Ursula Rechbach, from Slovenia, has worked more than eight years for the Lhasa-based Project for Strengthening Tibetan Traditional Medicine.

Rechbach, in her 50s, said she fell in love with the city when she came to Lhasa on a sightseeing tour in 1995.

She recalled she was having lunch with Tibetan colleagues on March 14, when the riot started. Her colleagues quickly accompanied her to her hotel.

"Our work has been restarted and life is quiet again," she said. She is busy with a program cooperating with the Red Cross Society of Tibet Autonomous Region to promote the Tibetan medicine in the region's rural areas.

A staff member at the Zhuofanlin Shop, which sells local traditional handcrafts to tourists, said the shop had begun to sell art on-line so as to explore market outside Lhasa.

The shop is run by the Tibet Poverty Alleviation Fund, a U.S. organization that helps poor Tibetans through training and financing.

According to the organization, the shop earned more than 2 million yuan (281,000 US dollars) last year from selling Tibetan handicrafts.

The staff member predicted the market would return to normal in May when the region would officially reopen to tourists.

(Xinhua News Agency April 7, 2008)