Kandrinche La, Bhutan

The Boys’ Sick Room is empty and I won’t be able to pick up where I left off. I’m at the end of my time in Bhutan.

For the last year, my experience has been something tangible and solid. I stood on my front porch and took in the sights of mountainsides punctuated with villages and Buddhist temples. I listened to the sounds of drums and horns and cymbals played by monks performing rimdros in neighbors’ houses. At school I could smell doma on the breaths of teachers, feel the heat of bodies crammed together in a classroom with no air-conditioning.

Now that I am leaving though, my Bhutanese life will stop and become memory. My experience will dissolve into something ethereal, slowly changing, abstracting, and eventually, disappearing into a past that I won’t be able to grasp.

I’m beginning to mourn. What an experience it has been.

Times like these make me remember other lives I’ve led. I lived with a host family in Costa Rica when I was twenty. Doña Flor, my host mother, was a commanding five-foot-two, pudgy, and wore thick glasses. She must have been in her late fifties. She loved watching WWF, raising a fist in satisfaction the moment one wrestler executed a perfect body slam or hit someone across the back with a folding char. She spoke to me patiently—my Spanish was in its infancy then—and she never quite knew how to pronounce my name.

“Yrosh, come. Eat.”

“Yes. Yes. I eat. Thank you.”

“Papaya? You like papaya, Jroshu?”

“No eating before. Never eating. First time.”

“You try, Yroshu. Eat a little.”

I only lived with her and Flori and Esther for a month. They were wonderful people. I learned a lot from them and we became good friends while I was there. But now I don’t know anything about them. The experience has dwindled down to only a few sensations: the coldness of their linoleum floor on my bare feet, the taste of eggs made green with cilantro, the creak of the metal gate at the entrance of the house.

Peru lives in the same ether. Giancarlos and I would eat pollo a la brasa and watch Kung Fu movies inside of Café California after it closed. When the movie was over we’d jump up and start punching the air, poorly mimicking Ip Man. At night I’d meet up with the Peace Corps boys and we’d drink too much at 13 Buhos and flirt first with the German bartender and then, when the drinks gave us more courage, with the beautiful girls that came in (if they came in). We’d fail at wooing them almost every night. I spent the days at a Catholic school and my students would cook meals and complete ropes course challenges and write newspaper articles, learning English through such projects. It was my first year teaching and still one of my best in terms of student engagement.

But now Peru seems as if it was just a film itself, something I observed remotely but could never have actually lived. I could have never hiked the Huayhuash range with Vishal nor returned a lost lamb to a nomadic shepherdess in Hatun Machay and sat with her and talked about her flock. No, such things could not be true because they exist now only as electrical signals in grey matter.

Were the sakura blossoms in Fukushima a rouse too? The way they plastered against the sidewalk, turning it into a pink carpet? What about the cold winter nights with Eriko, the smell of kerosene from the small heater? Was the warm sunshine at Dainichi Iwa with Iga-chan and Horie-sensei and Suyama-San and Kawamura-Kun false too? Was the fresh sushi and hot ramen and the night in Tokyo with Kenya and Kenji and suit-clad business men just a dream?

When I leave Bhutan on December 31^st, I’ll leave behind more memories. The loss will be like a death. What consoles me, and propels me perhaps, is that I know that I will also start new adventures, adventures that exist still in their own ethereal state. And I know that even though the here-and-now will fade and the solid will become mist, it is all still substantive. I have been nourished by these experiences. I am fulfilled.

Ahead, there will be difficult times. My motorcycle is sure to break down somewhere in India and somewhere else in Nepal. I’ll get scammed, perhaps have to pay a bribe or two. I’ll eat bad meals, sleep in risky hovels. I’ll fall in love and find that it is unrequited.

But when I have found a small paradise, a perfect meal, a good friend, or a beautiful woman and then I must leave, it will be more than just difficult. I will mourn. As I am doing now. As I have done for Costa Rica, for Peru, for Japan. I have been fortunate in my life to have not lost many people who are close to me. But the deaths of these experiences are hard, and saying goodbye to Bhutan is not easy.

I have made friends here that I feel more comfortable with than some in America that I have known for years. I have built up a routine so easy and normal that I have to stop every now and again and remind myself, “You live in Bhutan.” Daily I feel like I am a part of a culture that still has a foot in the old way, though the pressures toward modernization are ever mounting. There is so much learning I’ve done and so much more left to do, on hospitality, on forgiveness, on illness and death, on teaching and learning, on spirituality and belief. Here I am forced to reflect on isolation, on inconvenience, on hardship. There have been countless challenges to my previous points-of-view. What I believed before now seems so limited because I had not yet lived in Bhutan.

But what is the ultimate lesson? What do I tell others I have learned when they ask about Bhutan? Still, I can give no easy answer to sum it all up.

I keep telling my students that all great stories have a theme. This part of my life, I feel, is a great story. But the theme continues to elude me. Is it about abandoning the materialism of America, about finding spirituality among Himalayan Buddhists? Is it about adventure and challenge? About loneliness perhaps? Who knows?

Maybe that’s what I’m going to India and Nepal for: to give myself the time and space to reflect on all that has happened here and to organize my learning. I know that once the pain of leaving subsides, I’ll be able to take those memories and sift through them. Perhaps a few gems of wisdom will come to the surface.

Whatever happens, epiphany or not, it has all been worth it. I have been taught by the greatest of teachers: friends, students, monsoon rains, Buddhist mantras chanted to the wind. Thank you, Bhutan. Nami sami kadrinche la.

The Old Moth - A Eulogy

An old and tired moth grasps at an old and tired hemp rope that stretches horizontal as a clothesline. He is hidden in a corner, slowly making his way across. His turmeric and red sienna wings are stiff. They look like impossibly thin and symmetrical shards of sandstone. Only one wing is frayed, just slightly at one end, impressive for a relic like him. The other wings have remained defiant and feign a youthfulness in appearance if not in function. He could almost be a young moth, one fresh from the cocoon, if it wasn’t for how tired he feels.

Beleaguered, he inches his way across the line. The sun is just starting to lighten the morning sky, turning it a cool blue. He remembers when he first emerged from the cocoon and looked up at the sky: to start life as a crawling creature, toiling on the earth, and then to fall into that deep sleep, awakening to discover that he has wings. He remembers the first flutter; he remembers it as one remembers first falling in love. He barely moved his wings and suddenly his feet left the ground. He was enervated by that fortune of his. The world became entirely new, where the air could be traversed and the ground forgotten. (Yes, it is like love, isn’t it?) He could dive and spin and soar. He could fly. He, who once inched along the ground, could fly.

He was handsome then too. His spread wings were so large that they would cast shadows. In the sun, they gleamed. He was arrogant, he admits. But even the butterflies stopped and stared. Especially the butterflies.

Now he wonders if there is another metamorphosis near. He is so tired and this point in his life doesn’t seem so different from when he was a caterpillar, there, encasing himself in his cocoon. If he fell asleep now, it would be much the same. But what could be greater than awakening to discover that you have wings? He has been too blessed, he thinks.

It’s hard for the old moth to keep moving down the line. His wings have stopped working and now he must walk, inching along. With useless wings, he is a caterpillar again, he thinks. A damn handsome caterpillar. He has no instinct this time to build a cocoon. Even if he did, he has no energy for it. He can barely hang onto the rope.

The sun is rising over the peaks in the distance. He watches through his old eyes. The light settles on him and warms him. His wings are resplendent in the light. As the sun lifts and the bottom of the orb disengages from the earth he feels that moment again when he first used his wings, rising up and up into that beautiful, fresh sky. The sun moves uninhibited and eternal. Up. The moth is tired but he is so happy, happy to be watching that sun. If only he could beat his wings once more and rise with the sun.

He closes his eyes, as he must do. He is in the middle of the clothesline now, basking in the bright light. As he expected, he hears the air rush and feels the clothesline bounce. He crawled to the center of the line for this. He isn’t afraid. He knows that this is the metamorphosis. The line bounces again and he hears the wings beat. Massive wings. What powerful wings. He knows that now he will become the strength in those wings. He will fly again.

The old moth is raised up and in his last breath he opens his eyes and sees that he is in the air once again. He is rising with the sun, up and up and up. And he thanks her as he is carried off.

His wings fall back to the earth, the place where his life began, when he could still only dream of flying. 

For the Visual Learner: Part II

Okay, enough with the political rants (for now). In the Thanksgiving spirit, it's also important to remind myself of all the beauty around me. Bhutan is busting at the seams with beauty. 

Here's another round of some of my favorite pictures over the last few months.

Monks at the local shop.

My neighbor consoles his son.

A man working to pave the road to school.

A woman prostrating at the temple door.

Monsoon season over Rongthung village.

During a rimdro (a ceremony to receive blessings while simultaneously cleansing a place of spirits and demons), one of the demons catches me taking pictures.

Preparing the paddies before planting rice.

Old soldier in Trashigang town. 

Brokpa girls.

The nun my student and I sat down to tea with. (I wrote a blog post about it below if you're interested.)

Rice paddies meet the river.

My student's grandmother. (This is likely my favorite picture from the whole year in Bhutan.)

My colleague's mother waits to attend a rimdro.

Young monk.

Almost a camouflage effect ... almost.

A bold student takes up the challenge of hanging the flagpole string. 

Students demonstrating the dress of a wide variety of cultures and ethnic groups that live in Bhutan. 

Prayer flags, erected in the wind so as to carry the good messages across the world. 

A visiting monk, as seen from my front door.

Mahayana and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenence

“The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn't any other test. If the machine produces tranquility it's right. If it disturbs you it's wrong, until either the machine or your mind is changed.”  -Robert M. Pirsig, from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Me and Solivagant, doing what we do best.

“Master, how do you fix a motorcycle without the proper tools?”

“Become one with the bike, young apprentice.”

The national highway of Bhutan is a single lane road in shocking disrepair. I’ve seen wider, and better paved alleyways back in the US. At a hairpin turn on that highway, just south of here, there is a dusty lot with a long shack made of corrugated iron and wood scraps. Like most edifices in these Himalayan foothills, its position is precarious. A strong wind or slight shift in the subsoil could send it careening down the steep mountainside. The building is both a garage and a food stall. You can get your alignment done and order up a plate of momos at the same time. At the back of the lot there is an awning and a concrete ditch that cars straddle for oil changes. Under the awning there are tools scattered about, various fluid stains on the concrete floor, and an air compressor that randomly roars to life with a deafening bellow.

The national "highway" following the river.

When I pulled Solivagant up to the shack, I found two men tinkering with an old van in serious disrepair. They clanked and banged on some of the metal, efforts more in line with the formation of a ramshackle percussion group than with getting the van working again. The clangs resurrected advice I had heard from a colleague when I told him I needed to take my motorcycle to the shop: “It’s all trial and error with our mechanics. They haven’t been formally trained. Each car they get is like a cadaver; they figure out how it works by pulling it apart. If you’re lucky they’ll actually be able to put it back together again.” As if that wasn’t enough, he added, “Oh, and they hardly ever work on motorcycles. We’ll see if you can even ride out of there once they’re through.”

There was no front desk inside the shack, no customer service sign. I stepped back outside and into the high altitude sun and tried to discern who worked there from those waiting for a food order and those that were just standing around because they didn’t have much else to do. My first assumption was to ask the guys tinkering with the van, but before I could walk up to them, another man came up to me with an eager-to-speak-English smile and asked, “Some problem with your bike, sir?”

“Yes, sir. The handbrake’s pistons are stuck, the brake fluid is low, and I need to replace the brake pads.”

“You have the new brake pads, sir?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where did you buy them? There is no place here that sells them.”

“I ordered them online from China. They took a month to get here.”

“Oh, I see,” he replied, sitting down on a bench just behind us. He clearly had no intention of taking a closer look at the bike.

“Do you work here, sir?”

“No, sir. Just getting an oil change for my Bolero.”

“Who does work here?”

The man called over to a young, stocky twenty-something with scarred, disfigured tattoos that were likely etched with a needle and ballpoint pen. He came up to me, acknowledged my presence with a nod, and I handed over the handbrake system to him like it was some automata’s black brain with its spinal cord still attached. My school had the wrenches to take that part off myself, but they didn’t have the right tools to finish the job. I showed the mechanic the worn pads and gave him the new ones and he seemed confident when he took the whole kit under the awning to get to work.

Curious to see if my colleague’s predictions were true, I followed the mechanic, crouched down on my haunches as the locals do, and watched him work. Within two minutes he was hammering at an Allen bolt with a flathead screwdriver. With one blow the screwdriver slipped and the end stabbed the mechanic at the base of his middle finger. He cringed for enough time to let the blood begin to flow and drip onto the short, iron workbench. When the pain subsided, he set to hammering again. The blood continued to flow over his hand with every movement. To the mechanic, it must have been an everyday occurrence. He ignored the wound and kept at the Allen bolt. His dark, calloused skin, already oil stained, began to look like a macabre Pollock painting done in black, ochre and crimson.

“No Allen wrench?” I asked.

“No.”

I nodded. He gave the bolt a few more half-hearted attempts, but gave up soon after and walked over to the driver that I had originally talked to, who translated the mechanic’s message to me.

“Come back tomorrow in the morning. He’ll have an Allen wrench then.”

The next morning was all clear Himalayan sky. I walked down the highway, enjoying the warm sun and the view of the villages on the mountainsides. When I arrived at the shop, again I went over to the workbench and sat on my haunches among the mechanic and two others who were observing his work intently. The audience seemed to have no connection to the mechanic, which happens a lot out here in eastern Bhutan. If someone is doing anything remotely interesting—fixing a handbrake, cutting wood, erecting a fence, giving a dog a bath—then a group will gather just to watch the show.

The mechanic had acquired an Allen wrench in that magical Bhutanese way—wait long enough and material needs will somehow materialize. (That only works with needs though. Wants will only come about with extensive effort.) His finger was bandaged, a good thing because he was pouring brake fluid haphazardly into the disk brake caliper and it was spilling all over him, a fact that I’m sure he found trivial. Having replaced the brake pads, he was now attempting to change the brake fluid and bleed the system. When there was no pressure, he unscrewed the hose that dripped with the remnants of old brake fluid and, to check if it was clear, he put the end of the hose into his mouth, the brake fluid dripping and leaking onto his lips, and he blew. He repeated this several times, ostensibly unaffected by the taste. Once he was convinced that the problem wasn’t with the hose, he stopped, hocked up an oily pink sputum, and went back to dripping oil into the caliper.

Another short man in a leather jacket came by and squatted down beside us. Now we were four, all surrounding the front brake, seeing if the mechanic could figure out the repair. The man in the leather jacket began speaking Tsangla, the language of the Scharchops. Intermixed with his explanation were words I could grasp: pistons, master cylinder, pressure. The man opened the master cylinder, saw that it was empty and berated the mechanic. I discerned then that my mechanic was only an apprentice, and now the master had arrived.

I was relieved. With the master there the brake would surely be fixed. But the confidence I had in him faded as soon as I saw that he too took the brake hose, put it into his mouth as casually as you would a straw from a chocolate shake, and blew air through it. He didn’t even spit the brake fluid out afterwards. He simply went on giving instructions to his apprentice.

In another half an hour, there was some semblance of a working brake. Brake fluid was leaking all over the wheel and was sprayed over the dash and gauges, but the brake, somehow, worked. The master wiped off the excess fluid, handed me the key, and said in clear English, “You take it for a test drive.”

Though it looked rough, and some fluid still leaked, it worked well enough. They had done as much as they could, enough to offer me some satisfaction. At least the bike was safely rideable—for now—and I could use it again.

I pulled back into the lot and asked how much I owed. After a bloody finger, ingesting brake fluid, and a few hours of work, I was quoted at 300 Ngultrums—about four and half dollars. I even got to keep the leftover brake fluid. 

My Absentee Ballot: A Vote for Humility

During the Democratic National Convention, Michelle Obama took to the podium and said, “Don't let anyone ever tell you that this country is not great, that somehow we need to make it great again. Because this right now is the greatest country on Earth.” The crowd of supportive democrats cheered, nodding their heads, pumping their fists, most presumably thinking, “Yeah. This country is the greatest.”

Hillary Clinton, as part of her bid for presidency, later wrote on Twitter, “I don’t understand people who trash talk about America …who act as if we are not yet the greatest country that has ever been created.”

And even Donald J Trump, the most obstreperous proponent of making America great again, not too long ago, in a 2008 interview, was caught saying “We have the greatest country in the world! The greatest!”

Bhutan, great in its own right.

With limited facilities here, I have been following the election through a combination of internet searches (when there is power and when the internet is fast enough) and word of mouth. My best source of information is often the school’s math teacher and my neighbor, Gyeltshen, a man from a small village near Gelephu. (Gelephu is part of the Sarpang district. The Sarpang in southern Bhutan. Fine, I’ll explain it again: Bhutan is a country in Asia, sandwiched between India and China.)

See, the thing is, Gyeltshen knows all about our presidential race even though you might not be able to pinpoint his whole country on a map. He watched both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions. He watched the first presidential debate in its entirety and then watched CNN’s coverage of the full highlights of the second debate. He can not only tell you both Trump’s stance on IS and Clinton’s stance on immigration, but he can tell you each candidate’s personal history as a businessman and a politician, respectively.

He has yet to tell me though if he thinks that America is the greatest country in the world.

I didn’t sit down and watch the debates with Gyeltshen. But I wonder what he thought when he saw Trump interrupt and talk over Clinton. Or when Clinton kept referring to Trump as “Donald” and accused him of living in his own reality. I wonder what Gyeltshen’s take is on the snide remarks and direct insults flung between the two candidates; what are his views on the hoots and hollers from the audience that was explicitly asked to remain quiet. I wonder what he thinks about Clinton’s part in the Debbie Wasserman Schulz scandal and Trump’s deplorable “locker-room talk” to Billy Bush. What’s his perspective on how the “greatest country on Earth” is deciding its next Commander in Chief?

Just today we had our own contact with national-level government when the recently appointed Minister of Education made a visit to our school. For the entire week before he came, the students cleaned the classrooms, improved the grounds, and prepared a cultural show. When the Minister arrived to the immaculate campus, he was greeted with reverent bows, welcome speeches from our principal and one of our students, and dances. He was referred to as “Your Excellency” by everyone who addressed him.

A teacher instructs students on how to demonstrate deference.

Between the speeches and the culture show, the Minister was given the stage to edify our students on how to be successful and take advantage of their education. He mentioned that he wanted students to be well-fed, provided basic resources, and to be happy. The most uncouth thing that he did during his talk was juggle three rubber balls, using the skill as a didactic metaphor on the merits of discipline and continual practice. He coupled his advice to the students with a fable about a hummingbird who attempts to put out a forest fire by taking a drop of water at a time from a nearby river. The Minister explained, “The hummingbird said to the larger animals who mocked him, ‘I am trying my hardest,’ ” and then he implored the students do the same. “Be like the hummingbird.”

You may have actually been exposed to a bit of Bhutan’s government yourself. Maybe you are one of the 1,625,000 people that have watched Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay’s TED Talk about Bhutan being the only carbon negative country in the world. I watched the video before I came here, but what struck me recently as I watched it again was not the environmental policies espoused by His Excellency, but his introduction. He graciously declares about Bhutan, “We have been called Shangri-La. Even the last Shangri-La. But let me tell you right off the bat, we are not Shangri-La … We are a small, underdeveloped country doing our best to survive.”

In terms of government demonstrating respect, professionalism, humility and honor, Bhutan beats America in greatness, hands down.

I, like many, wonder why the American republican nominee is even a contender in this election. But when I look from an outside perspective, to be honest, the whole country looks a lot like Trump, democrats and republicans alike. When the citizenry is caught up in their supercilious beliefs of, “We’re the greatest! We’re the greatest!” it is hard not to compare it to Trump’s own self-aggrandizing claims. From the picture we get on TV—not just from CNN, mind you, but BBC, Al Jazeera, and Japan’s English NHK—America is aggressive, loud, angry, and not very smart. Remind you of anyone?

It’s not surprising to me that nearly fifty percent of the electorate support Trump. Whether we like it or not, we have to face the fact that he is a reflection of a large section of America’s populous. I don’t mean far-right republicans. I mean people who gossip about others behind their backs, people for whom money is the ultimate definition of success, people that make inappropriate comments and give half-hearted apologies, those who will insult their colleagues in order to set themselves up for a promotion, those who will lie to get out of a lie; I mean the fatalists, the patriarchs, the xenophobes, and the staunch ideologues. America has its share.

When I am asked, “Is America really like that?” I think back on the last three years that I was living there. I saw a lot of evidence that yes, America is like that. But I also think about my former colleagues who are American teachers, quietly trying to erase social injustice one lesson at a time. I think about my former students, many of them from immigrant families or immigrants themselves; I think about their belief in opportunity, their beautiful ambition and their adventurous sense of independence. I think about my American friend whose job was guiding teenagers around the world so that they become more globally aware (badass), or another who is helping with development initiatives in South Sudan (really badass), and one of my best friends who, among other things, is consulting with the Somalian government in hopes of helping them ameliorate decades-old civil disputes (super badass). When I talk with them and other Americans like them, the conversation often has a tone of, “Thailand is great,” or, “Kenya is great,” or “Mexico is great.” And I chime in with “Bhutan is great.” From those conversations I know that all of America is not like its politicians—not so narrow-minded and ironically hyperbolic.

But the Americans that I respect for their humility and kindness sure aren’t on TV much these days. If they dominated the news then I am sure that Gyeltshen’s—and the rest of the world’s—picture of America would be quite different. Imagine a presidential candidate who came to the debates and said, “We are not the Land of Opportunity that everyone says we are. We are a complicated, diverse country, with many different beliefs that we are working on finding common ground to. It is a struggle, but we are working hard. Really, we are just doing our best to survive.” That would be a leader that I would be proud of, one that represented the other half of the American people. If we had a leader like that, wouldn’t that be … great?

Happiness in the Happiest Country in the World

Blessed Rainy Day marks the end of the monsoon season, a season that, along with plenty of rain, brought the crux of this experience thus far. As expected, it was hot and humid. The jungle that surrounds the campus teemed with life while the Boys’ Sick Room became fusty and suffocating. The walls sprouted patches of grey and black mold that grew like living Rorschach blots. And as the heat penetrated the room, new, green molds, like tiny, round lawns, emerged on tabletops, came alive on my comforter, and lo and behold, had even found their way into my winter sweaters long forgotten. The air was infected with disease, punctuated by the incessant buzz of mosquitos and the ghost bites of fleas.

Three dogs held temporary vigil over the monsoon season as ghoulish mascots. Each had been wounded in fights, presumably because monsoon season is also mating season. Two of the dogs were torn open on the head, one on the scruff. One had his ear almost completely torn off, with nothing but a thread of tattered flesh remaining. The monsoon miasma would not let the wounds heal. Instead, they became infected and grew. The dogs would meander into classrooms nonchalantly and the students would recoil in disgust at the sight of the wounds’ raw purulence. Students with strong stomachs would shew the dogs out but their wounds left drip stains of pus and blood on the floor. The odor stayed long after the dogs were gone.

Each dog also developed a tick, constantly shaking their heads to rid themselves of the flies that dropped into their festering wounds and chewed at the rotten bits. Maggots soon followed, burrowing deeper and deeper until they reached nerves and spinal cord and brain. One dog was found dead in a pool of still water next to the football goal. Another lay dying aside the assembly ground as the students filed into their classrooms for evening study. They offered the suffering beast a healthy portion of fried rice, but the maggots had already taken over and stolen the dog’s appetite, leaving only enough energy for him to limp out into the jungle where he is presumed to now be rotting. The third dog I have not seen for some time. I assume that he is in the same condition as the aforementioned.

The leeches, snakes, spiders, and scorpions are out too. I pulled three leeches off of myself after a foray into the jungle. One wound leaked blood for the next half an hour. A month later, it’s still healing. It could be worse though. The mosquitos in the south carry malaria. Two teachers from the area told me that as children they contracted the disease frequently in the monsoon season.

“I had malaria six times,” one said.

“I had it at least a dozen,” said the other.

Yes, this is the country they call the happiest in the world.

There have been challenges here that I never expected. In the middle of the season I'd stand in front of the classroom wearing the gho (essentially, a blanket), with sweat pouring down my face, and the students wondered if I was about to keel over. I wondered about it too. I usually pride myself on my energy as a teacher, but during the monsoon season it was all different. I was lethargic and my motivation waned and I found myself awaiting the end of the day, when I could strip off my gho and sit under my fan and mosquito net, doing nothing.

I’ve had some surreal experiences lately as well. Happiness? Perhaps. More like out-of-body experiences. Last month I found myself in a mountaintop temple, watching a holy Rinpoche lead a group of devotee monks in prayers that were going on continuously for a week. It was a tradition that is as old as Mahayana Buddhism itself, one that exists now only in hidden enclaves of the world such as this. The monks clanged cymbals and blew long dungchen horns and chanted in what seemed like a trance. I was overwhelmed by the sound, the vibrations pouring over me, through me. During the ceremony, in my mind’s eye I rose into the sky and could pinpoint myself on a globe, envisioning from the clouds just how lost I was. There I sat, a little point on the far eastern side of Bhutan, near the disputed lands of China and India, borders blurred by precipitous mountains and insular peoples. The nearest westerner was probably thirty miles away as the crow flies and the list of foreigners before me who had observed that same ceremony is likely less than a dozen. I saw myself sitting among my Bhutanese friends, dressed traditionally with the ceremonial kabnay sash, receiving blessings from the Rinpoche as masked dancers chased demons from that temple on the mountaintop. And as I watched, I thought, “How did I get here?”

It happened another time in my classroom. The students were silently working on independent writing and after helping a student with some tricky subject-verb agreement, I stood up and started walking back to the front of the room. For a brief moment it was as if my soul was extracted out through the window and into the blanket of monsoon clouds that loomed ominously above. I saw myself there amongst my Bhutanese students, me again dressed in the gho, sweating in the heat and pacing between the desks arranged in groups. Again I questioned it all. “How did I get here?”

In the ether of this hidden kingdom, among wind-tattered prayer flags, the chants of monks, blessings from Lamas and Rinpoches, one can’t help but believe that perhaps it is happier here. It’s a question that I’ve asked myself constantly, but the answer isn’t so simple.

My western culture has a tendency to advertise everything for the benefit of the consumer, even though the advertisement may be very different than the reality. Bhutan’s mystique is a victim of this tendency. There are those who travel here that need to give their experience a logo or a slogan; they need to believe in a false ideal in order to give the travels a worth that their compatriots can understand, something akin to monetary value. To say, “I spent two-weeks in the happiest country in the world,” is to suggest that you are happier because of it. I’ll admit, I came here for the same reasons.

But luckily, happiness is still elusive and difficult to attain, even in Bhutan. I know now that the honest image of this country wouldn’t be appealing as an advertisement. Bhutan has happiness, sure. It also has sadness, fairness and injustice, health and sickness, anger and spite, moments of euphoria, moments of utter disbelief, it has love and hate. It’s got it all, the whole range of the human experience, just like every other nation on Earth. More often than not though, struggle is at the forefront. Not what you'd expect from the happiest country in the world, is it?

To talk of monks and temples and butter lamps and Buddha is to tickle the erroneous belief that there is an intangible kind of peace here that is other-worldly. But in truth, many monks join the monasteries to escape abject poverty or because they have mental disorders that their families don’t know what to do about. Many temples are erected by immigrant laborers who live in terrible conditions. The butter lamps are usually filled with cheap Indian vegetable oil.

If you come to Bhutan and are convinced that the nation’s happiness is unparalleled, that the people are entirely peaceful and that everything exists in a harmonious, ancient balance, then you are looking without seeing. You are speaking the advertisement and not the reality. The fatally wounded dogs have not walked into your classroom. You haven’t been bitten by a malaria plagued mosquito.

Though Gross National Happiness is part of Bhutan’s governmental framework, the manifestations of that goal are as flawed as America’s ideal of democracy. Everyone here is not a bodhisattva. There is infidelity, abuse, suicide (on the rise, in fact). The infrastructure is in poor condition, wrecked by landslides often. In many areas it is hard to get proper nutrition and healthcare.

But by living here, yes, I have learned something about happiness.

For me, the experience has been both utterly fulfilling and completely challenging. My eyes have been opened to the realities of living in a remote corner of a developing country. Life ain’t easy in the hinterlands. The lack of resources, good infrastructure, nutritious foods, and other things I took for granted in America has challenged my health, my pedagogy, and my sense of self. I have been lonely, bored, and afraid. I’ve therefore been learning about happiness through juxtaposition. In examining the daily struggles here, the de facto simplicity of life, the preponderance of illness, disease, and death, I have come to viscerally understand just how fortunate I am. 

The lesson evokes a different kind of happiness. Though there is much here that is still difficult, I am happy to be a part of a whole human experience, the good and the bad. I'm happy to be safe, alive, and breathing; happy to be able to afford a plane ticket out here, to be able to have a job that allows me to buy food and keep a roof over my head; happy to be able to move freely throughout the world. By knowing a little bit more about the suffering of others, I can put my suffering into perspective; that is, I haven’t suffered. Not really. Never. The grievances of the past seem petty. The lost loves seem as natural as the passing of rain clouds. What I have done is lived a full life, one made good by the moderate fluctuations of very human experiences. 

If I can carry these lessons with me in the future, live always with memories of Bhutan somewhere near the forefront of my mind, then no matter where I go next, I think yes, I’ll be happy. The challenge will be remembering. I know that when I leave here in January, when I find myself in more comfortable environs, with more privileges at my fingertips, then I will once again be tempted to think that I am suffering. And that forgetfulness, that ignorance, will make me believe that no, I am not happy. Perhaps then I can look back, see myself from those bird's eye views, and remind myself just how easy I have it. Then, maybe, I'll be happy again. 

Grizzly Country

I'd like to stray from the Bhutanese narratives for a moment. Though, in its own way, the following story is inexorably linked to where and how I live now.

If I trace back, I can connect how I got here--a remote area of the Himalayas--to a lake in the Canadian Rockies. It was there, many years ago, that I was profoundly tested; where I started to learn about loneliness, fear, and about building a relationship with mountains. They are lessons that have guided me on every adventure I have had since.

As this is a much longer story, one that I actually wrote in 2014, I've added it to the Writing Projects tab of the blog. You can also just access it in the link below:

Grizzly Country

Finally, this story would not be complete with thanking my father. He raised me to love the mountains and he instilled in me a belief that one should seek challenge and adventure in one's life. And though at times these lessons came through unconventional methods (as the story will reveal), I believe they were pivotal in making me who I am today. I wouldn't change them for anything.

This Lesson is a Gift

An interesting thing happened the other day. My class XI students and I were reading “The Accursed House,” a 19^th century French satire by Emile Gaboriau. The story is about a nobleman who inherits an apartment building from his recently deceased, miserly uncle. When he learns that the uncle had been charging a high rental rate, the nobleman, out of pure altruism, decides that he will lower the rate by one-third. When his decision is announced, the tenants begin to wonder why the nobleman made such a drastic change in the rent. They think that there is something wrong with the apartment, conjecturing that it must be poorly built, or that soon the nobleman will burn it down in order to collect the insurance money. Conspiracies build and the tenants accuse the nobleman of being a criminal, running a counterfeiting operation in the basement, harboring Prussian spies. They distrust his altruism so much that they begin hearing haunting noises in the building and seeing ghosts. In the end, because the nobleman lowered his tenants’ rent, every one of them fled the building, leaving it forever empty and “accursed.”

When I asked my students to identify what the author was satirizing, I was disappointed with their responses. It seemed like they had an inability to discern the obvious. They guessed that perhaps the satire was about being superstitious, or that sometimes buildings are poorly constructed. The best guess—asking if the satire was about the contagiousness of rumors—still seemed like they missed the point entirely. Again I analyzed my pedagogy. Did I fail at explaining the difficult vocabulary or the general plot? Did they misunderstand the whole story, or just a critical part?

I pointed out the central satire for them. “Humans distrust generosity,” I explained. “If someone gives us a gift for no reason, our tendency is to question the person’s motives.”

The students diligently wrote down my explanation. But when they looked up, still, I could sense that they didn’t understand.

Frustrated, I explained, “Think about it. If someone just gives you a gift for no reason, you think that they have ulterior motives, right?” And as soon as the words slipped from my mouth, I thought about these past seven months in Bhutan. Not a week goes by without my neighbor knocking on my door and offering me fresh chilies or radishes or onions from his garden. My students come with candies and give them to me and the other teachers just because they have extras. Colleagues will drop off pickled foods at my door and when I visit people’s homes they offer me tea and beer and dinner, and I often leave with a bag filled with fruits and vegetables. And when there is no physical gift to give, still people will freely offer up compliments: Looking smart today, sir. Sir is as tall as a prayer flag. Sir, you have a very cool walk.

It clicked. Once again the day’s lesson was much more profound for me than it was for the students. I remembered how I joke with them when they give me such compliments. “Thanks, Tashi,” I say. “You get ten extra points today,” suggesting that he must have wanted something from me; why else would he give me a random compliment? I use that joke all the time. I think it’s hilarious.

“Maybe we should fix your notes, actually.” I attempted to correct my error, writing on the board: “Westerners distrust generosity.”

When they finished amending their notes, they all looked up at me. Still, the idea seemed difficult for them to understand. They appeared to be analyzing my very being for the explanation; I am the only westerner that most of them know. I wondered if they now questioned any kind gesture that I had done for them, any moment when I was generous. But then I asked myself if, aside from teaching, I’ve done anything generous for them for no reason at all. Have I given them gifts? Offered them food? Paid them compliments?

No. I don’t think I have.

*Note: As I was writing the first draft of this, another teacher came over and offered me a huge slice of cucumber.

In Lieu of Writing

I've been writing, but I haven't been too satisfied with anything enough to post. So I loaded all my video clips on my computer and put together a poorly edited video of my experience for the last seven months. 

I'm not expecting an Oscar...

But maybe the video will provide a little insight into what life is like here in Bhutan.

A Visit with A Nun

In Sonam Phuntso’s village the rains were relentless. We had been fortunate in Pema’s village to have a break in the rain and to be able to see the high peaks; we could walk freely and unencumbered. But in Sonam Phuntso’s village the wet clouds descended and unleashed a constant flow of rain that kept the villagers indoors. I wanted to explore, much to Sonam Phuntso’s dismay. As I was both a guest and his teacher, his family compelled him to take me out around the village. He told me that I should carry an umbrella if we were going out in the rain, but I said that we were going hiking so a raincoat would be better. He shrugged and unfolded his umbrella and I zipped up my jacket and it wasn’t one hour before I was soaked and Sonam Phuntso was still dry.

We walked the steep green hills behind his house, past an occasional old stone home and through pastures where the horses were wet from the rain and bloodstained from leeches that had latched onto their skin, drunk to their fill and then, distended with blood, leapt off of the horses and into the grass. I checked my pants frequently for leeches and occasionally found a few small ones that had yet to take hold and start sucking.

The way was steep and I plodded on with resolve. Sonam Phuntso meandered casually with his umbrella propped against his shoulder and his cell phone in his hand, sending text messages to a friend every few minutes. I beat him to the high points, if only to show him that I wasn’t a weak old man—as I think he believed—but also to convince myself of the same. Still, at the tops of the hills I was breathing heavily and Sonam Phuntso was not.

At the peak of one hill there was a forgotten temple, barely visible in the rain clouds. It was an imposing, haunting structure, like a Savannah plantation or a lost Gaelic castle; two stories, constructed mostly of stone, with an ornate attic on top. We approached the front porch and an old woman sitting at the massive prayer wheel saw us and retreated inside with a limp. The wheel was left spinning ever so slowly and a ding of the prayer bell rang out when the wheel made its full rotation.

We climbed the stairs, Sonam Phuntso shaking off drops from his umbrella and I taking off my boots and beating the soles against the stairs to clear the mud. The entryway was an ample porch that had the same well-worn wood floors that I had seen in the villages, planks pulled from large, solid trees, ages ago, now polished and smooth from the traffic of bare footsteps. The walls were painted with deteriorating images of deities, some you couldn’t make out because they were too weathered, others emerged like specters, sitting in the lotus position, adorned with Buddhist symbols.

Sonam Phuntso knocked at the thick wooden doors. We waited and I continued to look at the paintings. We heard the doors unlatched from the inside and they creaked open and the light shone in on the great hall. The old woman came out from behind one of the doors. Her head was shaven and she wore the tired, old maroon colors of a nun. Her right arm was twisted and bent, forged there like iron.

“She’s the caretaker, sir.”

She showed us into the vast room that smelled of wood, incense, and butter. The only light that entered came from the open doors; most of the room was dark and cold. There were golden statues of Guru Rinpoche and the Buddha that had a thick layer of dust on them. We prostrated three times to each statue. Sonam Phuntso gave me a butter lamp to light. I am not religious, Buddhist or otherwise, and I did not know what I should do with it.

“Set it on the altar and light it, sir.”

“What should I pray for?”

“Sir?”

“When you’re lighting the butter lamps, what do you pray for?”

“Nothing, sir.”

“Nothing? Then why are you doing it?”

“It’s our custom, sir.”

“But it must have a reason.”

“Sure, sir.”

“So what are you hoping for when you light it?”

“Just a custom, sir.”

I could see something was getting lost so I turned to light the butter lamp and let Sonam Phuntso light his. I prayed for a continued safe journey. The wick took long to light and I thought the flame would sputter out and my prayer would be lost, but as the heat from the match just barely began to singe my fingers, the wick caught and my safe journey was secured.

We toured the upper rooms of the temple, all very cold, simple and sparse. Each room had statues of religious figures encased in glass on wooden altars. Again we prostrated to the figures and offered small denominations of bills. I prayed again, this time for direction and a sense of bearing and I also prayed for the rain to stop. 

We thanked the nun and when it was time to leave she invited us for tea. Such invitations are custom, but you could hear loneliness in her voice. What it must be like to be a caretaker of a temple in a remote area of eastern Bhutan. Sonam Phuntso looked ready to return home, but I told him that I’d like to have tea with the nun.

She led us to her quarters, a single room in a small barracks behind the temple, where monks used to live. The room was black with soot. A fire pit sat at the far end and there was no chimney. The ashes were thick in the fire pit and spilled out over the edges.

“I didn’t realize she’d have to start a fire to prepare the tea, Sonam Phuntso. Maybe we should just decline.”

The old woman hobbled out of the room and asked Sonam Phuntso to join her. I was left alone in the nun’s quarters, sitting on a thin foam pad on the floor that she used as a bed. In a minute, Sonam Phuntso returned.

“She’s preparing the tea in a room next door on an electric kettle.”

“Ah, much better than the fire, huh?”

“Yes, sir.”

She hollered something at Sonam Phuntso and he disappeared again, helping her with the tea. I sat and observed the room, the beaten wood cabinet with woolen clothes and blankets piled on top, the blackened pots and aluminum ladles sitting around the fire pit, a ramshackle shelf with a hodgepodge of plastic bowls and containers. A rooster came and stood at the doorway, watching me cautiously. A cat came behind the rooster, scaring him and sending him fluttering away. I could hear the clanging of kitchen work next door; the wall was merely wood slats and I could peer in and see the two preparing the tea.

When they returned, Sonam Phuntso set the tea in front of me and I thanked him. The nun drank from a small wooden bowl, the steam wafted around her in the light and made her presence ethereal. We were silent, listening to the patter of rain outside and to the sound of our lips sipping the hot tea. When we finished, I asked if I could take a picture of her and she told me to wait. She wanted to put on her nice clothes. She hobbled over to the wood cabinet and with one arm she took up a light woolen sweater that was embroidered at the waist with what were once vibrantly colored patterns but had long since faded. She struggled to get her bad arm into the sleeve and I stood and helped her. She then took out a thick, red cape-like garment and draped it over her back. Her final piece was a woolen hat that she placed carefully on her head. She hobbled back to where she was sitting on the floor and with struggle sat back down.

“Now you can take the picture.”

Like so many pictures, something was false. And now as I write this I realize that I also don’t have the words to write the nun truly. I hoped somehow I could hold onto the moment and freeze it and that time would rest its relentlessness for a while. But the mugs of tea were empty and I had taken enough photos and it was time to leave again. In the pause that comes before accepting it is time to depart, she began to talk to us more than she had since she first opened the doors to the temple. Sonam Phuntso translated.

“My arm and leg seized up when I was thirteen,” she said. “Before thirteen I was a normal little girl. I played with my friends and I ran around the village and I didn’t have any problems. Then I turned thirteen and I became crippled and my whole life changed.”

It was useless to ask about doctors and diagnoses. To this day the closest road to the village is a two hour hike away. When she was thirteen the road was much farther and even then there were not doctors in the larger villages that had roads. It is likely that there was a lama in her village that tried to cure her, and when he didn’t succeed he spoke of karma and spirits and the reasons people suffer in their reincarnations.

“I was very angry,” she continued. “I hated my life. It was unfair that I should know a life where I could use my body and then it should be taken away. But then I became a nun and I spent my time in prayer and in study. Now I am no longer angry. I have accepted my fate in this life.”

She smiled at us. She was missing many teeth but that did not weaken the smile. Again we found ourselves in a silence that was asking something of us. Sonam Phuntso began to say goodbye.

The nun held my hand in both of hers and said, “I hope that we will one day meet again.”

“I hope so too,” I said and asked Sonam Phuntso to translate.

We stood. I put on my jacket and Sonam Phuntso opened his umbrella and again we were back in the rain. The nun stood in the doorway, bracing herself against one side, and watched us leave, down the green hills until we disappeared in the fog.