first name as him. Like many Tibetans of his generation, he was born in India, a child of the first set of refugees to arrive with the Dalai Lama back in 1959.

Jack is our hero because he took us all the way from Delhi to Dharamsala--about 17 total hours on crazy, dusty, often unpaved roads--and managed to keep us entertained the whole entire way. He showed us everything from the Dalai Lama's birthday celebration to Lil' Bow Wow music videos on his little Daewoo DVD player. He told us stories. Sometimes he just shut up and listened to us yap. But when he did give us advice, it was always almost too wise for his years (he's 31). By the time we arrived at the cultural epicenter of the Tibetan community in Dharamsala, we already had a good sense of the prevailing attitude of his people that allowed them to maintain peaceful acceptance even while in exile.

Once we got to Dharamsala, Jack knew everybody from the grandma selling jewelry on the corner to the rock band performing at the Students for a Free Tibet concert to the government-employed security guard who refused to let Cherlyn into the main temple because she was carrying all our cameras for us. After he convinced the big scary guy to let her through because she was his homegirl, we met his entire family at the main temple--his lovely wife, baby girl, his brother who works for the Department of Homes, his uncle who was visiting from Seattle. We talked and talked until the Dalai Lama showed up--he was being escorted to his car--and that's when the crowd went silent, and everyone's eyes welled up with tears of respect as the simple yet amazing monk smiled his way onto his SUV.