Weekend in Thimphu and Chemgang

I met Matt, Sarah Schmitt and Dave in Thimphu Saturday night for Mexican food and margaritas.  The drinks were delicious, although some of the group had some difficulty the next morning.  We all crashed at Matt's upon the hill above Thimphu.  
Three of us were able to go for a hike and some medical volunteers, Dallas, a nurse from Sydney and Claudia, a doctor from Invacargill NZ joined us.  

Lovely day. 

Met some teachers who live at Royal Thimphu College, where Lucy, Matt's partner, works.  They had walked up to the goempa from the other side. Lovely views.  

Matt munching on Maggi to cure the tequila effects

 What did you do for the weekend????

View of Thimphu and the golden Buddha

School News

THE NEWS TEEAM AT THE END OF THE BROADCAST

On Saturday mornings students create a news broadcast for assembly.  During the first term the class 11 students alternated English and Dzongkha most Saturdays.  This week it was my class 9B who had to create the news in English.  This group is, let's say, difficult to discipline. 

I take the challenge and introduce reading for information, paraphrasing and summarizing in all of my English classes.  I spend time trying to find interesting news items, and get caught up in the King's Cup news from Thimphu. Students summarize, write, interview, rewrite and edit stories for 2 weeks. 

We have auditions for news readers.  Volunteers for the position of anchor change throughout the week. They are shy and the anchor is visible to the 704 students standing in the assembly ground.  The other readers are hidden in a classroom. The final anchor is a student with a high need for attention.  It is challenging.  I am a bit grumpy and lose my cool once. 

On Wednesday I was TOD and had to deliver the announcements at assembly.  There were no microphones. Colleagues said that my  booming voice was actually better than when I used a mike.  I got right on to finding mikes for Saturday morning. 

Mikes have still not arrived.  704 students and many teachers are standing patiently in lines.  I finally go to the Principal and ask him what to do.  Get told I do things too last minute and to put the kids all on stage.  Just as we are about to move tables out the sound system magically starts working. 

My students do a GREAT job of reading.  A few errors (six yearS old girl) jar my ears however we finish with top marks.   Lots of positive feedback from teachers and the Principal gets up and compliments us saying the students could all learn from class 9B.  

A great sense of accomplishment for the class. 
I am exhausted. 

DAWA DEM READING THE LOCAL NEWS

Musings and Flowers

Here are some photos of the flowers around the school campus.  They are lush and beautiful  Lush because of the immense amount of cow dung that gets washed into the flower beds. 

Food 

Great food in my kitchen these days.  Buckwheat flour made into banana bread.  The Bhutanese do not eat dessert or anything that is not spicy hot with plenty of chiles and very salty. When I described banana bread to a friend this evening I could see her nose curling with disgust at the thought. 

School 

Slowly easing back into the second term.  The "declaration of results" took a long time.  It is sort of like report cards, without the paper.  Each class has a topper, each subject has a topper, and each grade has its overall "toppers".  Very important.  As I am a class teacher, I had to gather the results from all 9 subject teachers and enter them into a computer programme.  The programme was well written by a teacher here, but only he had administrative rights and there were a few glitches.  I entered all of the marks three times before they would print out.  The only computer at the school with a functioning printer had viruses, so the process was frustrating and lengthy.  BCESIS will feel simple and straight forward when I get home! 

Fog and Humidity

Rob can attest to the fact that the fog is unlike anything we have ever experienced.  It got thicker after he left.  I thought I knew what rainy season meant prior to my summer break.  HA!  It rains more each day.  Un-believable.  Imagine wanting to light a candle because you have no power and everything is so humid that the matches are limp.  It took about 5 tries to light the match in the burner on the gas stove.  Luckily I have an electric lighter for the stove. I don't even want to think about the layers of fungus on my walls.  I scrape, spray, brush it off but the battle is constant. 

Students 

Lots of stories and comments and speeches about failure and trying again.  Suffering for the future of their families and the nation.  Some of it seems so unrealistic.  I asked them to write down the percentage they would like to achieve on the annual exam, and they all shoot for about 20 percent above what they have now.  When I ask them what they will do to get there the answers vary from "work harder" (they already study about 3 to 5 hours per day before and after school)  to "concentrate more".  The problem is a lack of understanding of the material and limited language skills. The amount of material they memorize is overwhelming. 

Consumables

Have you ever watched or been aware of what you consume around the house?  Living alone with limited access to some things, I have noticed the following:  I have only used 3 bars of soap, one of which has melted in the humidity, in 6 months.  YES  I wash every day.  Toothpaste does not disappear like it does at home.  2 tubes in 6 months.  Shampoo, still on the same bottle.  Face cream - am only 1/2 way through the expensive stuff my sista bought me for Christmas.  I hear that will change in winter as it gets dry and your face "cracks"??? 

Ok not so interesting but without television what else am I to think about? 

School Logo painted by a student 

Moth

As I was hanging out my laundry this evening, a moth attached itself to my wet shirt.  I wish the camera was a bit better, but I think you can see how large and beautiful it is.

A Quick Note

I was in my preferred grocery shop when there was a commotion.  A cow had stuck it's head int he window and run off with a large bunch of bananas.  The shop owner chased after the cow, retrieved most of the bananas. 

Must go update my marks.  I handed back my exams and had made some addition errors. 

Announcing: my first leech

I felt a tiny prick on my shin and looked under my Kira and there was the tiny little devil biting me.  I pulled it off and gave it to the students.  We were working in the garden. 
The stories from my colleagues who walked through the jungle for 2 to 9 hours to reach the villages where they were working for the election include: 

     •30 cm long leeches
     •leeches all over their necks
     •carrying a special "antiseptic" spray so the leeches do not attach. 

I have heard many gruesome stories and actually the local animals, cows and dogs mostly, have a terrible time with the leeches.  

I am on the hunt for a good leech photo. 

Musings from Bhutan

There is so much I would like to write about but will only contribute a few short notes as I still have marking to do today. 

I am quite pleased with my student's exams.  Some are strong, some are poor and some are mediocre.  However I learned a lot reading them, have lots of good ideas for second term and think that for class 9 they did quite well.  They write as well as or perhaps even better than my French Immersion students at home.  There was strong vocabulary and students made interesting comments. 

Beautiful weather yesterday in Thimphu and I traveled to Tshimilakha . .. with difficulty due to elections today.  The buses have all been sold out for days and taxis were hard to come by.  Once again a policeman helped me get a ride with a great guy in a TATA dump truck and a family that was also hitching a ride.  The driver took my number so we could be "sisters". 

Home to fog and fungus.  The mould on the walls is sure ugly.  Spent the evening and day scraping and brushing walls and cleaning everything else.  The walls get brown and black spots then it blooms into green blobs.  Fabric gets white fuzz.   Pillow is garbage. Big rug that the staff gave me for my housewarming is kind of stinky to put it mildly. The mould seems to be the thing that bugs me the most.

It poured right after I arrived home yesterday then sunny this morning and raining this afternoon.  The couple of nice days were a bonus. I think we are back to rainy season. 

After Rob left I walked up Taksang again with the Chisholm family.  The boys made it up and back.  It was an all day event. 

Rob took some great photos. this is Dochula pass coming from Punakha to Thimphu. 

A panoramic view of the Gangtey Palace Hotel in Paro 

                                        Paro and Paro Dzong

Adventures Leaving Bumthang Part 1

On Friday the 5^th we have an air ticket for the 25 minute flight to Paro.  We are 2 of the 6 passengers.  The flight is originally scheduled to depart at 10:55.  Rob reads the ticket again and one ticket says 9:55.  We rush to the airport to find out it will not leave Paro until 11 am.  Back to Chamkar (the village) for coffee and wandering.  The airport staff drives us and returns us to the airport.  There is a flurry of activity to tag our bags, get boarding passes and have our carry-on luggage searched.  We then wait for 3 hours until the flight is cancelled.  Meanwhile I have marked a lot of exam papers and Rob has worked through some bugs in his computer program.

Airport Fire Safety

Jakar Dzong from airport

We spend the afternoon at the Perk Café eating chili fries and are hoping the flight scheduled for tomorrow brings better luck.  If not we will have to brave the 10 hour road journey back to Thimphu.  

Adventures in Bumthang Part 2

After the retreat BCF teachers headed in many directions.  Rob and I joined Andrea Chisholm and her young sons on the ride to their home.   Andreas’s husband Bob headed up the mountain from Jakar to meet us at the top of a ridge.  He was joined by Senge, Matt and Lucy.  They had a 4 hour steep hike, pushing Bob’s mountain bike up the trial.  Bob wanted a physical challenge.  We taxied up to Tarpaling Monastery, had tea with the monks and wandered up a beautiful path to the ridge with our taxi driver leading us.  Small picnic and back to Chisholm’s where Andrea and I cooked broccoli and wild mushrooms in various cheese sauces.

The next day we walked up to a small village where an agency has funded a weaving centre for the many single mothers in order to assist them in becoming financially independent.  We were asked into a village home for tea.  It was suja, or the salty mountain tea. On the way up we picked and ate handfuls wild strawberries.  I managed to save a bucket for someone to cook for dinner.  I had a swim in the river on the way to the restaurant where we ate potato curry and poori- a deep fried Indian bread.

Rob and I took a taxi back to the River Lodge for a peaceful evening together and Himalayan pizza.

Sarah S threshing wheat

The expert wheat threshing

Modern wheat threshing - the vehicle drives over the wheat on the road

Hoopoe

Adventures in Bumthang Part 1

Road Block near home (Chukha)

BCF retreat or “summer camp”

We had long taxi rides from Thimphu to Gaselo, where we stayed in Brick’s little paradise.  He fed us dinner, we sipped some K5 (Bhutanese Whiskey) and slept.  Paradise turned hellish as we were plagued by mosquitoes during the night and did not get much sleep. Two days later my arms looked like pin cushions.

Taxi adventures:  the driver who was supposed to take us off the mountain left for Thimphu early in the morning.  We managed to rouse another driver in order to meet the Bumthang bound bus.  We picked up BCF’ers along the way and arrived at the River Lodge for a late dinner that turned into an even later evening.  Dancing, Red Panda beer, Gin and tonics, wine and CC brought us into the wee hours of Canada Day.

I did not relish getting on the bus again however we were headed to a very special place:  Kunzang Choden’s home Ogyon  Choling in the Tang Valley.  She is a Bhutanese author who wrote the novel I teach in class 9.  Her family manor is steeped in Bhutanese history and the visit was certainly worth the few hours in the bus.

Bumthang Valley and BCF crew

Nancy Strickland and Kunzang Choden

The next day we spent discussing our experiences and going over necessary protocol and logistics for the next 6 months of our stay in Bhutan. 

It was so much fun to see the “eastern crew” and to meet up with everyone to share experiences.