Ground breaking ceremony at Kizom

Tuesday mornings there is no assembly at Tang school. The students are in their classes and all of the staff, including lab assistants, are helping with reading. Yesterday I was in class 3 reading "Little Hiawatha" when ther was a commotion- dog fight. Then the teacher disappeared. There was a big discussion and it was decided that the Canadian teachers should go to Kizom for a ceremony. The Indian ambassador was to be there as India is financing the building of rock walls to prevent flooding in the valley. 

 There is a tourist campground financed by the WWF and tents were set up. 

After lots of waiting the officials arrived, Catherine and I were treated like dignitaries. Speeches (not us) and then the students performed traditional dances as did the locals. There was a very local masked dance, with giant dancers.  A special lunch of local foods provided by locals included buckwheat noodles, which I had not had before. 

We danced as it seemed as though the dancing would not stop until we participated. The women who were spectators laughed hard every time we passed them with our rather clumsy efforts at a graceful Bhutanese dance. It was a very hot day and there are no hats worn at official function -several older men created shade from branches they wore on their heads. 

After the lunch people wandered home along the roads and pathways. We walked part way back to school, but were soon scooped up into a car and jostled homewards along the bumpy road. The older woman we were walking with arrived about 10 minutes after us, such is the speed of car travel.