The Picture I'll Take A Thousand Times

On the clearest clear days, I can see my favourite mountain from my school. Vote, dear readers, which shot shows it best:

School on Saturday

Outrageous to their Canadian counterparts, Bhutanese students have school until noon on Saturdays. Saturday begins, like Monday through Friday, with fifteen minutes of service before morning assembly. Here, three boys are cleaning my classroom, a dusty, dusty job:

Morning assembly looks very different on Saturdays because classes Pre-Primary and One are not present and school uniforms are not required. The foreground shows the School Captain and two beat boys whose turn it was to lead the prayer and anthem:

Ordinarily, students would have two regular classes on Saturday. Today was special. We held a ceremony to dedicate the new computer lab. A ribbon was untied by our most senior and distinguished lopen:

He performed the first official computer room act, typing the ultimate expression of Bhutanese well wishing, "Tashi Delek":

This is our I.T. teacher, my good friend Tshering Choki:

After the inaugeration, the students conducted a mass cleaning of the campus, the chorten grounds, and the bazaar area. I was in charge of a team of Class Three students collecting litter below the football (soccer) field:

 This is the garbage pit where the litter was to be thrown,  modelled by an absolute ham for the camera. "Just one more picture of me, Mam! Please. Just one more!"

My overwheming feeling throughout experience was wishing I taught Class Three. Adorable.

I leave you with a photo of some senior students with the unenviable task of cleaning the outhouse buildings:

On Monday we'll really really start teaching.

Actually teaching!

I arrived in Bhutan on January 21st but it wasn't until this Thursday, February 24th that I did anything even approximating teaching a class.

My first scattergorieish lesson was with my Class 7 English class. I showed them the alphabet book I brought of Halifax words and then held a competition in which they thought up words for a Bhutan alphabet book. For each letter I awarded one point to the team that had chosen the best word. "M", for example, is for "momos" not "mountains", but "H" is for "Himalayas" not "horses." Here is Team Ara (each team was named for their "A" word) hard at work:

One of my grade 5 maths class got pretty deep and awesome. We talked about how mathematics deals with the infinite- the bigger than big, and the infinitesimal- the smaller than small. Each student then used his imagination, well-developed through Buddhist mind-training, to envision an infinitesimal point just beyond the tip of his pointer finger. We then pictured the line segments we could create by connecting any two of the points together and the triangles we could define by connecting three points with line segments:

Then I posed the students a challenge, to draw three points on a piece of paper that, when connected with straight lines, did not make a traingle. They did some great thinking:

After some time, a few of the students arrived at the answer, the wonderful fact that if the third point lines up with the first two, there is no triangle. (Eventually this will connect to the idea that adding a fourth point can define just a quadrilateral when placed in the same plane or a 3-D shape when placed elsewhere.)

I was fantastically impressed by my Class 5's response to the geometry lesson. They have keen visualization skills and true creativity. They did not fare so well on the first computation word problem I offered them but I am certain that, with further practice, they'll succeed at them, too:

In other news: using chalk is such a difficult transition from white-board markers! I press too hard and break it all the time. It is the same problem I have with mechanical pencils. I'm just too intense. 

Kanglung Vacation

With the two last days before actual classes started, I took a trip to see Lisa, Scott, and my dear Natalie in Kanglung, Tashigang Dzongkhog. They met me in the bustling metropolis of Tashigang proper, which is a crazy change of pace from Chorten Cora:

  

From there it is less than an hour to Kanglung, a college town that takes pride in being just adorable. Every archway is a thing of beauty: 

This is a view of the Higher Secondary School where Natalie teaches:

My visit took place a month before St. Patrick's Day and yet was oddly green: 

Natalie took great care of me: she made me cauliflour curry and repaired a tear in my hat: 

Someone in Kanglung has a PET MONKEY:

 Here he is eating Maggi (Indian Mr. Noodle), a mainstay of our diet:

Kanglung is the teetotaling home of Sherubtse College where Scott lectures in biology:

It has a campus of flower-filled courtyards:

On the drive to Kanglung I made an absolute fool of myself by asking Natalie,"So, what's it like? Are there mountains in Kanglung?" I am pleased to report that, yes, like everywhere else in this Himalayan Kingdom, there are mountains in Kanglung.

Scott and Lisa's home is huge and gorgeous and even offers hot showers to weary travellers who haven't felt one in weeks. Check out the columns!

 The few feet between Natalie's and Scott and Lisa's contains a little path that when followed straight up leads to a pray-flagged picnic spot with an amazing view:

Natalie and I did a lot of sunbathing and talking there. (Well, we did a lot of talking everywhere.) It was a supremely relaxing vacation:



I'll trade you ten of your cities for Marion Bridge and Trashiyangtse

Education is not filling a bucket; it is lighting a fire. - William Butler Yeats

I have been to the great sights, to Taktsang and Punakha, but last night was the most incredible experience I have had in Bhutan so far. The entire staffs of four schools shared a National Education Day bonfire hosted by the Dasho, the head of Trashiyangtse District. Dasho requested that instead of any feeling of hierarchy there be only the camaraderie engendered by our shared respect for teaching. Although most of his welcoming adress was in Dzongka I understood enough to know that his request was genuine and that he has a deep love and appreciation for teachers.

As it turned out, my Bhutanese dancing experience in the morning was only an introduction. Everyone danced in a circle around the fire, the local teachers, the foreign teachers, the Principals, the District Education Officer, the Dasho, everyone pinky finger in pinky finger. Most of the dances were as simple as left foot: tap, tap, kick; right foot: tap, tap, kick; repeat, but with a big crowd doing it in sync and swaying, it looked great. Everyone had a huge smile on their face as they danced and sang. At one point a gust of ash and smoke blew in my face and my eyes filled with water. I am certain it is the most I have ever cried while laughing that loudly and beaming that brightly.

Between the dances, we drank coffee mugs of warm ara with egg as soloists dedicated songs to National Education Day. Most were, of course, in Dzongka or Sharchopka but Indian teachers from the Higher Secondary School performed in Hindi and Chhattisgarhi. They asked me to sing in English. I chose "Out on the Mira" because it described the evening perfectly, "Out on the Mira / The people are kind / They'll treat you to homebrew (ara) and help you unwind [...] They dance round the flames / Singing songs with their friends..." I think that just goes to show that the best things in life are culturally universal, though only enjoyed in small places "fit for princes and kings."

There was a wonderful dinner with red rice, chipotle, curries, datses and all the rest, then a few more dances before the evening wrapped up. We then went to visit a young teaching couple; the wife teaches Dzongka at my school. She has promised to teach me. The next time I am dancing around a fire I plan to sing along.

His Majesty's Birthday / National Education Day

Every day since school began, the students have rehearsed for His Majesty's Birthday:

Trashiyangtse's part of the national celebration took place this morning at the Public Grounds, which are a bit of a hike up a pretty tall hill:

Upon arriving, the students took their places for the grand March Past:

While William and I, deeply honoured and, frankly, surprised, were invited to the special viewing box:

There, we were in the company of the Cheif Guest, the venerable Head Abbot of the Old Dzong, as well as other senior monks and government officials:

The festivities began with the most beautiful unfurling of the flag. It had been filled with flower petals. They swirled in the wind before landing by the alter. Then there was an offering, a rousing singing of the national anthem, and the long awaited march past:

There was a full cultural programme. Here is the Head Abbot watching one of the dances:

Midway through the morning, a flock of black necked cranes, the first that I have seen in Bhutan, flew over the proceedings. This is a very good omen:

Dances were performed by even very young students. This troupe from a community primary school a few kilometres from Trashiyangtse Town performed beautifully:

There was a quiz competition for the higher secondary students. The questions were in Dzongka so I didn't do very well:

There was a skit by some VERY dramatic students from my school. It was the woeful tale of a boy who got in a fight in class and dropped out:

He bussed to Thimphu hoping for work but because he was illiterate he went to a public toilet there instead of a hotel. And he almost got hit by a car. So stay in school!

The best part of the Birthday Celebration, though, is that we got to participate! William joined the teacher's tug-of-war team. They pulled their hardest but lost to the public officials:



We were both invited into the morning's closing dance. Which is just so symbolic because that's what living in Bhutan is. Living in Bhutan is being welcomed wholeheartedly to participate in something you've never seen before and it doesn't matter that you don't know the moves and doesn't matter that you don't know the words. You watch those around you, you are encouraged by their smiles and then, suddenly, if only for a moment, you're in step.

Long live the King.