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.