Introducing Tshering Yangchen

When I came to Bhutan I learned about pujas quickly since my vice principal had one the very first week of school. Pujas are religious ceremonies performed for various occasions – new house, new car, a sickness in the family – for the purpose of keeping away demons and bad spirits and bad luck. I knew my school would be having a puja, since they have one every year, but the date was unknown. A lama is consulted to decide when. A puja is also referred to as a rimdro.

Finally, a couple of weeks ago, I heard that the puja would be on Thursday and Friday. I heard I was on the serving committee. Two other teachers and I would be serving food to all the guests. Guests? What guests? My head is always filled with so many questions when this sort of thing comes up. I was told I would have to be at the school at 6 am and stay until late. How late ranged between 7 pm and 10 pm.

Two days before the scheduled puja I heard from a teacher that it had been postponed until next week because the secondary school was having their rimdro on the same days and the lamas would all be busy there.

Now it’s next week, Tuesday, lunchtime. At morning assembly this morning, the principal announced (in Dozongkha, which I had to get translated) that rimdro preparations would be starting after lunch. Preparations for a Thursday rimdro. What we’ll be doing for one and a half days for preparation is beyond me, but apparently there is a lot of preparation.

The students have no classes until Saturday. The majority of them will attend the rimdro on Thursday, but some have volunteered or have been selected to help out so they will be coming to school tomorrow with the teachers. Friday will be spent cleaning up and getting the classrooms back to normal for classes.

After lunch (which I’m currently on), I have to go back to school with a knife, a bowl (and a roller and slotted spoon, if I had them). What we’re making, I don’t know. I’ll let you know when I get back.

*

We made fried cookies (can a cookie be fried or does it have to be baked?), lots of them. When I’ve gone to lakhangs, I’ve often been offered these snacks. It never occurred to me that people make them at home, although I kind of wondered where they did come from. When you do eat them at someone’s house or at a lakhang, they can be pretty basic, not too fancy. But for a rimdro, the cookies are supposed to be elegantly elaborate. I watched at first as my fellow female coworkers made intricate designs and formations. Dechen took the time to show me some tricks. I was pretty amateur my first afternoon of making them, but by the next morning when we made another batch, I was getting quite good. In fact, I taught Dechen how to make a butterfly – the student became the teacher. As everyone admired my unique design, I felt so proud of myself. It seems silly, but in this country, doing anything culturally relevant well is an achievement. I can’t speak the language, I don’t practice Buddhism, but I can make a damn good fried cookie design.




Monks were at the school all day Wednesday. They had first arrived late Tuesday night and they would the first ones to arrive Thursday morning. For a monk, rimdros and pujas are a large part of their working life. Not only are they in charge of preparations – making all the butter statues and other displays and so many other things that I don’t know about – they are also in charge of a day or days full of chanting, warbling, and playing instruments. The monks are in charge of accepting all the donations and preparing the offerings table. They give out the handfuls of raw rice and maize, the blessed water and ara. There is so much. And they get compensated by whoever is having the puja. This is how full-time monks get paid, besides getting a stipend from the government. But for gomchens, also known as lay monks – they do everything full-time monks do except they can get married and have families – conducting pujas is their only form of payment.

Whenever there is any sort of meal or refreshment break or tea break during the puja, the monks always get served first.






I kept waiting for the rush of work to begin. Prior to the rimdro, when I told people I was on the serving committee, they all commented on how much work it was and how busy I would be. It wasn’t like that for me. Because I was new and foreign, I think I was let off the hook quite a bit. For my co-workers, it took more energy to explain what I needed to do than just doing it themselves. Which meant that all day Wednesday, besides making the fried cookies, I pretty much just sat around looking for the smallest of jobs to do, anything to keep me busy. My biggest job was drying the dishes that the students washed. Even though I was literally doing nothing but staring in front of me and periodically interjecting into mostly-Dzongkha/Sharchop conversations, I couldn’t just whip out a stack of papers to grade. Yes, I was at school and, yes, we were preparing for a school rimdro, but academics and schoolwork were the last things on anyone’s mind and I knew that everyone would rather see me do nothing at all than do something that didn’t have to do with the puja. This sort of dynamic happens a lot here. I find it hard to deal with sometimes.

*

So instead of a lot of work, I found that the school’s rimdro was a lot of eating and snacking and sipping tea. On Thursday, the day of the actual rimdro, there was either a snack, a meal, or a refreshment every hour and a half. Before 10 am, I’d already had three cups of tea and two breakfasts. At 11, there was a refreshment and at 12, lunch. And since I wasn’t running around serving or making sure the serving was done right, all I was doing was eating. It really was this odd feeling to just be in the midst of a machine – the puja machine. Everyone around me had been to hundreds of them and had also been the host of many throughout their lives. There I was, just watching them talk in Dzongkha, exchange directions or suggestions or orders. At one point Rinchen, who was on the serving committee as well, was crying. Apparently, the vice principal had reprimanded us, the serving committee, and I missed the whole thing. I was right there but missed the whole thing. Usually, my staff members are pretty cognizant of informing me of what’s going on, what’s being said, but the rimdro happenings didn’t allow room for that. The feeling of being an obvious outsider was a bit hard to take, especially since it lasted for hours on end, but I had to just accept it, to deal.

*

Aside from eating, we also had to pray and throw rice to cleanse our sins. Around every hour or so, someone would tell me that it was time to go into the room where the monks and Khenpo were conducting the actual ceremony. I’d grab my rachu, head upstairs to the new staff room where everything was taking place, take my shoes off, and enter cautiously with everyone else. At times like these I just go with the flow. I prostrate if everyone else is prostrating. I put my hands together in prayer if everyone else is. I sit in Indian-style. I accept handfuls of dried rice and maize and throw small bits of it at a time when everyone else does. I cup my right hand and have blessed water or ara poured into in so that I can take a small sip and garnish the top of my head with the reset. Instead of meditating through, as I imagine everyone else is during intervals of not doing anything, my mind wanders to how strange all of this is. How beautiful and different. How foreign.

The students’ actual involvement in the school rimdro was slight in my opinion. There were around 30 students workers who had been a part of the whole thing, several of them even sleeping at the school to ensure their early start for work in the morning. But for most of the student body, for whom I figured the rimdro was primarily for, the day was about hanging out with friends for a few hours and waiting for their meal of dessi (sweet rice) and suja (butter tea). Probably less than half of them were able to go through the ceremony room to make an offering or receive a blessing.

I found myself happier than normal to see the students. After all, they could only speak English with me and I was craving some conversation after being stuck in Dzongkha and Sharchop land for too many hours. But they didn’t stay that long and mostly they were wrapped up in the events of the rimdro and being free to have fun with their friends.





As evening neared on Thursday, the ceremony part of the rimdro was wrapping up. Dinner had yet to be served, but the monks would be finishing up their chanting and instrument playing. The students had already come and gone. It was time again – the last time – for all the teachers to go into the room. This time was longer than usual. The monks paraded the boy and girl figures, which were meant to represent the students, around the room and out the door as the rest of us threw rice at it. I’m not exactly sure what is done with them but I got the idea that they will be thrown in the river as an offering. Throughout the rimdro, offerings of old clothing and money were given to the figures and placed beside them. I don’t know what happens with these items.


At some point the instrument playing and the chanting ended and the Khenpo started talking. This is where I really spaced out, my mind wandering to a place I cannot recall, just somewhere else. Around 30 minutes into his speech, the Khenpo addressed me specifically. I was jarred back to the present, back to the room. One of the teachers translated as the Khenpo directed his attention to me. He said he could tell that I was different, that he could see in my eyes that I was really absorbing Bhutan and its culture. He said as long as there was goodness inside of me, goodness would materialize. And vice-versa. Then he asked if I wanted a Bhutanese name. I recalled that the Japanese volunteer who had left when I arrived had a Bhutanese name. It didn’t occur to me that this was how he must have gotten it. Of course, I accepted. I got up off the floor, walked to where the Khenpo was sitting. As I’ve expressed before, I never really know what to do, but seeing as how I was before the Khenpo and he had a stick in his hand, I bowed my head. Usually with a blessing, the stick rests on your head for less than a second. This time, it laid there for some moments. I guess he had to think. When the Khenpo lifted the weight of the stick off my head, I looked at him and he said, “Tshering Yangchen.”

I am Tshering Yangchen.

*

As a thank you to the Khenpo and the monks, the principal and some of the teachers, including me, danced and sang. I didn’t sing of course, but the steps to some traditional Bhutanese dances – being a simple series of back and front or side-to-side footing – are fairly easy to pick up quickly. I held the hands of my co-workers, listened to the lift and fall of their voices, and, as one body, in front of the monks and Khenpo, we moved.

The blessing of the new school building. In conjunction with the annual school rimdro, the monks consecrated the new administration building which also holds two classrooms. This is standard in Bhutan. All new houses, apartments, cars must blessed before use.


The best part. While the student body didn’t have that much to do with the actual rimdro, every single student gets their share of tsho (blessed food), which is really a bunch of junk food – biscuits, fried things, dried ramen, puffed rice, and other edible items. The Saturday after the rimdro was spent distributing the tsho. A few students came prepared with plastic bags, but most of them stuffed the blessed food in their ghos or held in the folds of their tego.

Sacred Lake

No meat, no garlic, no onions, no eggs – not the day or night before and certainly not the day of. These were the rules for going to the sacred lake above Khaling, known to Bhutanese as Daling Tso. We were supposed to be as clean and pure as possible. Once we reached the lake, if we reached the lake, no alcohol, no swimming, no washing your face in the lake. There is a lot of superstition surrounding the most sacred lake in Eastern Bhutan. There are certain times of the year when it’s okay to go and certain times of the year when you must not go. If any of these rules are broken, it could mean losing your way, a violent rainstorm, even an earthquake. Once, supposedly, a few boys decided to swim in the lake. The next day, an earthquake occurred. Because of this, the lake is also shrouded in mystery. Many Bhutanese who live in Khaling are hesitant to reveal how to get to the lake for fear that their directions may cause a natural disaster. Visitors in search of the lake have been told it takes anywhere between three hours to two days to get there. No one wants to be at fault for disturbing the sacredness of the lake.

Scott and I had known about the lake for some time, had heard stories of failed attempts. We were definitely interested. Khaling is located less than an hour’s drive from Kanglung and the hike didn’t sound that strenuous. Rinchen’s husband had just told us stories from his secondary school days of hiking from school to the lake and higher onto the ridge. He said from the school to the lake it took about 4 hours. So when Sonam Tashi, a lecturer at the college who Scott was co-teaching a First Aid course with, found out that Scott and I both like to camp and hike, he proposed an overnight trip to Daling Tso. Of course, Scott and I said yes.

It’s the getting to places that’s usually the greatest adventure. Scott and I have hitchhiked and walked many kilometers since being in this country. For this trip, we had the advantage of Sonam Tashi’s car. We – Sonam Tashi, an assistant lecturer Sangay, Rachel, Scott and I – left Kanglung after work on Saturday and were in Khaling by lunch time.

Most of the group wanted to get something in our stomachs before starting the hike. A person is hard pressed to find anything in a Bhutanese food establishment that doesn’t have onions. So we ate rice with fried cheese and a side dish of chilies. After lunch, we drove to Khaling’s renowned higher secondary school thinking that it was the jumping off point for the hike. We were wrong about it being the starting point, but we ended up running into Nick, a Canadian teacher with BCF, who enlisted some of this students who’ve been to Daling Tso to help us with the beginning of the hike. He had offered to get one of his students to actually take us the whole way, but we declined thinking about lack of tent space and the amount of food we’d brought. I think we also declined because we thought it wouldn’t be that hard to find the lake. We left the car at the school, walked back to town, and soon we were on the outskirts of Khaling on our way to the lake.

Not too far into the hike, the secondary school boys had to leave us. They thought long and hard

and produced us with a map of how to get to the sacred lake.

Off we went. The day was glorious. There were some clouds but the sun was out. Blue skies. A perfect day for a hike. We were all in good spirits. Scott, Sonam, and Sangay walked ahead as Rachel and I hiked at our own pace having good conversation.


At one point, Sangay remembered that he had doughnuts in his bag. At first, we debated calling some people to find out whether doughnuts have eggs in them. Since none of us knew for absolute certainty, we abandoned them at a yak herder’s house just to be safe. That’s how strict people are about this lake. No eating eggs, not even a trace of egg in a doughnut (that is, if doughnuts indeed have eggs).

We followed the “map” as best we could. Around 5:30, we got to a nice spot and decided to set up camp. Even if we had reached the lake that first day, we wouldn’t have camped near it. Sonam wanted to drink alcoholic beverages and, of course, we couldn’t do that near the lake. Tents went up. I started cooking a curry on Scott’s camp stove, Sangay set to making rice over a fire, and others went looking for water. The search was not fruitful, but we weren’t concerned; we’d get water the next morning from the lake. We hadn’t carried enough for two days of hiking as well as cooking.

We had a great night by a fire eating dinner, drinking some beverages, and talking. The temperature had cooled and although it hadn’t rained yet, we were almost sure it would. We kept hearing thunder getting closer and closer, and lightning lit up the valley.

A lot of the conversation was filled with excitement about the next morning and getting to the lake. We planned to wake up early, pack everything up, and eat breakfast by the lake. We figured it wouldn’t take more than an hour at most.

We happened to kill the fire and slip into our tents minutes before the sky opened up and unleashed hours of rain. Thank God for good tents with reliable rain flies. Most of us slept fitful sleeps – except for Sangay who, I heard, slept like a baby – before waking up around 5:30 to start the day.

At this point we were still optimistic about reaching the lake in no time at all. Partly because we were pretty much out of water, and partly because we believed the map and the boys’ directions. We reached a pile of rocks. The map showed a branching off to the right, so we explored to the right of the rocks. It didn’t look promising, so we continued up. And up. And up. Soon, hours had passed and there was still no sign of the lake. We were all hungry, somewhat dehydrated from drinking the night before, and not as optimistic as we had been at 6 am. Actually, that’s not true. Rachel was still very sure the lake was somewhere close, nearby. She sensed we were almost there.

Soon it started to snow, and we got to a point high enough where the snow was sticking. Sometimes I hate snow. I hated it at that moment and for many moments afterward.

We decided to stop, melt snow for water, and cook breakfast. Scott’s camp stove was acting up, as it sometimes tends to do, so Sangay and Sonam built a fire. We ended up staying at that spot for a couple of hours. It took some time to collect enough snow to melt and boil for tea, an oatmeal breakfast, to fill up our water bottles, and to make more rice for lunch (at the insistence of Sonam and Sangay. I love rice, but the Bhutanese love rice). After getting some tea and hearty oatmeal into us, we all started feeling better. I stopped hating snow as much, especially since it was our savior.

Despite Rachel’s strong belief that the lake was just around the corner, we all unanimously decided to turn around and head back. We were hours from our campsite and still more hours from Khaling town and Sonam’s car. We would look for the lake on the way down. Mother Nature was not as generous with good weather as she had been the day before. We headed the way we came in a thick fog.

Maybe this was all the magic of the sacred lake. Maybe the Bhuddist God looking down at us didn’t believe our group deserved to reach the lake. Maybe we had been too cocky and sure of ourselves.

As we got lower and lower, Scott, Sonam, and Sangay explored different ways we could’ve gone, looking for the elusive lake, but to no luck. It was nowhere. We even consulted the map a few more times.

Eventually we admitted defeat, reached our campsite, and continued our trip towards town, having not reached the sacred lake. All was not lost, though. Our group was intact. We were still enjoying each other’s company. The rain had not come down in more than a drizzle. No earthquakes had started. We knew where we were going. And we had a full pot of rice strapped to Sonam’s bag.

When we got to the streambed, we stopped for lunch. Even though it wasn’t as hot as when we first passed the tempting water the day before, Scott took a dip, a quick dip. Then we all settled down to a lunch of rice and cabbage ezzie (cabbage mixed with chilies and onions) and whatever other morsels of food we found in our bags.

We had no problem getting back to town. Past various camps for yak herders, past sheep and horses, down a steep forest, and eventually back to Khaling.


As much as we all wanted to reach the lake, I think most of us knew deep down that there was a chance we wouldn’t reach it. By the time we reached town, I was over it. I was just happy to be back on flat ground. We piled into Sonam’s car and I happily sunk into the back seat expecting to fall asleep on the way back to Kanglung. Early on in the car ride, Sonam turned down the car music and spoke like a camp counselor, giving us a pep talk about how we shouldn’t be disappointed, that we all still had an adventure. Somehow I felt that maybe Sonam needed to hear the pep talk himself.

A look back at where we'd just been. Where we reached was covered in clouds.

Sunny Walk

One A Day Is Enough For Me

After a half day of school, I rushed to the college to meet Scott for Sherubtse’s rimdro. I got there just in time for lunch. In the morning, I had heard from the primary school’s field the sounds of horns and drums and cymbals – typical sounds of a puja in session.

In the past couple of years, the college has experienced some misfortunes – deaths, a stabbing. When Je Khempo was in Kanglung a couple weeks ago, he had advised the college that they should perform a rimdro at the school, the kind of rimdro that’s very grand, both in size and expense. This particular rimdro would rid the school of all it’s bad spirits and demons, to properly cleanse the school, the staff, and the student body. Days before the actual ceremony, college students visited staff members and students and solicitated donations for the rimdro. Apparently 60,000 ngultrums was needed, the equivalent of roughly USD$1,350. Some of this goes to the monks for the rimdro preparations. I imagine some goes towards food and refreshments for rimdro participants and the monks, and some goes towards buying offerings. And there are likely a number of other rimdro expenses that I don’t know about.

After eating lunch, Scott and I met up with another lecturer, Sonam Tashi, and we all went into the college’s multi-purpose hall where the rimdro was taking place. The very large space was elaborately decorated with a stage and set up for many visitors.

There were rugs and mats laid out around the circumference of the room. Most of the lecturers and staff sat in one area together and the college students filled in the rest of the space. I saw and admired intricately woven rachus on the females. The males used their white kabneys to cover their legs and the open space in between that’s created by sitting Indian-style.

Unfortunately, Scott didn’t have a kadney, so the open space between his legs was uncomfortably exposed. In fact, sitting Indian-style for Scott is excrutiating. Scott is a fabulous athlete, but he has almost zero flexibility.

I ended up only staying for a short bit, seeing a small portion of the rituals involved with such a puja. The monks had made a male figure and a female figure. Students, staff members, and visitors of the puja were supposed to offer things to the figures – old ghos, kiras, rachus, other pieces of clothing, or else money. Supposedly, offering these figures takes the place of the actual people attending the rimdro. I’m not entirely sure what that means.

Notice the piles of clothing and bags besides the figures.

The table of offerings.


At some point, Sonam and Scott needed to stretch their legs outside, and that’s when I left. There was still hours of the puja to go. The thing that I’ve come to realize about pujas is they’re really spiritual for people who believe in them. For people who don’t believe or – more to fact – don’t understand (i.e. me), pujas can be somewhat boring, mainly because you can end up sitting in the same position for hours. I know that sounds pretty insensitive and culturally disrespectful, but it’s how I feel. Don’t get me wrong, I still feel awe, but awe only lasts for so long at any given time. What compounds the boredom is the fact that the not understanding or the not believing makes me feel inadequate, makes me feel small. To be in a room full of those who have so much faith and devotion, for hours on end, and to not feel an inkling of it.

I left the college and went to lower market to do a little shopping. I ended up running into my principal who was buying a boxful of offerings for another puja. This one was taking place at the public temple. There was a brief announcement at school about attending this puja, but I had assumed that he was talking about the college one. When he asked if I was going, I told him no. One puja in a day was enough for me.

Bhutanese Baby Shower

Just this past weekend Samir, one of Scott’s lecturer friends who’s from California, was raving about chungey, a thick drink of fermented millet and rice traditionally served during Bhutanese baby showers. Thus far, I haven’t been that impressed with Bhutan’s alcoholic choices – Druk 11,000, the major beer; ara, a clear alcohol made locally in villages; and Bhutan Highland, a whiskey. Hearing about Samir’s fondness for a drink I hadn’t tried yet was encouraging. So you can imagine my surprise and excitement when I saw the notice this morning at school regarding the staff attending a baby shower of a teacher who had just come back from medical leave, a teacher I hadn’t yet met. Attending the baby shower meant canceling dance practice with some of my students, which I was a bit disappointed about, but I’ve gotten the sense that it’s faux pas not to attend these functions unless you have a really good excuse, like being sick. Plus, it was a chance to try chungey.

I also don’t mind attending this type of event as it’s another slice of Bhutanese life, a window into their customs. I had an idea of what would happen – tea, puffed rice, and biscuits would be served; the teachers would all talk amongst ourselves; we’d see the baby; the end.

After classes ended, all the teachers gathered at the school gate and, by foot or by car, we all made our way up the hill to the new mother’s house. Once we had regrouped, we entered the home. The majority of our crowd seated ourselves in the living room before the women decided to split of into the prayer room – “I like sitting on the floor better,” was Madam Kinzang’s reasoning – so our group became segregated by gender. This is typical. Six of us women were seated on small rugs on the floor while a couple of our female co-workers as well as the new mother served us tea and bowls of puffed rice and biscuits. As stated before, all of this was expected. Talking ensued. Usually I fade away into my own thoughts as most of the conversation is in Dzongkha and Sarchop, but this afternoon I was in the mood to make an effort. I asked questions, and while I, of course, allowed room for languages I didn’t understand, I asserted myself and English as much as I could. No one seemed to mind. I became part of the laughter, which felt good and refreshing.


After the tea was drunk, the mugs were collected and small bowls of savory snacks appeaed. A bottle of white wine and a big jug of ara were presented, and being one of only two women in the room who drinks at all, I was asked my preference. While the wine looked appetizing, I asked Madam Kesang what she was drinking – beer – so beer it was. Four big bottles were brought in for the two of us to consume.

Before we started drinking though, the women went to view the baby. The joint staff gift wrapped in red cellophane paper was brought in as well as a white scarf – the same kind of scarf that I offered to the Khenpo at Zangdopelri, the same white scarf that’s hung by photographs of Bhutan’s kings. We entered the room and the quiet, awake baby was in her mother’s arms snuggled in warm blankets.

Madam Kinzang draped the white scarf over the baby’s head and wrapped it around her body offering blessings of good health and a long life. She also laid an orange envelope of money on the baby as well. The rest of us “ooh”ed and “aah”ed and soon we were back in the prayer room eating savory snacks and Madam Kesang and I were drinking Druk 11,000.

It was at this point that a tray of small bowls was brought into our room. The bowls were filled with thick brown liquid with chunks of fried egg floating around – it was the chungey.

My excitement at seeing the famed drink died within seconds as I was handed my very own bowl and took a whiff. My nostrils led me to believe that chungey was not going to be drink of choice, and my nostrils were right. I took one sip and had to feign not wanting to vomit. “How do you like it, ma’am?” my fellow teachers asked. They knew I had been wanting to try the chungey. “It’s… interesting,” was all I could possibly say.

I could only take about five small sips of the chungey before giving up. When I asked whether it was okay to leave the rest, I was told that it was, indeed, okay. Other co-workers’ bowls were left half full as well. The beer, on the other hand, was not okay to leave. If a bottle was open, it had to be finished. Remember, only Madam Kesang and I were drinking. Everyone else, since they weren’t drinking, was told they could get their dinner. Dinner! Dinner for fifteen guests!

At baby showers, the hosts – the mother and her husband and whatever help they can finagle – are required to serve dinner to their guests on top of tea, drinks, snacks, and chungay. Can you imagine? A mother comes home after just giving birth and is bombarded for up to a month with visitors and guests who she must prepare food and drink for and serve. I was told that in the west, the tradition is even more strenuous. Guests come with bamboo containers of raw rice and must leave with the containers filled with cooked rice, eggs, and meat. To my western point of view, the whole system of a Bhutanese baby shower sounds like way too much work at a time when not much energy can be spared. The worst is that our group hardly saw the mother at all, and I think that’s normal. It’s not like she ever sat down with us, drank tea, ate snacks, or joined in the laughter. She was only in and out of the room a few times, and that was to serve us.

As others filed out of the room and came back with bowls heaping with rice and other Bhutanese delicacies, Madam Kesang and I were drinking beer, with the emphasis on me. I kept asking, “So I have to finish this beer?” Usually, Bhutanese are so polite and accommodating, they will cater to any need or desire. This time, there was no getting out of it – “Yes, you must finish the bottle. And don’t forget, there’s this other open bottle as well.” The whole scene was laughable, especially since I was partly drunk.

As may not be ordinary at other baby showers, the topic of abortion and – later – protection came up. I was the cause of such a topic to be brought up. I occurred to me that I knew nothing of the issue in this Himalayan country. Madam Kinzang who was sitting next to me told me she had a friend in teachers college who had had three abortions illegally, since that’s, as I was told by my co-workers, the only way to do it. She went to Phuntsholing, a border town in the southwest, and had the procedures down in India. One of the times was after the “abortion pill” didn’t work. Although Madam Kinzang herself is against the idea of abortion – many Bhutanese are, due to the Buddhist ideology of not killing – she supported her friend. It wasn’t the right time for her friend, she said. Also, having an abortion and making it public in any way is the cause of shame, especially for the families involved.

The idea of waiting and the notion of family planning seem to always amaze my female co-workers. They see Scott and I and wonder what we’re doing. I tell them we’ve been together for four years but are not married, and they say, “So if you find that you don’t like each other, then you’ll just split, just like that?” While I say I hope that never happens, that is about right. “And you use protection?” I’ve been asked. When I talk about the pill, they are shocked – “I could never remember to take a pill everyday,” some have told me.

“We do things differently here,” I’ve been told. “We meet someone, move in together, and start having children. Too fast.” In many instances, “marriage” in Bhutan means a man and woman living together presumably with children or trying to have them; it does not always mean an actual marriage certificate or a ceremony. One of my co-workers, Dechen, who has three boys, said the only reason her and her husband got a marriage certificate was to ensure that Dechen was able to accompany her husband to Australia when he pursued his Masters.

I learned about the concept of marriage in Bhutan early on in my stay in Kanglung, mainly because Scott and I are not married and that’s perplexing to most Bhutanese. In their eyes, we are married, only we don’t have kids. But the information about abortion was new to me. I explained to my co-workers at the baby shower that, in the states, abortion is a divisive issue throughout the country, especially on the political level. I asked if abortion was openly talked about in Bhutan, whether it was written about in the papers or talked about by politicians. “It’s not right now,” said Madam Kesang, “but soon it will be. In the papers now, you read about babies being abandoned on the street.”

After most of my coworkers, the women and the men, had finished their dinner, Madam Kesang and I still hadn’t even started. Soon, everyone who had eaten, left. I felt bad keeping the hosts but Madam Kesang insisted it was okay. She is very good friends with them. So we finally got our dinner after finishing the opened beers and the husband joined us. The wife still didn’t sit down. Instead she walked back and forth between the food and the baby, picking at the food with her fingers. When we sat down in the living room to start eating, the husband, who’s a Dzongkha lecturer at Sherubtse, asked if I wanted to marry Scott. Even the men wonder what we’re doing.

Close to when we were done eating, there was a knock at the door. A high-ranking monk walked in – you can tell a high-ranking monk by the fact that he’s wearing yellow in the folds of his robe – and sat with us. He was the head monk in the Trashigang Dzong and a friend of the husband’s. This got the mother moving around again, fetching tea and biscuits. Madam Kesang and I brought our dishes to the kitchen and finally left the baby shower.

We walked into the Kanglung night. We were right next to the college dorms and I saw male college students walking together with kabneys hung over their shoulder – it was time for their evening prayer. On our way, one of Madam Kesang’s boys ran from a lit doorway and joined us. “My kids can smell me,” she said.

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My coworkers: Madame Kinzang, Madam Rinchen, Madam Karma, Madam Tshering, Madam Kesang, and Madam Pema.