“I
am learning English
from
my English teacher
called
mis reti
And
she is from American
she
was kind minded to
All
of student in class
VIII
and also she was
Tall
and white face with a
Long
hair and white in colour
She came to Bhutan
Taking more time
To our country for, teaching us a good English
We would like to, wish long live Madam”
-Kelzang
Dorji, class VIII’B’
Kelzang couldn’t have been more correct when he
said, “taking more time.” Everything here takes more time. It’s taking me more
time than I wanted or expected to get things done, to figure out what I’m
doing, and get adjusted here. I’ll explain…As always, a lot has happened since
my last posting. It’s hard to stay on top of this because of the fickle
internet connection and my schedule, but I’ll try to give a run down of the
events of late and how it’s feeling to me.
Last month I went to visit Ashley in Kanglung
where she is posted (a city that’s a day’s-trip east of me that has a college)
and Tara made the harrowing 12-hour bus ride all the way from Bumthang to join
us. This reunion happened, for the most part, because we all needed to cut
loose and reconnect with people who could relate.
 |
| Ashley and Tara |
On my way there, my friend Sonam Choden traveled with me to Mongar to help me get a taxi or some sort of transportation the rest of the way to Trashigang. The Bhutanese assume that if you’re a foreigner, you’re filthy rich; and so having a local with you for these types of delicate negotiations is really the only way to avoid being taken for all you’re worth. It was incredibly kind of her to go so out of her way to help me. I wouldn’t have made it otherwise.
It’s hard to get a taxi from anywhere to
anywhere here. Not like in the U.S. where they go where you are pay them to go
and charge per mile. Here, you have to pay per seat (there’s a set rate from
town to town), rather than per mile, and if the taxi drivers are not either from
where you are going or on the way anyway, then you have to pay for their trip
back to wherever you both just came from. This certainly was “taking more time”
than I thought it would have and we ended up searching for a way for me to get
from Mongar to Trashigang for the better part of the day. I was beginning to
get frustrated and disappointed.
 |
| Tara and me |
Then, luckily, I ended up getting a bus. After a
couple of hours of traveling we passed through Yadi, where I realized that Scott
Harris, fellow BCF’er teaches (next time I’ll give him a call!) A young,
beautiful lady teacher from Yadi MSS, named Ngawang, got on the bus. She
immediately zoned in on me and we began talking. Ngawang was traveling to
Trashigang because her 15-year-old niece had recently passed away, or as they
say here, “expired” from TB. She was attending the ritualistic ceremony that is
traditionally performed by family and friends beginning from the 21st day
of a person’s passing—Gaywa. For 49 days the family hosts rounds of prayers,
blessings (much like “puja”- traditional blessing with butter lamps), and a
constant stream of relatives, friends, neighbors, and community members come
pay homage to send the spirit into the next life on good terms. It is believed
that the extent and effort a family puts forth to give offerings and prayers
for the departed soul has bearing on their stake in the next life, as does the
individual’s own actions. She told me the most saddening story about her niece’s
passing. I held her hand and could feel the power and depth of her sadness.
Having just met moments before, we shared some poignant energy; although I
never met her niece, I was moved to tears.
 |
| Main center in Trashigang |
It’s almost humorous now that I think about it: being
jostled in a rickety bus along the roads of a foreign land, crying with a stranger.
Whilst chewing dolma, no less!— the beetle nut and lime wrapped in banana leaf
that turns your mouth red people are so fond of (I was trying to fit in). By no
means do I mean the tragedy of her niece is/was funny, but it’s almost comical
to think that this is my life now. It was a bit disconcerting to hear how much she knew about
all the Western teachers in Bhutan. She knew stories and locations of almost
every BCF teacher, both from this year and last- way more than I was aware of.
It made me realize how small this country is and how noticed our presence is.
Ironically, or maybe not ironically at all, Ashley was in the process of interviewing
students in her school about the passing of Ngawang’s niece. She (Ngawang’s
niece, whose name clearly escapes me) made such a strong impression on her
school and community, that the story of her life and untimely passing was so
important to so many people it was going to be a feature article in Ashley’s
school newspaper. We are all affected and connected by and to each other here.
When we got to Trashigang we hopped in a cab the
rest of the way to Kanglung. Ngawang invited Ashley and me to her family’s home
the next day for the Gaywa, We attended bearing incense and butter. It was a
most interesting experience. The home was absolutely filled to the brink with
people, very old, very young, and in between. There was a constant stream of
tea coming out of the kitchen on big trays, which was manned by relatives of
the host family. The family themselves were busy circulating from guest to
guest. People were sitting on mats laid on the floor, packed so tightly it was
awkward to walk, hard to not step on someone’s hand or kira. They were
expecting us. All eyes were upon the foreigners as we entered the altar room
and made our offering to the mother. Everyone watched curiously as we sat for
tea and spoke (as best we could) with those sitting around us. Outside there
was a tent that undulated with a constant drone of chanting and light from
butter candles; the energy of Gaywa was immense. My description here is inadequate.
It was an experience that will stand out in my memory forever.
 |
| Blossoming Peach tree in Kanglung |
 |
| Ashley, me Sonam Wangmo |
It was hard to leave people I have grown to
deeply appreciate and love, but our weekend ended and it was time to figure out
how to get back. This “took more time” as well and what should be a 6-hour trip
took all day. At least this time I was expecting it. I came back on a Tuesday
night, and rejoined school on Wednesday. Friday the Literacy Club that I am in
charge of hosted it’s first event. Or, I should say, I hosted it. It was a
total flop. I thought I had done a great job of planning things down to the
last detail. But, like so many things here, my intention and reality didn’t
align. I could elaborate, but why bother. It was embarrassing, but, also once
again, like so many things recently, that experience will stick with me for the
rest of my life as a learning lesson.
“Discontent
is the first step in the progress of a man or a nation”
-Oscar
Wilde
Now I had something to prove, to myself and
everyone else, a week after my first blunder, and I hosted another event: a
poetry recitation competition. This time, it was watertight and I was proud of
how it went. I’ve hosted another
event, a spelling competition, which involved the entire student body and 100
students participated. I’m doing new things that have never been attempted here
before, mostly on a wing and a prayer, since I don’t know what I’m doing
either, and have been told the work I’m doing here will leave history with this
school. That’s gratifying to hear. The amount of effort and planning that it takes
to arrange these events could have been known only through experience (or by
somebody telling me, but that’s out of the question), so I guess my previous
blunder wasn’t all for naught. I have learned that if I want to ensure
something gets done the way I would like, or at all, I have to leave no stone,
pebble, or grain of sand unturned and be meticulous in my preparation and
directions.
Enough about that. May 2nd will mark
the 100-year anniversary of secular education in Bhutan. The District Education
Sector is celebrating it by hosting a teacher-given concert to display the
talents of the teachers here. If you know me well, you know I’m far from
musically talented (if you don’t count jamming out in the car). But I told
myself I wouldn’t pass up any opportunity to be involved with things here, so I
went to a meeting with several other staff and teachers see how I could be part
of it. I ended up accidentally volunteering to write and recite a poem in front
of what might be a few thousand people! Um…I am also not a poet!! My
involuntary volunteering came as a result of opting out of writing and
coordinating an entire skit in English about the history of Bhutanese
education. In light of my recent lessons about how it goes to try to coordinate
things/people around here, I thought it more prudent to do something that I’d
only have to be responsible of myself. I won’t be singing a solo or playing an
instrument, so there you have it. More to come on this later, I’m sure.
 |
| Students at one of the Literacy Club events |
The last little interesting development to
mention is a spider situation. I’m not a squeamish girl, having the upbringing
I did. If I were, I’d already be back home. But…one night I came home to the
biggest spider I’ve ever seen before (outside of a tarantula that was in a
plexi glass case) just sitting on my wall. It stopped me in my tracks. Body
about the size of my thumb and 3-inch legs extending out beyond that. Fangs.
Huge fangs. I took a picture just to document and (although the picture did not
turn out very well) the light reflected off its eyes. Its eyes were big enough
to reflect the flash! I had no idea what to do, so I got a stick and a bowl,
reasoning that I might shoo it off the wall and then capture it in my bowl so I
could scoot it outside. Amateur plan. Of course when I poked it, it quickly
went right back where it came from: under my bathroom door jam. I stuffed some
fabric in the crevasse from whence it came and went to bed, satisfied that we
parted on amicable terms. That was all I saw of it for a couple of weeks, until
the second appearance. I had had enough time to devise a better plan, so I got
a broom and a bucket. But, it ran behind the bookshelf where I keep all my
clothes before I could trap it. I couldn’t leave this unresolved, lest I reach
for a pair of socks in the morning and it lunges at me, grabs me by the hand
and tries to arm-wrestle! I asked two boys from one of my classes to come help
me at lunch. It was quite a sight! They moved my shelves and there it loomed.
They wanted to act tuff, like they weren’t scared, but it’s just instinct to
flinch away from an arachnid that size! All three of us were jumping around,
clacking buckets, rags, brooms, and whatever we could to safely get this spider
contained! Finally, it worked and with a relief I sent them off with the spider
in my bucket to go release it far away. I had thought it looked a little
lighter in color and it seemed to have stripes I didn’t remember. But oh well,
it was over. Wrong! As I moved the piece of fabric that was hanging over the
shelf, another spider of the same size reared up, and hurried behind and
underneath the shelves once again! Ah-ha it wasn’t my imagination! There had
been two this whole time!! When the boys came back, we had to do it all again!
But, no sightings since, so all’s well that ends well.
I try to go on long hikes on Sundays, and this
past one I went with two of the three “monkeys” (younger brother and nephews of
my friends) to a mountainside that was in full bloom. I don’t know what the
name of the flowering trees are, but it was exquisitely beautiful. The smell in
the air was intoxicatingly sweet. White and fuchsia petals trickled down from
the dense canopy through the sunlight like little butterflies—and actual
butterflies were also aplenty. It felt like something I have dreamt before. In
other horticultural adventures, I planted a rose, and there is a wild cherry
tomato plant outside my front door that is giving the best fruit. It’s the
simple things here that are still the most touching, profound, and enjoyable.
I read my friend Iman’s blog recently and she
spoke a lot about patience. Just her realization that she needs to be more
patient with herself is admirable. In reflection, I have been fighting with
myself and with my patience- or lack thereof. I’ve been frustrated with my
feelings of incompetence that I don’t feel stem from true incompetence, my
utter state of confusion, and the lack of urgency most Bhutanese teachers seem
to have. I don’t want to become bitter or abrasive towards my co-teachers. I
must learn how to balance a state of learning and teaching at the same time.
I “came to Bhutan/taking more time.” So true! This whole process of transition is taking time, and more
time. Luckily, I have plenty; I just need to be more aware of that. I have been
frustrated, overwhelmed, humiliated, and on the brink of the edge of what
little sanity or dignity I came with (or have left). Then, I have a
conversation, or I see a butterfly, or I listen to the river, and I come
back. The universe tests us but also gives us what we need. It’s hard to be
aware of that in trying moments, but I must ask myself, “Isn’t this what you
came here for?” and, then, rhetorically remind myself “Yes.”
Until next time!
“Gi che lug a may” (Love to you)
-Reidi Ruth
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| My tomatoes |
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| Crossing a bridge between two mountains |
