Wood

In  a day the pile above was turned into two piles pictured on the left.  Two men worked before and after school to chop it all.  

At 7:30 am students arrived after study block and moved one pile to another teacher's yard on their way to breakfast.  Each student took a couple pieces of wood and it was done in minutes :) 

English Reading Portfolios

 I was invited, along with the teachers in our English department, to visit the Lower Secondary School (K to 8) yesterday.  The class 8 teacher has done a tremendous amount of work to get her students reading and they presented their portfolios.  One of the judges was away so when I arrived I was asked to judge.  I talked to each student about their reading and  looked through their reading list, portfolio and rough work. 
Their English was very good - better than some of my students in class 9!!  They were the top portfolios in the 3 grade 8 classes.  Kudos for the teacher- she conferences with the students at lunch and during her free time. (prep time we call int in Canada) 

Akari reading student work.

Morning Wakeup

5 am This is what I heard:  two men chopping wood.  

What to do la?   Get up and go for a beautiful walk :) 

Chelela Pass (Cheli la)

I went to Chelela pass between Paro and Haa - 3,988 meters.  As we drove up from the Paro side I caught views of Jomolhari. The driver explained that in Tibetan Jomo is a Goddess and the name means mountain home of the Goddess.  

At the pass I walked up the ridge, had lunch and then walked down the other side towards Haa for about 2 hours  The larch trees have turned yellow.  The walk was beautiful and I loved the view and being in the mountains. 

Jomo peeking out above the clouds in the distance 

The walk up the ridge from the pass - before where I had lunch 

The ridge I followed down towards Haa 

On my way up the ridge 

Haa Valley

Larch :) 

Saturday Evening I stayed in Haa and met a Canadian who teaches at Gedu college.  We did a short hike to this monastery today. 

Once again I had a spectacular weekend.  I loved being in the mountains.  In Haa I went to the high school and chatted with students who were playing soccer and doing laundry in the hostel.  I really liked Haa.  The drive back around the mountain is breathtaking, but long.  There are great views of the road from Chuzom to Chukha, so I got a whole new perspective of where i travel almost every week.  Haa is a sleepy valley, except for the army .  Both the Indian and Bhutanese army have camps there, as there is a pass into Tibet. 

School is different for teachers

Currently we are in the midst of trial exams.  This is a two week session for class 10 and 12 where they write exams very similar to the board exams they will write in December. Some of the teachers have sisters or cousins living with them who are "CE" students.  Continuing Education courses are offered in the evenings for adults to upgrade.  These students may also be looking after babies and young children.  

While they are writing their trial exams, the babies and toddlers come to school with their parents.  

I am going to miss my wee friends.  I was watching two of them through the window as I was invigilating an exam today.  The 3 year old girl was all dressed up in her kira playing in the flower gardens with the 15 month old boy. I play with them on my breaks, read to them a bit and do everything I can to make them laugh.  

Yes my life here is different. 

I Went to Thimphu to Visit . . .

                                            His Majesty the King of Bhutan.  

I was invited to a special ceremony where Nancy Strickland and Sam Blyth of the Bhutan Canada Foundation received gold Awards of Merit from His Majesty. 

When I arrived in Bhutan I was a bit taken aback by the large photographs of the Royal Family in people's homes.  Villages, cities, large homes, small homes, shops . . . they all have framed photographs.  Often there are photos of both the fourth and fifth Kings and sometimes photos of previous Kings.  I have to admit I found it kind of corny at first.  Then I became curious and began to look at the pictures with a deeper interest.  In the classrooms there is usually a corner devoted to photos and articles about the monarchs.  This was obviously something beyond my Canadian cultural paradigm.  As I talked and listened, it became obvious that there is a great deal of love and respect for the King and his Queen.  Although in Canada we have many people fascinated by the British Royals, this is not at all the same situation. 

I have come to see that His Majesty, the King of Bhutan, has a great deal of love and respect for his subjects.  Everything I have read conveys a deep concern on his part for their well being.  

So I was honoured, excited and very nervous to go to the throne room at the Tashichoe Dzong in Thimphu.  There was a short ceremony and then we had the honour of an audience with the Prime Minister and a later audience with His Majesty.

Val and I practicing our bow

Dave all geared out in his gho

Nima helping Dave get dressed 

Me, Sam Blyth, Sarah, Valerie, Dave and Nancy Strickland

Dave, me, Sarah, Valerie, Karma, Nancy

Wet or Dry Picnic?

 Wet or dry picnic??  A wet picnic  is when you cook everything on site.  There is a fire, some very large pots and lots of work. 

 This is 3 kg of raw chicken.  See below for the yummy curry that it produced. 




There were 2 or three pots of chiles:  for the curries, and for the emma (chile) datse (cheese).  They made a special shamu datse (mushroom cheese curry) for me, with less chiles.  It seared my mouth. 

 More chiles.   There were 2 types - Large red and green, which are the same chiles at different stages of ripening.  They are milder than the tiny chiles that were used for the curries.  


 They are soaking the lentils for dal.  They were then fried, then put into soup  and cooked for a long time. 

Garlic, being cut with giant knives on a log. The eggs were boiled, then peeled and made into a sort of curry.  I used a couple of eggs for egg and spoon relay and egg toss.  Good thing I did not use raw eggs as they could throw the eggs a long distance and catch easily.  

Beef being cut into chunks.

  I call these papadams, they are called pappas or pappars here.  

The finished products- in this photo there is (left to right)  beef curry, chicken curry and eggs. 

I was pretty sure they could not eat the amount of rice they cooked.  The pigs did get more than half of this pot, although the volume of rice eaten by each student is humungous.

I am not sure how many water brigades there were, but they had buckets for washing food, buckets for cooking, buckets for washing hands and buckets for washing dishes.  The water was about 500 meters uphill from our site. 

Smiles.   

The  day was fantastic, the food great, with one small glitch.  A bunch of us (at least a third of the class) had exciting gastric moments afterwards.    Mine occurred half way to Thimphu  later that day. I spent an hour in the bush feeling a bit like a local cow depositing cow pies everywhere, puked. Then went to Thimphu starving and ate pad thai at the Thai restaurant.  Another gastric adventure in the land of the Thunder Dragon :)

Class Picnic

My class 9B students wanted to have a "class picnic".  Of course I said yes.  One student collected cash from everyone and made up a duty roster.  Each child brought a small bag of rice, which resulted in about 25 kg of rice.  I went shopping with 2 boys and 2 girls, and we made two trips back to my quarters to deposit the food. 

One student had a tent, so a few boys put it up the night before.  Then 2 of them slept in it to claim our area of the the school picnic grounds.  It rained as they were on their way so they were cold and wet.  They invited 2 friends, so there were 4 boys in a two man tent with one sleeping bag.  They had a bottle of water they got from my place and I gave them a package of chocolate biscuits.   Cold night.  

I rang my alarm for 5 am as they had informed me that was when they would start arriving to pick up the food and wood and pots from my place. They actually arrived at 6 am and it was a bit chaotic, no fire, fire, no wood, more wood.

  By 7:30 the class members started to arrive, and when Akari and I got to the picnic area there was a GIANT pot on the fire with hot tea.  Students enjoyed their bread and jam for breakfast.  I will post photos of food in another blog as the production and results were . . . outrageous.  

  Girls showed up dressed in jeans and kiras.  One boy showed up in his gho looking EXTREMELY  handsome, but he was the only one so he went home and changed. 

The morning hours from about 7 to 11 were spent preparing food and having a second cup of tea with biscuits.  We played frisbee and the boys also played football. (soccer)  A bunch of them got bamboo for targets and made spears for a throwing game they play.  Darts (khuru), archery and throwing stones are the popular games.  Although they really enjoyed frisbee, the plastic discs seemed a bit incongruous. 

The basket for the wood is carried mostly by women.  Crops, grass for the cows, wood, weaving, almost anything goes in them.  They are not to be carried empty, and they come in all sizes as small girls carry loads also.  Some of the loads are unbelievably large.  Men, I was told, carry the wood on their backs tied on with ropes.  I have seen young children and women carry wood this way.  During the day several groups of foragers passed through the picnic ground and back with loads of wood.  

 

The cricket team showed up.  There were also 2 other classes having picnics, another class 9 and a class 11.
I played frisbee for a couple of hours, tried throwing spears, danced a bit.  We had a mini sound system. 

It was a really fun day.  I imagined my Canadian students cooking the same volume of food, organizing themselves and producing a great meal.  I think I had it easy here as the students did all of the work.  

I organized some relays after lunch - you have never seen a faster 3 legged race.  Dave thought they were cheating until they tumbled with their legs tied together.  

DEFINITELY AMONG MY HIGHLIGHTS.