Saying Goodbye

Damn it all. 

This afternoon I had two students and their younger siblings over for tea.  They gobbled up one of my rice cooker chocolate cakes.  

Two girls who have been oh so helpful all year.  Dawa Dem lives alone a lot of the year and looks after her 3 younger sisters.  She is 16 in grade 9, they are 12, 10 and 8 years old.  She cooks and cleans.  

Her parents are quite poor and their cardamon crop lost money this year - it was too dry. 

We walked this evening and she (sort of) told me about her kidney disease and how her father is quite sad because they cannot cure it.  She has not gone to the hospital in Thimphu for her check ups since 2012 because she does not like when they admit her.  It is unclear to me whether the disease is curable and they cannot afford it, or if it is not curable.  

I feel so helpless.  

I am aching to come back next year and teach her - she was SO responsive and dedicated in class, but had no time to do her homework.  Next year her younger siblings will stay in their village and go to the village school and she will be here as a boarder.

Dawa Dem running the school marathon

At the class picnic with Namgay and I

The class 9 and 11 students left today after their last exam. It was a wild exodus. Buses and taxis and walking.  Mattresses and suitcases and boxes.  All piled on top of vehicles and stuffed inside with the students.  Excitement and tears, although the Bhutanese do not cry a lot.  Durga Raj, who greeted me every morning with a lyrical "good morning ma'am,"  poked his head out of the bus and in the same musical voice cheerfully chanted "gooood bye ma'am." 

Good bye class 9B, C and D.  You have no idea of the impact you have had on me.  I will miss you terribly.