Life in Taktse

The Front of the main ILCS Administration Building showing the amazing detail in painting

Up-close Detailing

It seems about time for me to describe exactly what our day-to-day life is like living in Takste on the new ILCS campus that is still very much under construction. Hopefully, my report will not come across as too depressing, but will incorporate at least a general sense of humor, since it is, in fact, often the only resort we have to making this work. I have decided to split this blog entry into various categories, so as to thoroughly cover different dimensions of life here.

Teaching

Chris is teaching two classes, each of about 30 students, on the subject of “Academic Skills.” Basically, this means that he is teaching students how to do such things as take useful and organized notes; paraphrase and analyze assigned readings; learn the difference between plagiarism and original essay writing; interact with other students in the classroom; formulate questions, etc. Each class meets four times per week. Students must remain in the classroom (each “year” has one classroom in which all classes for that group are conducted) from 8:45 in the morning until 3:20 in the afternoon, except for bathroom and lunch breaks. Saturdays are the exception where the required class-time hours end at noon. Chris has suggested that since students have not grown up in a self-motivating environment, if staff and teachers are not on them, they don’t really do anything. Hence, the thrice-weekly “assemblies” held at 8:15 in the morning mainly consist of lengthy exhortations to students to remain in their classrooms and not run off to play volleyball (very popular!) or other extra-curricular activities.. In another posting I will discuss the popularity and variety of "clubs."

Students here are either in what is called a “degree” program (in which they remain in residence for three years, eventually receiving the equivalent of what we would call a BA) or in the “diploma” program, which is a two-year program of basic training in Dzong-kha—like an associate’s degree. The ILCS’s forte is the training of students in Dzong-kha, the “national” language of Bhutan, or at least, the language that the government of Bhutan is promoting as its national language, encouraging all Bhutanese to learn it. In fact, in order to get a “good” job, one must have proficiency in Dzong-kha, so there is quite a bit of incentive to study it. And, it seems to me that most people actually do speak it. However, the combination of having both English and Dzong-kha is the best and ILCS is supposed to be the place for that.

View of Admin Building on the walk up from the residences

A few other details: Chris is expected to take attendance, but was given no class roster—there are none. And, since we arrived here in Taktse two weeks late, he’s not exactly sure how many students he has. (Actually, we arrived in Bhutan one week later than the semester was supposed to start—we thought we were going to be very late, but in fact the semester began six weeks later than it was supposed to due to this move and new construction.)

No communication system exists for informing instructors of university holidays, meetings, class cancellations, etc. Chris usually finds out either the day that something is cancelled or scheduled or the day before when an announcement is made as someone interrupts his class to inform everyone.

There are no facilities for making photocopies or handouts and no printing can be done because the only printer on the entire campus has a cartridge that has “run out” of ink. It does not seem to be possible to get another one. If Chris does want to make photocopies or handouts, he must pay for them himself.

Students not supposed to write in their textbooks, which are technically “on loan.” The makeshift library is a room with books spread out on a bunch of desks, their covers curling in the humidity of the mists, their pages moldy and wet since the room itself does not yet have class in any of the windows. The actual library, which is nowhere near completion, will be a beautiful building with high glass windows and wide-open spaces. The main issue is that it will be freezing in the winter, since, as we have to remember, there is no such thing as central heating anywhere in Bhutan.

Every staff person at ILCS is required to “donate” money for toilet paper (!), and photocopy paper, as well as to put money into a general “death insurance” pot. The idea being that if a member of any staff’s family dies, this “bonus” money would be given to that person. (Personally, I think this is quite a sweet thing, though the mandatory nature of it is somewhat odd).

Staff meetings are lengthy (as are all meetings in Bhutan), but are held mostly in Dzong-kha. Chris’ notes, shown below, give you a sense of how things proceed. EUDD=Extended, untranslated, Dzong-kha Discussion. MEUDD=more extended, untranslated, Dzong-kha discussion. There’s not much effort to let Chris, or Matt (the other American teacher) into the loop throughout the two-plus hour meeting.

Notes Taken Toward End of Meeting

As a side note, plagiarism is a huge problem in Bhutan due to students not understanding what it means or how to formulate analytical thoughts or theories based on the materials they are studying. For them, writing an essay means finding something on the internet that matches the subject matter upon which they have been asked to write and copying that material directly into their essays. One could say that this is not really the fault of the students or the faculty at all. And given that fifty years ago, there was no educational system in Bhutan other than shes-dras (traditional Buddhist colleges in which monks and nuns “studied” the Buddhist teachings primarily through quite amazing feats of memorization and rote repetition) conducted by local monasteries, the level and scope of education in Bhutan is remarkable. RUB (The Royal University of Bhutan) was originated through the efforts of Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche—whom I wrote about earlier—a very high level Buddhist master. So, since it has only been a couple of decades since formal education was extended to the general populace and since the monastic model was predominant, one could say that there has been quite a bit of progress in the educational system here. Nevertheless, the model for education is still primarily that of rote repetition and memorization. Neither students nor the younger instructors have had much, if any, training in how to think critically and independently, to formulate questions, or to interpret, theorize or analyze textual materials. The few classes that I sat in on (there are only a couple taught in Tibetan—chos skad—all the rest are taught in Dzong-kha, which is different enough from Tibetan that I cannot understand it), consisted of the lecturer (often a young recent graduate of ILCS itself—most are about 21 years old) asking students to stand up to repeat the lesson from the previous day. Chris and I are part of an initiative to help educate teachers and students in analytical thinking. It is clearly recognized that the entire system requires a dramatic pedagogical shift. Instructors and certainly the high-level administrators recognize this problem and are working to shift the university’s orientation to learning, but it’s going to take some time. It’s fascinating to see, but not as inspiring as I might like in terms of forming academically-oriented relationships. I am certain that things will change, but perhaps not in a way that is obvious while we are here.

View of Student Dormitories (under construction) from our front porch

Sunset

Food

Um. Not very much to say here. I am surviving on peanut butter (which we specially ordered and brought with us from Thimphu—its going fast), jelly, cabbage, cheese, and eggs. Sigh. What I wouldn’t do for fresh fruit, fresh veggies, meat… (Sorry to all vegetarians out there, but I’m dying for some protein), not to mention things like corn chips, sushi, tacos, etc. I’m clearly a very spoiled eater who is used to a variety of edible options. Here, the options range from rice to potatoes to onions to noodles. 

Oh! How could I forget? Biscuits and Tea. The staple of most South Asian diets, other than rice, of course. The problem for both Chris and me is that we both love biscuits and tea. But when one’s diet becomes mostly biscuits and tea, it just doesn’t seem like a particularly nutrient-rich combination, nor does it do much for one’s waistline. And considering the fact that there aren’t any Bally’s or Gold’s Gyms down the muddy dirt road, exercise isn’t a “formal” affair, but rather one of circumstance—circumstance which we are not actively pursuing.

For a while, we got into making datse—cheese and chili dishes with some other veggie. But the “other” veggies are limited to two different kinds of what I would call “summer squash” although I’m not actually sure that’s what it is. They are huge, green football-shaped vegetables that look a lot like a giant cucumber and have a rather bland, but non-offensive flavor. When there were cucumbers, these too were huge—larger than footballs, and very flavorful. I am still mourning their disappearance. This report would be incomplete if I did not mention "Crunchy Munchy"--my favorite deep-friend Indian Moong Dal snack--a VERY healthy option when I don't feel like cooking, which is, as usual, most of the time.

Chris on the Front Porch

Looking toward the other set of staff residences

Construction

Well, it’s impossible not to address this element of daily life, especially since it is, in many ways, the most prevalent and pervasive aspect of each day. To begin with, every day involves either losing power or losing water. It’s actually quite humorous how consistent this pattern is. Every morning we make note of which we have and which is dwindling. For a while, we’d contact the main person here who is supposed to take care of such things until it became clear that we were dealing with a particular phenomenon that has emerged more and more.

For example, the other day, feeling fed up with the fact that we had not had any power for over 24 hours and, being thoroughly dependent on my battery-dead laptop to do any work, I wandered out the front door looking for one of the contractors to ask about the status of electricity. After a bit of searching I found one. She happened to be speaking with the other person I mentioned above, the young man who has the role of “buildings and maintenance” here. In typical forthright American-style, I asked, “So, what’s going on with the power?” Silence. They both looked at anything but me. After a little while, trying to be pleasant, I asked again, “Do you have any idea when the power might be back on?” This time, the woman said to me, “Yes, Madam, power is coming.”

Again silence.

I thought, well, let’s see how else I could phrase this question. I asked, “When do you think there will be some sort of regular power source?”

(I forgot to mention that both the power and the water are temporary hook-ups monitored by one of the other construction companies—three total—working on this campus. Hence, I have learned that any problems with the power or the water aren’t the “responsibility” of the company that is working on our residence. One must actually try to ask the other construction company.)

Again there is a long, long silence while both of my informants look at anything that is not me. I ask the question again. The woman turns and walks away without saying a word. The buildings and maintenance guy, without actually looking at me, says, “Yes, madam, but it will be about eight to nine months before we have stable power…” he is terribly embarrassed and unhappy as he relates this information to me and as soon as he is done speaking, he quickly leaves me. I am sure that my own direct questioning and the fact that he has to tell me something is both true and not particularly good news has gone utterly against the grain. One thing Chris and I have both learned is that no one will actually report the truth if that truth is in any way outside of the what the listener wants to hear. The reason for this is that it causes both the questioner and the reporter to “lose face” if things are not always optimal. I am still trying to make sense of this, since to my mind, knowing the truth is a far better option than hearing endless platitudes that never amount to any kind of reality. But I honestly think that most Bhutanese are far more flexible and easy with whatever the situation is—they recognize very well that it will soon change—and therefore they do not get nearly as tweeked out as I do when one thing after another falls apart. I’d like to say that I’ve learned something from this, but I think mostly, I’ve learned how impatient and demanding I am.  

The story about the power, which came out very slowly, is that the power transformer required to supply the university was never ordered. Hence, someone finally ordered this transformer, which must come from Korea, and since such things are only made-to-order, it will take nearly a year to be delivered. As a result, power will be temporary, fluctuating, and often non-existent for that long.

Erecting pilings for a Student Dormitory

New Student Dormitory going up in front of our residence

There is so much more to say…

Stay tuned for the next posting after the King's wedding--a huge event here and one which I look forward to recording. Since I am now in possession of the ONE key to the room where there is high-speed internet, I plan to be here more often—except, of course, when the college is in session, at which time I must return the key to someone else…

Evening Clouds