Daily Life

Mangde Chuu Valley in Autumn

At five am the alarm goes off. Torn from a dream in which I am swimming through a frothing lake that has no horizon, I open my eyes to the pitch dark of the inside of the bedroom. At five am, no moon remains to shed a ray of light beyond the window, and the concrete walls of the room make it nearly as dark as an underground chamber. Holding my hand in front of my face, I cannot see even the slightest outline. Rising in solid darkness aside, it’s the chill in the early morning air that makes me even more reluctant to emerge from beneath the layers of blankets under which I have made a toasty cocoon. Getting out of bed in Bhutan requires a leap of faith—that I will maintain enough body warmth to re-layer myself in my outdoor clothes, turn on the one small panel heater in the next room, and make my steaming mug of coffee before the cold settles over me once again. Coffee is a complex affair of instant coffee, unsweetened cocoa powder, sugar, and milk boiled up in a pan on our two-burner propane stove. I have to watch the mixture carefully since the burner is slightly too large for my small pot and one wrong move can send the entire beverage cascading across both stove and counter—a mishap that has occasionally extended my cooking time by a half-hour or so! Back upstairs, I sip from my insulated mug (an item I hold as precious as a rare diamond for both its size—most Bhutanese sip tea from tiny teacups—as well as from its ability to maintain the heat) while stretching.

The Warm Room

I recall overhearing a conversation in a shop in Thimphu when Chris and I were buying dishes to bring to Taktse. Two Bhutanese women were examining a rack of much larger-than-usual teacups. One woman said to the other: “Who drinks out of something like this? Can you even imagine a situation where you’d ever want something so huge?” The other woman nodded her head sagely—clearly, imbibing one’s tea out of such a large mug was considered extremely gauche. Recalling that our insulated mugs were easily twice as large as the mugs the women were commenting on, I had to laugh. Since then, I’ve been very carful to serve tea to guests only in the tiny teacups we bought that match our dishes.

Bedroom

After stretching, Chris and I arrange our meditation seats and practice in the perfect silence of the pre-dawn hours. It is so quiet at this time of day that I can hear the blood rushing in my veins. Most Bhutanese do not seem to be early risers, though I have occasionally come across villagers out in the early morning, away on a path to some unknown destination. By the time we’ve finished our practice, there is light behind the curtains. Drawing them aside, I still find it difficult to determine what sort of a day it will be due to the thick layer of condensation that coats every window in our apartment. It’s a bit of a mystery why so much condensation accumulates on the inside of the windows. I can understand those in the bedroom, but why in every other room when there is no heat that might be reasonably understood to cause the moisture? We can only figure that it is due to the fact that the poured concrete walls and floors of the apartment are “sweating” in spite of the chill, winter weather. In fact, someone casually mentioned that it would likely be a few years before the concrete was dry. If we lived in Thimphu, or some other drier location in Bhutan, this would be fine, but Taktse has proven itself to have the wettest weather in the country. Even when other parts of Bhutan are warm with the brilliant winter sun, we are, as often as not, shrouded in thick fog and heavy wet clouds. In spite of how utterly gorgeous this spot is when the sun is shining, it is unclear to me why the decision was made to locate ILCS in such an inhospitable location. Everyone is already dreading the return of the monsoon next summer, when heavy rain, fog, leeches, and mud participate in an ongoing cycle of mold, damp, and chill. I am secretly (or not so secretly!) planning to engage in ethnographic research during some of those summer months that will allow me to live in less damp environments!

Our Kitchen

While Chris gets ready for his first period class, I reflect that it is pleasant to be back in what currently counts as “home” after spending the past week in Thimphu. Even the damp and the gray clouds can’t change the fact that here is where we have begun to craft as comfortable a space as possible out of the raw ingredients at our disposal. My week in Thimphu had both a pleasurable element (seeing and spending a bit of time with my sister, who was there on business) and an utterly frustrating element—four solid days spent attempting to purchase plane tickets from Paro to Bangkok using local currency. While my sister dutifully attended to her meetings, I spent numerous hours engaging in the exactly the kind of fruitless endeavor that many South Asian countries stimulate best—dealing with bureaucratic red tape. The issue, in a nutshell, is that Bhutan has not developed any kind of policy for foreign residents (those who are not safely wrapped in the protective bubble of their tour guides’ expertise) to engage in activities that most Bhutanese take for granted. One example of this is buying plane tickets with the only airline that serves Bhutan, Druk Air. Travel details to and from Bhutan itself are generally taken care of by whatever tour company the tourist has signed up with. The tourist only has to provide his or her passport number and dates of travel. However, for someone like me, living in Bhutan, with Chris being paid a local salary in local currency, this issue becomes enormously complex--especially when it concerns things like exchange rates, etc. While I had little trouble booking the flight, paying for it became a marathon of institutions, discussions, letters and bank visits.

Thanksgiving Dinner: Mashed Potatoes, Indian Snack Mix, Red Rice, Ema Datsi, and Saag Curry

Thanksgiving Guests: Lopen Lungtaen, Matt Robinson, Chris

The story goes like this:

I arrived at the Druk Air office just as they opened. In spite of my early arrival, I was still required to take a number, since others had arrived before me. After an hour of waiting while the three people ahead of me at the three open counters took care of their tickets, my number was finally announced. I sat down with the agent and explained that I had booked tickets and wished to pay for them using local currency. But because I am a foreigner, I was told, “So sorry Madam, but this is not possible.”

“What is not possible?” I asked.

“You must pay in US dollars.”

“But I don’t have enough US dollars to pay for these tickets. Can’t I use ngultrim?”

“Just one moment, Madam.” The agent disappeared for about ten minutes into the back of the office, while I tried to imagine what the problem was. Finally, he came back.

“I’m sorry, Madam, but you must have a letter from the RMA.”

“The what?”

“The RMA—the Royal Monetary Authority.” He looked very embarrassed.

“Why do I need a letter?” I asked, trying to maintain a polite demeanor but feeling my heart sink—what the hell is the RMA?

“You must have a letter saying you can pay in local currency.”

Sigh. “How can I get this letter?”

After a fair bit more questioning I learn that my “institution” must first write a letter to the RMA explaining that Chris and I are “employees” of ILCS and that we wish to pay for plane tickets in local currency. Upon receipt of this letter, the RMA would review the claim and decide whether or not to issue another letter authorizing Druk Air to take our money.  By now I’ve been in the Druk Air office for about three hours and am beginning to have an intuition of just how much time this process is going to take.

“Can’t I just give you a credit card?” I ask in desperation.

The agent looks horrified. “Oh no, Madam. We don’t take those.”

Of course not—credit cards barely exist in Bhutan. No one uses them.

I leave the office and stand on the busy sidewalk under the bright sun flipping through the listings of phone numbers in my phone. Who should I call? Finally, I call Lopen. He tells me that I should go to the main Royal University of Bhutan office and get them to write the first letter. He’ll make some phone calls and let them know I’m coming and why. I hang up and begin the forty-minute walk up the steep roads to the office. Soon, for the first time in days, I have to take off my coat and hat. In spite of the cool, winter air, the sun is brilliant and warm. Too warm, in fact. By the time I reach the office, I’m sweating. Entering into the enormous marble and concrete building the temperature seems to drop about twenty degrees. True to his word, Lopen has informed the administrative staff of my coming. I sit down with a young man who is in charge of HR. While he’s been told what I’ve come for, he seems very unsure how to proceed.

“What do I need to do?” he asks me.

I am taken aback. “Um, I think you are supposed to write a letter to the RMA,” I say.

“Oh.” He stares for a while at his computer screen without typing anything. Finally, he faces me again. “I’ve never done this before,” he says apologetically, “What should it say?”

I contemplate a number of inappropriate responses.

“Well, how about just giving our travel dates and passport information and asking them to approve the use of local currency for payment?” I finally say.

After a while we manage to produce what I feel is a reasonable document. The young man eventually also produces another letter that has been written by someone else asking for the same thing for another teacher at Sheruptse College, so our process is helpful to him. As we finish, a senior official comes into the office. Lopen has also apparently spoken with him, and he’s prepared to oversee this process. He reads the letter and asks me if I have a copy of Chris’s work permit. While I have both of our passports, passport photos, copies of our visas, and my own dependent card, the one thing I don’t have is a copy of Chris’s work permit.

“I can’t submit the letter without a copy of Chris’s permit,” he tells me.

“Do you have a copy on record here?” I ask, since this is, after all, the main office of RUB. But no, after a few more hours of discussion and a few phone calls, it is revealed that there is no copy on hand, neither here, nor in Semtokha where ILCS used to be located. In fact, the copies of the work permits have been sent to Taktse. By now it’s nearly four pm and the RMA offices are closing. Its clear that there is no way the letter will be sent today. I try to call Chris. After about eight tries, the phone finally connects (this is an ongoing problem in Taktse—phones rarely work).

“I need a copy of your work permit,” I tell him, after explaining the situation. Since it’s past 4pm, there is nothing he can do until the following morning. But neither of us can figure out how he will be able to send a copy. Since there is no internet and no fax in Taktse, we realize that Chris will have to take a photo of his work permit, upload it to his computer and pray that the data card will work long enough for him to send the file. If it doesn’t he will have to get on the bus and come to Thimphu—an eight-hour drive.

I arrange to come back to the RUB office the following morning and walk tiredly back to the hotel room I am sharing with my sister. She’s exhausted too and we lie on our beds discussing our respective days. I am reminded that nothing is simple when it comes to this kind of paperwork. Bhutan government agencies, in particular, are obsessed with having paper copies of every single document. Often this means that everyone, Bhutanese included, must carry around photocopies (and in some cases, the original documents) of every element of one’s life, including photos. I think that my photo must be on file already in numerous cabinets.

Autumn Cherry Blossoms

That night we are treated to a private dinner by the Vice Chancellor of RUB, with whom my sister and her colleagues have been meeting all day. In one of those experiences of complete reversal that I am becoming familiar with in Bhutan, we are picked up by a private car and whisked up into the mountains to a hidden resort. The VC has rented out the entire place—an enchanting, traditional structure nestled into the pine forest high over the city. Stars glitter in the cold, mountain air and lend an eerie white glow to the bare snow peaks across the Thimphu valley. We all settle into the bhukari-heated dining room where we sit on cushioned benches around low tables. The room glows with a golden light from the fire and the warm yellow lights. The VC has arranged absolutely everything and we are treated like queens and kings as the meal unfolds like an elegant dance of Bhutanese custom and cuisine. In fact, I notice that lining the walls are photos of some of queens of Bhutan eating here.

The food is the best I’ve had in Bhutan. The meal begins with traditional butter tea and snacks, including cupse (deep-fried, elaborately shaped cookies), puffed rice (with a crunchy consistency and nutty flavor), pounded corn flakes, and other snacks. As we all chat amiably and sip our tea, I remark to myself on how skillful the VC is in creating atmospheres in which people are put at their ease. This dinner is an extremely generous offering and very much honors the guests--my sister and her colleagues. Flaming cups of arra (local “wine”) follow the tea, along with spicy juma (blood sausage fried with spices), some kind of pork skin (a culinary challenge for all but the most daring), a delicately spiced cucumber salad, and another salad of chopped banana flowers—a wonderful dish with an indescribable sweet flavor. At this point, I’m stuffed, but the VC, who is seated next to me, reminds me that these are only the appetizers! Soon we are invited to the buffet, where traditional Bhutanese red rice (rich and nutty in flavor), spiced buckwheat noodles (a specialty of Bumthang), chicken curry, a pork stew, ema datsi made with red chilies, a bean dish, and a delicately spiced pumpkin soup, push my already overstuffed stomach over the edge. Dessert (traditionally very unusual in Bhutan where people don’t generally eat sweets) is the only concession to “modern” cuisine, but is, nevertheless, extremely unusual. It consists of sugarcane “candy,” very much like maple sugar candy in consistency but closer in flavor to molasses, covered with local honey and fruit. A special “digestive” tea of some kind of delicate flower completes the meal. Swooping back down the twisting mountain roads to our guesthouse, I note how much my experience of Bhutanese society is constantly changing from utter charm and delight to grinding frustration and back again, often within the space of a few hours. But all along, I can’t help but love the people I’ve met and continue to meet. Somehow, I am continually left with the feeling that we are all travelers on this road through life’s ups and downs, and that a bit of humor, kindness, and a smile will always make the journey a bit more pleasant.  

The next day continues my odyssey with Druk Air. To make a long story somewhat shorter, the highlights include: the morning spent in the RUB offices attempting to get the copy of Chris’s work permit. This process is complex and includes my attempted use of multiple computers to download the file, and a long search for a printer to print it. It also includes the rewriting of the original letter, which did not (for some unfathomable reason) contain the dates of our departure and return to Bhutan. Finally, by noon, the letter was ready and the senior official, after first suggesting that I take it myself to the RMA, but when it became clear that neither I (nor he) had any idea which department to give the letter to, agreed to take the letter himself—but not until after lunch. Lunch hour is sacrosanct in Bhutan and all government agencies and some private businesses always close between 1-2pm. Due to this, the letter would only be delivered after lunch and I would need to pick up the new letter written by RMA authorizing payment the following day. Sigh.

Day Three: The letter from RUB requires further alterations and must be resubmitted. Finally, after lunch, I receive a call that the RMA letter is ready for me to pick up. I again walk up to the RUB office to retrieve the letter and thank the senior official who has now himself endured a fair amount of frustration and inconvenience in getting the letter issued. He’s pleased though, that there is now a prototype for this kind of request that RUB can use in the future. (Well, at least!) I rush down to the bank to change the US dollars I do have into ngultrim and to get more from the ATM before lunch again shuts down all offices. Over lunch, I carefully count out the exact amount I owe for the tickets. In fact, I only have the exact amount! Timing my arrival at Druk Air, I am still required to take a ticket. I sit for about an hour on a bench, while agents appear to be helping other customers. Finally, after noting that not a single number has been called, I approach the desk. The manager, noticing my hovering, questioning face, comes over to inform me that their computer system is down, and “can Madam please come back tomorrow?” (Auggghhhhh!)

Day Four: My sister and I arrive at opening time. We are planning to do some Christmas shopping after I have paid for the tickets. Again, I wait for some time, hoping to see the manager who has promised me that I don’t have to wait in line again. However, it appears that although I noticed her as we approached the office, she has slipped out the back door just as we entered the front door. Finally, she returns, and true to her word, as soon as she sees me, she beckons me over. However, in tallying up the sum for the tickets, she tells me that I owe her about 3000 ngultrim more than I have, since in the time I’ve spent running around getting my letters of approval, the rates have gone up dramatically. Naturally, I don’t have that extra 3000, having only brought my carefully counted-out amount. I feel a bit like crying, but my sister comes to my aid and lends me the money so that I don’t have to run out around the city to the bank again and then come back. Finally, the tickets are paid for. It isn’t until I get back to Taktse that I realize the return date has been written down incorrectly and the tickets have been issued for a later date. Oh well, a couple extra days in Bangkok can’t be that bad!

View From Dochu-Lha on a Clear Day

After all of this, being back in the peace of Taktse is welcome. My bus ride on the local bus back from Thimphu begins at 6am, where I and all the rest of the passengers puff out white breaths of air as we wait while the bus driver secures our belongings to the top of the bus. Since the bus to Trongsa (where I need to get to) was full, I have had to buy a ticket on the bus to Bumthang—a full three hour-drive further than Trongsa. This means that while I can get off in Trongsa, most of the other passengers have a much longer journey. I have a seat at the front of the bus on the right hand side. Usually, the cross-country “coaster” buses have a set number of seats and only sell enough tickets to fill those seats. However, as becomes quite clear about three hours into our journey, our bus driver has set up a private business on the side. His phone rings constantly and its obvious that he is setting up meetings and pick-ups along the way. I am the only foreigner on the bus and most people stare at me curiously. I try to smile back, but I’m exhausted after nights of little sleep and a lot of running around. I just want to get home.

Our Apartment Complex

As the journey progresses, more and more people get onto the bus until the aisle down the middle is filled with people sitting on their luggage. The jumper seat next to me is taken up by an old man with his young son. He smells strongly of wood smoke, not terribly unpleasant until we descend into the low Punakha valley and the heat of the sunlight pouring in through windows that won’t open makes us all rather ripe. In general, I don’t mind riding the public buses in Bhutan. Usually they are uncrowded and fairly efficient. But this time, the crowded bus and the numerous stops become irritating, especially when we arrive at a road construction site just in time for its’ hourly closing and are forced to wait for an hour before they open the road again. Just a few seconds earlier and we would have made it. Six hours into our journey, I’m not particularly happy to add another hour to the trip. Lunch break happens at the same restaurant our bus stopped at the last time I took the bus. It’s obvious that all the buses stop here. Five buses are parked outside, perched on the precariously winding road above the long sloping valley dotted here and there with scalloped fields of brilliant yellow mustard seed. Rather than going into the restaurant, which I recall as being packed with people shoveling huge plates of rice and ema datsi in at top speed (the entire luncheon takes about 10 to 15 minutes) I sit on the side of the road in the sun and wind.

A young man comes over to chat and I learn that he is a student on his way home for the winter break. He lives in the Trongsa area. He is the only person brave enough to talk to me directly, and I like his sweet earnestness when, after telling me he wants to be a teacher, he asks me, “What do you think of teaching?” I tell him its what I’ve always known I would do and a profession I feel is critical to our development as human beings. He seems to relax as I say this, and I remember that until recently, teaching jobs in Bhutan were not highly valued. This seems to be changing dramatically now, but old feelings still linger. As people begin to stream out of the restaurant, my student friend asks to take my picture. We crouch together in front of the phone he holds up in front of our faces. I wonder what he’ll do with the photo?

On the final moments of the trip, right before we arrive in Trongsa, the bus again stops to pick up a couple more passengers, even though we are now packed window to window. It’s all I can do to suppress my irritation. An elderly monk wearing a maroon wool cap that curls up over his prominent ears is given the jumper seat next to me. Forcing myself to be polite, I greet him. His sweet infectious smile spreads over his face and after a moment I find myself laughing out loud as we try to communicate in broken Dzong-kha and Tibetan. He’s the sweetest thing, on his way to Kurje in Bumthang and his smile and warm gentleness completely reverse my mood. By the time I get off the bus in Trongsa, where Chris is waiting, I feel a sense of good will towards all. As the bus gets ready to pull away, I see my monk friend, now sitting in my vacated seat, waving madly to me. I laugh and wave back, suddenly noticing that everyone else is smiling and waving too. If only I could thoroughly and completely get out of the way of myself, I think I’d find that the world is filled with goodness. One has only to open one’s eyes and look.

Our New Bhukari

Arriving back home, Chris lights our new bhukari (wood stove). It arrived the day I left for Thimphu and I have not yet had the pleasure of its warmth—something we’ve both been looking forward to. But for some odd reason, the stove smokes abominably and after a while I can’t actually stand being in the room since my eyes are smarting so much from the fumes. Chris, who is an Eagle Scout and who prides himself on his ability to make fires, is frustrated. For a few days, we experiment lighting fires only to escape upstairs into the only room in which we have a bit of heat from our panel heater. Finally, we decide that something must be wrong. Thousands of Bhutanese use these wood stoves to heat their homes and surely they do not all smoke like this. We can’t figure out why we are unable to get a simple wood fire to burn. We enlist the advice of our next-door neighbors, Tendzin and Kelzang, whose bhukari provided the original inspiration for us to get one ourselves. Tendzin arrives wearing a black Kashmir wool coat with a satin collar, exactly the kind of coat one might wear to a formal winter wedding. However, rather than a tuxedo, Tendzin has paired his fine jacket with a pair of track pants and plastic flip-flops. It’s an incongruous mix that nevertheless manages to look quite elegant on him. Kelsang gets to work on our stove immediately. Within a couple of moments, she has cleared a blockage at the back where the smoke is drawn up into the pipe. But still the stove is smoking. After some consultation, both Tendzin and Kelsang remind Chris about the mesh he put over the end of the pipe. Kelsang suggests that perhaps the mesh is keeping the pipe from drawing properly. Sure enough, when Chris reaches in and removes the wire mesh, we all can see that it is already caked with wet soot. With the mesh gone, our fire is soon roaring merrily. Tendzin asks Chris why he put the mesh there to begin with. Chris replies that he was worried a bird might decide to nest in the pipe. For a moment both Kelsang and Tendzin stare at him incredulously before bursting into laughter. Soon we are all laughing at the Eagle Scout’s overly conscientious attention to detail. After they leave, I tell Chris how adorable he is. He pouts a bit, since he was genuinely concerned, but ends up laughing again at the silliness of it all. Happily, our stove is now working well and warming the downstairs is a genuine possibility!