Like many Ladakhi houses, this one reserves the lowest floor for livestock, and the tiny gray donkey, whose braying--like rusty hinges grinding--has kept me awake these past two nights, steps out to sun himself.
We never exchange names, but she immediately plants her stout spade and sweeps three of us into her house, where we are seated cross-legged and shoeless on rugs around her kitchen, that locus of Ladakhi family life and social pride.