The Tibetans and their supporters walking under the banner of March for Tibet’s Independence from Charlottesville to Washington DC has successfully 
finished the fifth day of the march and has covered 18 miles. After the scare on third day when 66 year old Dorjee from Chicago got a stitched forehead following accident, the marchers admitted to being wary of what lay ahead but continued their journey nonetheless with more vigour and energy.
This might sound hard owing to the fact that the marchers had very little sleep on the night of the third day because injured Dorjee had to be taken to the Culpeper emergency room for treatment and also the experience of the incident involving
three marchers who were nearly hit by a rash driver had almost drained them out.
But Day 4 was a pleasant experience full of expressions of solidarity and cooperation. The Culpeper Police Chief assisted the marchers in establishing a safer detour out of a town that fully embraced the partcipants with a symphony of horns and cheers for their progress; a local journalist helped set up an in-depth interview with the Fauquier Times-Democrat; a US Postal worker – whose license plate advertised her support as a ‘Friend of Tibet’- blared her horn in support all along the parallel routes of the march; and an elderly Buddhist woman came out to prostrate herself chanting “Om Mani Padme Hum” to the marchers as they headed through Remington, VA.
Day 5 of the march, said Douglas Herman of the International Tibet Independence Movement (ITIM), will be remembered as the day when “we turned around”. On previous walks, the marchers almost always lost their way to presentations and lodgings. The marchers managed to find their way on all days except on Day 5 when they encountered a twisted spaghetti intersection of major highways and inaccurately selected a path that took them down an expressway entrance. Fortunately, after 20 minutes, the support van reached them and helped them to get back on the correct route. However, there was more to come as later in the day, a predicted 45 minute ride to the night’s presentation led to atwo and half hour journey through the chaos of Washington DC traffic.
The march organised by ITIM will conclude in Washington DC in front of the Chinese Embassy.
