Three Small Birds

This morning, I woke up for the second time and saw Scott come into the bedroom. He was about to get into the shower after his morning run. “How was your run?” I groggily asked, as I normally do. “Did you see the old lady?” Scott was at the window, adjusting the curtains. Noticing the brighter than normal morning light, I continued, “It looks nice out there, huh?”

“If you look now you’ll be able to see a snow-capped mountain.” Even though it’s been weeks, maybe months, since we’ve had a view of the Himalayas, I hesitated; I had just woken after all. “Aren’t you going to look?” Scott pressed. “It’s going to go away soon.”

I got out of bed and, Scott was right, I saw beyond mountains, one snow-covered peak. The morning was beautiful with clouds scattered in front of the mountains.

Scott went to shower, I to the living room where there’s all windows. Immediately in front of the house are electrical lines and I noticed three small birds perched on them. Scott was right again. Within seconds, the birds and I watched as a wall of clouds moved in front of the one white peak.

Interesting Cultural Points of a Staff Meeting

• The principal opened up the meeting with a short clip from a video on meditation that featured an animated androgynous naked person with no hair sitting in Indian position. Before I came to Bhutan, I thought everyone here meditated. Now I know that, while meditation is a huge part of those who chose to lead a religious life, an average Bhutanese knows as much about meditation as an average American, which is likely to be very little.

• During our tea break – which, to my dismay, featured butter tea instead of normal black tea with milk and sugar – the principal entertained us with a slideshow titled, “Leadership Lessons with Barack Obama.” Each slide was a different picture of Obama with a generic line on leadership skills. For instance, one slide featured a closeup of Obama whispering into Hillary Clinton’s ear with the line, “Yesterday’s opponent is today’s collaborator.” Another slide featured Obama in a cowboy hat and the line read, “Don’t be afraid to experiment.” While watching the slideshow, I tried to pretend I was entertained and amused as I could sense the principal glancing over at me throughout the slideshow.

• While going through the upcoming school calendar of events, the staff realized that agriculture work is supposed to start up again next Saturday, 30 July. Apparently 30 July is an auspicious day, so the students simply cannot do agricultural work. When I asked Madam Kinzang, who was sitting next to me, why, she replied, “Because it’s an auspicious day. We’re not allowed to do work outside.” Again, why? “Because if we work outside, we might kill insects.”

Rika is the new Japanese volunteer. She’s going to teach PE just like Kazihiro did. Her first day was Wednesday, then Thursday she went to Trashigang with Tenzin, so today was her real first day actually in the classroom. In her I see myself as the new person, not that we’re very much alike. But I can recall all the “firsts.” The first morning assembly, the first time with the students, the first staff function, the first feeling of loneliness, the first conversations. And because she doesn’t speak Dzongkha or Sharchop (although already knows more than I do), I feel like I should speak to her. At tonight’s staff sick visit to Lopen Ugyen’s house, we were both the silent ones among the Dzongkha dominated conversations that oftentimes led to laughter. But her English is not that good either, so I don’t say as much to her as I would if I sensed that she was more comfortable. Our strongest similarity is our difference to everyone else. But in my over five months here, I am actually more a part of the staff, more a part of the students, the school, the country than she is. And that’s a very surprising thing to realize.

Kiran

Back in February I moved my newspaper club from Orkeeswa to Kanglung Primary School. The club is a lot bigger – 22 students ranging from grade 4 to 6 – and there’s a lot more hand holding, but overall it’s been a success with the inaugural issue of the KPS Observer having come out in June. And so, with a new semester, comes a new issue (or two, which is my hope).

There are around a handful of students in the club who have real reporting talent, who take initiative, think of their own story ideas, come to club excited with stories to hand in. And there’s one student in particular, Kiran (my favorite), who’d probably make a better reporter than some adults who write for Bhutanese newspapers. He’s a kid after my own heart.

This morning, the new PE teacher arrives. Her name is Rika and she’s from Japan. As I walked down to morning assembly, I thought, ‘Perfect. The newspaper club can do a story on the new PE teacher.’ I walked to my normal spot in front of 6A, my class. After morning prayer and meditation, the principal stepped forward to introduce Rika. At the start of his introduction, Kiran, who stands in the front of the 6A boys line, leans toward me and whispers, “Ma’am, we can interview her for the newspaper.”

My Favorite View in Bhutan

A Shift

For the past nine or ten years, my stress dreams have primarily been about school. There are usually two scenarios I find myself in, scenarios that seem pretty generic. Either it’s the end of the semester and I’ve just realized that I haven’t done any of the required work leading up to the exam, or I’m late to class and my college or high school is massively large and I can’t seem to find the building that it’s in or I can’t run fast enough to get there in time. You know when you’re trying to run in dreams and your legs are as heavy as big stones and you end up running in slow motion – that’s what would happen.

I remember talking to my Wrangell Sentinel co-worker, Kris, about this. I thought it was peculiar that I had been out of school for a few years and yet my subconscious was still channeling my stress to that environment. Kris said, “That will change.” We had that conversation five years ago.

Well, I think it’s finally changing, the shift of my stress dreams is taking place. Lately my stress dreams have had to do with layovers, mass transportation, travel. Last night I dreamt that Scott and I were in the midst of a layover. I don’t know where we had come from or where we were going, but the layover wasn’t that long. While we were in line getting food, I got occupied in a conversation with a stranger which made me incapable of ordering when it was my turn, as if I couldn’t do two things at once. Scott was looking at me really worried because he thought we’d miss our flight. My stress dream previous was the same with a few little changes. If I’m not on a layover, then I’m running from a bus to catch a certain subway that I just barely miss.

I’m glad that my stress dreams have finally changed phases. My subconscious is finally letting go of the student version of me. Of course, if I could have it my way, my conscious self would completely let go of stress.

Family Matters

For the second day of the Yongphu Tshechu, Karma, my neighbor and the father of one of my students Sonam, invited me to go with his family. I happily accepted the invitation. Karma’s family, who runs a local shop, set up a vendor’s booth at the tshechu so that’s where his family hung out during the mask dances. Karma made sure that I knew to come back to his family’s booth around lunchtime, so that’s where I found myself around 12:45 on the second day of the Yongphu Tshechu.

With a mother, a father, six children and a visiting aunt, Karma’s family really feels like a family, a machine, a happy machine – most of the time.

During lunch I happily stuffed myself with delicious food that they had packed from home as well as tea and ara. The parents and aunt were eating with me as were a few of the kids. Other kids were passed out under the booth tent, their hands holding on to some kind of candy, or running around. When we were all done, the parents beckoned the second daughter, Eyuphal, to clean up. Gesturing toward Eyuphal, the mother said, “My eldest.” While the mother’s English is fine, it’s rare that she’ll speak it. The comment was meant for me to hear, but Sonam, who is the eldest, heard it. I said, “Isn’t Sonam your oldest?” Sonam, in Sharchop, protested as well. The mother was kidding but Sonam’s face scrunched up and before I knew it, she was full on crying. The mother said, “Just joking,” but that did not comfort Sonam. I guess the second born has become the oldest in practice since Sonam is sometimes too sick to fill that role. Hearing that her mother places that distinction on her younger sister was too much for poor Sonam to handle at that very moment. Minutes later though, another joke was made, a joke not at Sonam’s expense, and Sonam happily laughed.

Yongphu Tschechu (and the Hottest Chilli Chop)

The way to the Yongphu temple has been traveled by Scott and I at least ten times. It has become all too familiar – that is, when I’m following Scott. As most people who know me are aware of, I am directionally challenged. I’m a brilliant follower but when left to my own sense of direction, I don’t know if I’m coming or going. Fortunately for me, directions were not needed. There is a path to the Yongphu temple. All I needed to know was where the path started, which I did, and the rest was as simple as following it. The trail to Yongphu has been carved in the ground over and over by hundreds of human feet, cow hooves, and dog paws. After roughly 30 minutes of following the dirt path up and up and up, I arrived at the Yongphu Lakhang.

The first days of tshechus are always less crowded. That’s what everyone says and it was true at the Yongphula Tshechu. Today was no exception. When the mask dances started up again after the lunch break, I was one of around 25 to 40 spectators. For most Bhutanese, tshechus are a dime a dozen. Even though we were granted holiday from school in order to attend the tshechu, most of my fellow teachers said they didn’t plan to go. They’ve been seeing tshechus for as long as they can remember. Mask dance, schmask dance.

For me, though, it’s magical. Especially on the first day when I don’t have to stretch my neck, stand on tippy-toes, or fight the crowds to see the action. Today, I happily sat on the low, white-painted temple rock wall and watched as brilliant colors danced before me. I’m memorized by the twirling, by the way the fabric, all the many layers of it, is bunched up in just the right way and cinched at the monk’s waist by a woven belt and floats up at the slightest turn.

By the heavy wooden masks worn by the dancers that are strapped on so tightly I often wonder how they breathe.


By the way they dance circularly in a circle, turning and jumping and turning.

That means there’s no one to follow if they happen to miss a step. And they do miss steps. The mask dancers aren’t perfect. I even saw two lose their balance so much they had to put a hand on the ground to catch themselves. And that is what they’re dancing on – ground. With bare feet, they dance on the uneven rock surface of the temple ground. Each dance lasts anywhere between 30 minutes to 90 minutes, these slow methodical steps that intermittently crescendo into my favorite turns and twirls and circular jumps. To the left of me was the music stage, an open air booth where the drummers, cymbalists, and horn blowers sat. Sometime during the first or second mask dance of the afternoon, long horns poked out below the roof of the temple, non-dancing monks stuck their heads out and watched from individual windows. When a dance was over, the dancers exited one by one through the front entrance of the temple, the curtain pulled aside, and someone inside grabbing the dancers as they passed the threshold as if they needed that extra push just to get off stage.

During one of the dances this afternoon, the monks came out in long, full silk robes, each a different color and pattern. Equally impressive head dresses trailed behind the masks but, with momentum, would end up covering them. There was some sort of frame under the robe that broadened the hips and added extra space from which the bottom material could twirl from.

With the sun shining during this monsoon season day, I eventually got too hot sitting on the stone wall and moved to a covered sitting area. One of my students came over and offered me a chili chop, a deep fried green chili. My experience with chili chops in the past has led me to believe that they tend to not be that hot. So I made the brutal mistake of chomping the whole thing down, seeds and all, and found out that I had just been given the hottest chili chop that’s ever been made in Bhutan. I was in the middle of having a chili attack – when I can’t seem to dampen the fire that is inside my mouth and has spread all over my head, out of my pores and eye ducts (I’m getting hot just thinking about it) – when my neighbor, Karma, comes over and sits down next to me. I kept drinking a pepsi I had bought earlier in the afternoon in hopes of the liquid quelling the attack, but it seemed to just enhance it. The only thing I could do was to wait for it to subside. And it did eventually. As I tried to talk pleasantly with my neighbor, the sweating stopped, the crying stopped, the chili attack stopped.

For the remainder of the afternoon performance, Karma and I sat in the shade and watched a dance about a hunter who, with his two hunting dogs, kills a deer.

The MCs of the event have many responsibilities. They entertain the crowd when the dancers are taking a break. They sometimes tell lewd jokes. They wear costumes that feature a phallus stitched on the back.

They help the dancers when they run into trouble with their own costumes.

Animal masks.

The sparse crowd. This summer tshechu in Yongphu tends to not attract big crowds as most of the locals are in their fields farming. In fact, I heard the Yongphu temple holds this tshechu to bring luck to the farmers.

More dancing.


For many, shopping is the best part of a tshechu.

For others, it's the gambling.

At the end of the day's entertainment, all the very important guests, including the Rinpoche who's wearing the red and white scarf, exit their viewing box.

A Button

Sometimes I get glimpses of good teaching days. Like today. Today was a decent teaching day. For most of the day, I was upbeat. There were fleeting moments when I was on the verge of frustration, but I never crossed the line into actual frustration. Today I found myself standing in front of a class, and this unfamilier, exaggerated teacher voice is coming out of my mouth, and I’m trying so hard to make this story about a man who gets an elephant delivered to him sound like the most interesting story in the world, so hard that I actually start believing that it is.

A thought popped into my head as I walked home from work – ‘What if I actually enjoyed teaching?’ What if? I’d be in heaven right now since teaching is about all I do here. I thought about people who do jobs they hate for years, decades (not that I hate teaching). Does that actually happen? How could it? I wish there was a button I could push, an “I love teaching” button, where pushing it would actually make it true. My life would be so easy.

For the last period of the day, instead of clubs, all the class teachers were supposed to monitor their classes. Since no one told me this until seconds before what I thought was club time, I didn’t have anything prepared for my class. But they have English homework due tomorrow and some were working on Dzongkha, so I just allowed them to work on their own as I did my own work. And it was really nice. Students came up to me periodically to ask me the simple past tense of a verb (what their homework is on) or the spelling of a word. Some turned in their homework early. One of the students, who’s also in my newspaper club, wanted to start working on the next issue of the newspaper. I love this student. So we discussed what he should work on and off he went, with a camera in hand and a piece of paper in his gho to take notes on. It felt comfortable to just be in the company of my class, easy, simple, as if we’ve been together for years.