The Milkman

In Tanzania, we had an egg man (named Julius, but we usually referred to him as ‘the egg man’) who came to the house, sold us eggs, and asked for water. That was his MO. He would call, “Hodi,” the typical greeting when you’re outside someone’s house in Tanzania, and by his voice, we’d know – the egg man was here. I’d run to get funds from the house money, open the door, and Julius would shake his bag of eggs, “Thirty eggs,” or sometimes he’d have twenty, or more and less. I’d tell him how many we wanted – ishirini (twenty) usually, kubwa (big). He'd say, “I want water,” and I’d get him a glass of water as he counted out the eggs. If it was a hot day, he might ask for another glass, but usually one was fine. Then in his broken English and in my extremely poor Swahili, we’d try to arrange the next time he’d come. That was the egg man.

Now, in Bhutan, we have a milkman. He doesn’t come right to the door and deliver the milk personally, but it’s pretty darn close to that. He does his rounds starting around 4 pm at the lower market and slowly (depending on how many people are waiting with empty containers) meanders his way to upper market, making many stops in between. It’s usually 5 pm when he finally arrives at the upper market honking his way as he approaches, and honking several times more as he’s parked outside the small restaurant Shonzy, which is right across from our driveway. I hear his beeping call, grab the empty container that we’ve designated for milk and run down the driveway to his red van. Typically there are a few people ahead of me. I ask for “two.” He dips down into his large metal container and pours me two liters of unpasteurized milk. I give him 54 ngultrums or the closest thing I have to that, which is usually 60. He gives me change, and I carefully bring the milk back. At home, Scott and I bring the milk to a boil (and lately we’ve been letting it boil for a few minutes; actually a few times when we’ve been careless, the milk has spilt over the pot. Boiled milk has a way of erupting) and then let it cool down before we put it back in the container and into the fridge. And that’s how we get milk in Bhutan.


(As for eggs, I buy them from one of the teachers I work with, Lopen Sonam, who has 100 chickens.)