Buckwheat

A few days ago I thought I might need some more buckwheat flour as my last buckwheat banana cake was a big hit.  So I emailed my friend Andrea Chisholm in Chumey, Bumthang.  Her mother-in-law was visiting and I thought perhaps she could bring some back and I could get it later in Thimphu. No go.

Bob (Andrea's husband) went next door that same day and they were milling fresh buckwheat.  Andrea added the rest of hers, then emailed me to say Bob's mom would not be going through Thimphu.  I replied "It's Bhutan, something will work out".  Not an hour later they were out and a friend of Bob's who is a driver said he was coming through Chukha. 

Today he left Bumthang in the morning, drove to Pheuntsholing and dropped the flour at my house on his way back to Thimphu.  Rob and I took 2 days to get from Bumthang to Paro !!! 

Three days in a row of food delivered to my door. 

Addendum

Saturday the staff arrived with food, Sunday my class captain knocked on my door with another student.  They had a dozen eggs, a bag of guavas, biscuits and milk.  "Ma'am, we know you like fruit, the apples and bananas were not nice. So sorry to take so long to visit you, no one informed us you were not feeling well, we thought you didn't come to class because you were mad at us." 

Then I felt awful.  I had walked out of one class when they were particularly naughty and said I might not be back.  I hope it bodes well for their future behaviour. 

I am well cared for here.  Palden spent the weekend away with the Tae Kwon Do team, sleeping in classrooms with students, eating at the mess hall.  She got back late last night, not having bathed for two days.  Here she was at my door, checking on me and dropping in on my classes for me. :) 

Yesterday and today have been COLD.  What happened to fall?  It feels like winter here. 

Box of Food

This is a rather large box of food.  I missed a couple of days of work - feeling under the weather.  When someone is sick the staff gets together and visits.  All at once, led by the administration and the staff secretary.  They put money in and buy food.  To make you healthy.  There was also a bag of fruit.  Enough bananas for a chimpanzee.  I will use them all in my great banana bread in the rice cooker with buckwheat flour recipe.  

There are a lot of biscuits and fruit cake in here, along with boxes of Amul milk. :) 

When my colleague Chimi Pem was in hospital I visited prior to the school visit.  Her brother is a teacher at another school and his entire staff dropped by.  She had TB so was in the isolation room on the women's ward.  Nevertheless I counted 13 people in her room at once.  Our staff visited another day.  I get the sense that when you are in hospital family stays with you as much as possible.  I know when students are sick, other students and teachers go often.  Usually someone sleeps over with you.  They also have to bring your food. 

I was nervous to have everyone come into my house, actually bedroom  as it is the sitting room for many Bhutanese.  I cleaned house before they arrived.  It turned out to be fine while they were here, bringing their good wishes and saying how much they miss me.  Very touching. 

Washing Clothes

Laundry.  Three buckets, the soapy one, which I have already dumped in this case, and two rinses.  The detergent is very sudsy and difficult to rinse out of the clothes.  Lots of wringing by hand.  I do not mind any of it, I actually enjoy the ritual as part of my day or week. 

Today I sat on the toilet and soaked my feet in the hot soapy water.  I do not usually use hot water, but had some grimy towels.  It felt heavenly.  I proceeded to give myself a mini pedicure. Luxury. :)

This corner of my bathroom is also my "shower"  where I have my bucket bath.  The drain is right behind the blue bucket.  I consider myself to be very fortunate to have a hot water heater and hot water flowing from a tap. 

You can just make out pipes in the photo  Neither plumbing nor electrical wiring are hidden in the walls.  They are all in conduits on top of the wall.  It makes for easy changes and repairs.  

CONTRASTS

The rain, the thunder, the water rushing down the street in a torrent, filling the road with first water then slime as it washes away the excrement from the cows and dogs that populate the streets.  

The wind howling through the metal roofs as the rain finishes. Clearing away the clouds and giving rise to bright sun on the roof of the world. 

The morning light illuminating the mountains and the clear blue sky.  Slowly changing to a gentle golden light on the backs of the boys' ghos as they walk from the dining hall to the school amidst the lush greenery of the school campus. 

The heat of the sun bearing down on the shiny black heads of students lined up neatly in rows chanting their prayers and singing the national anthem.  

In the afternoon the mists push their living fingers down the streets and into the cracks in the windows.  Sifting through the door and enveloping the animate and inanimate with a wispy blanket.  The blanket becomes heavy and wet, Doors are closed, windows covered against the spirits.  The fog becomes dense and damp.  The thunder begins again and the lightening cracks through the thickness of the fog.  

Where am I? a post script to my weekend

It was a great weekend.  I traveled to Thimphu on Friday night as Saturday was Blessed Rainy Day, a national holiday so I did not have to work.  I met up with Arwen and Sarah Diamond and we had a small hotel room that was wall to wall mattresses.  On Saturday am Sarah and I had hot chocolate at a fancy hotel.  Well not that fancy but it felt luxurious, then took a taxi to Dochula pass where we met Brick and Sarah S.  We walked up the ridge to Lungchezekha Goenpa, which is the first temple in the photos of the previous posting.  The temple was locked but as we were eating a monk brought us tea.  After lunch another group with a guide toured the temple so we got to go inside too.  Every time I visit a new temple, I think it will be - similar? same old, same old? On some level it is,but each visit has been a new experience. 

Unfortunately the big mountains are still shrouded in clouds so the view was not great.  However I will take Jon and Andrea as you can see all of the great Bhutanese Himalayan peaks from the temple.

We walked down through a beautiful forest - there is a photo of a small meditation cave.  The next "village" is called Trashigang, which is a bit confusing because of the Dzongkhag of the same name.  It was not a real village, as it is filled only with meditating monks.  There was a special puja going on, where both nuns and monks had come for 7 days of meditation. There were beautiful tents set up and when we arrived they were chanting on loudspeakers Om Mani Padme Hum. We toured 2 temples both of which had been built in the 1700"s.  One was quite damaged by the 2009 earthquake, but still solid. The monks fed us tea and biscuits.  It was the first time I have been asked to donate to a temple.  We always leave money on the alters or in the donation boxes in the temples. 

The walk down to the highway brought us out much lower than the pass where we started.  A bus came by and whisked my friends to Thimphu.  I had to walk up about a kilometre to the immigration post.  I did not have a road permit, so the official had taken my work permit to make sure I would come back.  I caught a taxi and met my friends in town.  

The next morning I woke early so walked up to the BBS tower.  I went out for a walk with no destination and kept on going up and up.  It was a spectacular morning for walking.  On the way down I took the road, which was a lot less direct, but it passes the Takin Reserve, where I saw takins.  I did not have a camera.  They are unusual looking animals.

My Weekend in Photos

Mass Cleanup

With Je Kempo (spiritual leader of Bhutan) arriving this week we had a mass cleaning from the guest house to the Dzong.  Each class was assigned an area.  My class is notorious for escaping such work so I assigned teams with the most notorious "bunkers" as team leaders.  We had to clean to roadway from the school through town to the other side of the market.  It was a hot, dirty job. 

One of the shopkeepers gave my students juice and cookies. 

A team of girls - love the smiles 

Still smiling shortly into the day

Cleaning out the drains that run along the entire roadway

One drain was grown over the boys dug it out for 1 1/2 hours 

The merchants swept town for us

This car is still dressed up from yesterday's celebrations - the southerners celebrate a day where they have a sort of puja to the God of mechanical things and construction.  I worked all day and did not get out of the school property, but have seen some great photos of dressed up vehicles.

Students working

Here they are, my class 9B students working away.  They asked to have seating arrangements changed and have become little worker bees.  Sort of.  At least they are finally getting accustomed to my teaching style and expectations. 

I am going to miss these kids !!! 

Posing

When the camera comes out, they all want their picture taken.  Here are a few more photos from today. 

Pingu and Snakes (ok only one snake)

I took my students outside and it worked!!  Yesterday we had watched Pingu Plays Hockey and written the story together in the present tense.  Today they had to rewrite it in the past tense. They were working in teams and . . they really worked.  Only after we caught the snake and dealt with it.  There was a small baby snake but it was coiling and doing the head thing you see cobras do in the movies (not a cobra but a viper).  I scooted it into a coke bottle with the help of a student while most of them stood up on benches and shrieked.   Great entertainment. It was a beautiful blue sky day until about 4 when we got soaked again, then a clear sky tonight. 
After school I cleaned His Holiness's toilet, bathtub and helped clean the really filthy kitchen at the guest house. 

I just love these photos - don't the students look great?  

Palden's Paro Puja Postponed

No Puja for me this weekend.  The Je Kempo, spiritual leader of Bhutan, is coming to our town for 7 or 10 days.  Palden was asked by the Dasho Dzongdha himself to put a team together to clean the guest house where His Holiness will be staying.  Completely unfair on many levels.  I have been helping so I get to see where HH will be sleeping.  I wish I had brought my camera today as Palden spent most of the time 2 stories up on a ladder cleaning windows . . . in her kira. 

I quickly changed my plans and am headed to Thimphu on Saturday after classes and the storytelling contest.  It is the Thimphu Tsechu and a bunch of my BCF colleagues will be there.  I am sharing a room with Valerie Robert, and will meet Matt, Lucy and Bob's parents.  I am looking forward to it now that the sudden change has taken place. 

My new Japanese room mate, Akari, has brought luxury to my life.  She purchased a fridge and a washing machine.  She also convinced the principal and/or VP to let us use some school furniture.  So today a Bhutanese couch and a coffee table arrived.  Behind  the couch is my lovely carpet, which I am still not using as the mouldy smell is overwhelming.  I have found that the mould washes out easily  as some of the clothes I had put away in a bag reeked.  Funny - one fleece jacket was unwearable until washed and the other, in the same bag, was fine.  I will scrub the carpet and hang it out when it dries up here. 

Although it rained a wonderful storm with thunder and lightening here tonight, it is drying up a bit - there is wind again and the air is hinting at fall.  Next week is Blessed Rainy Day, and that is when the rainy season is supposed to taper off and hopefully come to an end.  

Literary board

Every week or two, or perhaps a month, another class is responsible for the literary board.  My class 9B is not famous for producing great work.  However we were comended for our Saturday morning news broadcast and I said we were going to do a great job of the lit board too.  So everyone wrote articles, poems, essays, quotations (of course!!) and I said that we would do something different.  We have a spot for joke of the day and quotation of the day, which are a great hit.  I have never really seen a crowd around the board, but Monday morning our dispaly was a great hit  I found out a bit late in the proceedings that we also had to fill the Dzongkha board.  Although it now looks very nice, I have no idea if the writing needs editing, which the English did. I needed lots of help figuring out if the pages were right side up or not. 

Very proud of our literary boards even though I cannot get a good photo of them!!

I am very excited because I have been invited to Paro to Palden's traditional farm house for an annual pre-harvest (rice) puja next weekend.  

Debate

On Saturday Chukha Higher Secondary School hosted the inter-school debate for the Dzongkhag.  Yours truly was the chairperson and school based organizer.  It was a great success.  Our students did well, we we first runner up school and although my students did not win bed speaker, they were very close.   Some parts of organizing were challenging, however I enjoyed being busy, having a project and the contact with students outside of school hours.  I coached the debaters, and dealt with the captains for things like banners, room set up and stuff around the event.  I have some photos which are poor and am waiting to get the ones from a better camera tomorrow.

Getting ready on Friday 

The team "for the motion" 

Participants and Dignitaries

Sunday Walk

It is still pretty unbelievable that I am where I am.  I have been here 7 months.  

This photo is for Ernie, Rob's dad, who worked as a plant geneticist for Agriculture Canada.  Corn and cucumbers were 2 of his specialties.  The rows are NOT straight and the short one was, for me, inedible.   This time of year the cucumbers are huge, sometimes twice this size. 

I have decided you can never have too many photos of prayer flags. 



The sunflowers are on my morning walk, There are also what I think are dahlias.  I have never thought a flower could be truly ironic, but in the land of fog, the sunflower is just that. 

Diamonds and tetrahedrons

I thought it would be, perhaps, easy.  OMG  we cannot seem to do it.  A couple of class 9B students came to see me for help today.  Chemistry.  We looked at the page and the information in the text book and I explained it all.  They have to present diamonds and their makeup and some equations, and what diamonds are used for.  They also have to build a 3D model from a flat diagram.  

I found a better diagram on the internet.  They decided to use nutrella, dried tofu chunks, and toothpicks.  Here are the results, but they are not put together into a cube yet.  Why does the Chemistry text say that each Carbon molecule has 4 covalent bonds, and in the model they have 4, 5 or 6?