Back in Time in Bhutan: the Land of Shortcuts & Surprises

December 9, 2013 – Back in Time in Bhutan

Just as Alice, when she walked through the looking glass, found herself in a new and whimsical world, so we, when we crossed over the Pa Chu, found ourselves as thought caught up in some magic time machine fitted fantastically with a reverse…

-Earl of Ronaldshay, British Governor of Bengal, 1921, on crossing the river (Pa Chu) that led him into Bhutan (from Married to Bhutan by Linda Leaming)

I’ve hit a new low.  Or perhaps it’s a new high: in bed before 7 PM.  Sitting by the fire, or more accurately, the wood-burning stove used for cooking, makes me sleepy.  Because it is winter in Bhutan and we are nestled in a valley, the sun sets early and rises late.  Without heat, there is little incentive to stay awake when I know I can curl up in bed under multiple covers.  I am currently living with a farming family of Nepali descent in a small village near the town of Damphu in Tsirang Dzongkag (district).  Similar to the neighbors, who are few and far between, the family’s house is perched on a grassy hillside overlooking paddy terraces (FYI, paddy is rice before it is husked).  The view from the house looks a bit like the hill station of Darjeeling in India, except the landscape is much, much less populated.  I remember my friend Raj saying that Darjeeling felt like heaven because the lights from the buildings at night resembled stars and you couldn’t tell where the hillside ended and the sky began.  Here, the houses are so few that the actual stars are much brighter.  Like most structures in Bhutan, there is no heating here, so I am sleeping with a sleeping bag and four blankets, huddled with long underwear and a jacket.  It’s more pleasant to not bathe because of how cold it is after the bucket shower.  The food I’ve been having at this rural homestay is the best I’ve had in Bhutan so far, without a doubt.  I tried wild boar, which is definitely some of the best pork I’ve ever had.  It’s a shame that Buddhists don’t want to kill animals (hence no hunting) because the wild boar inflicts so much damage to their crops (nearly 25% of their paddy was lost last season).  If hunting were morally permitted, they could eating delicious pork daily and ameliorate the wild animal problem.  And there is something about eating fresh vegetables that you harvested earlier in the day or drinking milk that you milked from the cow only a few hours before.  In fact, tonight is the second evening in a row I was able to milk the cow, and I think I am slowly improving.  While working, I heard a chain saw and casually saw the uncle chopping down some trees for firewood, dressed in his plaid flannel, really looking like quite a lumberjack.  The pace of life is much slower here and if I had to imagine a nearly complete self-sufficient existence, this would probably be it.  In fact, I have found Bhutan to be a bit confusing and disorienting.  Within less than a week, I seem to have boarded a time machine twice and gone both forward and backward.  For instance, being in the capital city of Thimphu felt more like home than anything in the last 6 months: a proper shower with running hot water, eating pasta and tomato sauce for dinner, watching a Pixar animated film on a flat screen TV, going to a bar to have a beer and listen to acoustic covers of American bands, etc.  Yet I quickly found myself in a truck going 6 hours south, mentally preparing for a short stay with a farming family.  During the drive, we made it to one beautiful viewpoint known as Dochula Pass.   

“The road east out of Thimphu winds upward for about 45 minutes to Dochula Pass at 13,000 ft.  Like all of the passes in Bhutan, Dochula is covered for several acres with multicolored prayer flags.  It is auspicious to put prayer flags high up on the pass. The constant wind sends the prayers to heaven; the steady flapping of thousands of flags creates a satisfying snapping sound.  At the pass, Namgay takes off his baseball cap to show respect for the mountain deities and says a short prayer.  We pause to look at the view.  If it’s a clear day, which this one is, you an see the snowcapped Himalayas laid out for hundreds of miles.  Gasa Dzong sits like a bright white bird off on a mountain slope, and in the distance are the mountains of Tibet.  Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, the eldest Queen Mother, has built 108 stupas on a knoll at the top of the pass.  The scene looks like something the artist Christo would create if he converted to Tantric Buddhism.  These white adobe structures stand about five feet tall, and their red-and-gold roofs glisten in the crystal-clear mountain air.  With prayer flags draped over everything, they move me because she built them in honor of the fourth king, her husband, who in 2003 led the Bhutanese army in ousting several thousand Indian insurgent hiding in the jungles of southern Bhutan.  Although the Indians were threatening Bhutan’s sovereignty, the monument honors their fallen as well as the Bhutanese who lost their lives.  Imagine having the wherewithal and the space and the resources of a country to build monuments to your husband, an enlightened monarch.  It begs a comparison to Shah Jahan’s creating one of the seven wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal, for his beloved wife.  It’s biblical in scope, epic in its magnificent symbolism.  We’re all living large in this tiny country, I think.”  (Leaming, p. 165-166)

Chortens at Dochula Pass

A frosty morning with the snow-capped mountains of Gasa and Tibet in the background

During the drive, I had a great conversation with my primary contact at the Ministry of Agriculture who is part of the National Organic Program (pictured above).  I learned more about biogas schemes, discovering that the anaerobic digestion that takes place actually breaks down the animal waste and scraps into almost ionic form, which when the biogas slurry is applied to the fields, it means that plants can more readily absorb the nutrients.  During this drive, I once again re-boarded the time machine and have since been jolted out of both time and space.  Practicing milking a cow, churning butter, making cheese, weeding the broccoli patch, harvesting yams, and walking to see the water mill were just a few of today’s activities.  I imagine this is how it would have been living in Old Sturbridge Village, a popular field trip site during elementary school where people would dress up in colonial-era clothes and churn butter for an audience of restless schoolchildren.  Except this isn’t 18^th century New England – this is 2013 in rural Bhutan in a village where electricity didn’t come until last year.  Each year, the monsoonal rains wash away the lone, unpaved road that hardly connects houses, which are rather linked by treacherous footpaths that weave through the jungle.  This annual disaster forces the villagers to come together and rebuild the road with hand tools every single year.  I can’t imagine.  This community action reminds of another passage from Linda Leaming’s memoir, one concerning cooperation: 

“Bhutan is smaller in population than most American cities – about the size of Seattle – so it is culturally cohesive.  People have to cooperate in order to survive in these isolated mountains.  They have developed a sort of groupthink: they look out for one another.  Although the self is important, the Bhutanese see themselves less as individuals and more as members of a community: a family, a social set, a tribe, a country.  This interconnectedness gives rise to a security and comfort with themselves and the people with whom they live.  They know who they are, and they are generally happy.  They are part of a larger whole and are willing to give up some individual freedom to help the cause of everyone else.  It’s not so much political; it’s just pragmatic.  It seems to me that the rest of the world is looking for this kind of connectedness.  In the U.S., the opposite attitude prevails, perhaps because we started as a colony of England.  The individual is paramount, and our individual rights are taught to us as children.  Individuality is rewarded.  There are many examples of this mindset that we as Americans don’t really see because we live in it.  But as much as Americans are perplexed by Bhutan’s dress code, Bhutanese are stunned by Americans’ sense of individual entitlement…It’s not really fair to compare the two countries, as they are like apples and oranges.  Americans think the way they do for good reasons, as do the Bhutanese.  But it is important to understand that people elsewhere think differently; and being aware of this and flexible about how one thinks can alleviate some discontent and, dare I say it, even make us happier.” (55)

In the village, daily activities predominantly surround food (for both humans and animals): milking the cow in the morning and evening, making all of the associated dairy products, cooking three meals a day from scratch (probably 90% grown on the farm), cleaning the rice, milling the rice or millet, threshing the grains, taking the cows to graze in the jungle, cutting straw for fodder, washing dishes, and maybe occasionally washing clothes.  Actually, the care and attention they give the cows is incredible, namely the effort that goes into preparing the feed (putting all of the kitchen scraps into a large cast iron cauldron, to which they add water and slowly heat).  I swear, they eat just as well as the family, if not better.  And nothing feels hurried and I don’t feel bad about going to bed so early.  Everything feels pure: the crisp mountain air that is pollution free, the natural springs and streams that pour from the hillsides, and the abundance of produce sprouting from the earth.  I just feel really good here, like my body and mind are being washed and rung out, cleansed if you will.  It is difficult, however, not to romanticize a rural existence and I know that if I were here for many months or years, I would probably go stir-crazy.  But for now, I am just trying to enjoy it and take everything in.  I was able to see three farms today and almost all are small and very diversified with grain production (rice, maize, millet, wheat), horticultural products (fruit trees and vegetables), animal husbandry (cows, goats, sheep, chickens), and forestry (leaf litter is often used in the compost making).  While the land holdings are small and the farmers lack access to most inputs and implements, the farms are amazingly productive from a qualitative standpoint.  These farmers are part of a group of 32 households that are cultivating organically and collectively have a biogas scheme and vermicompost.  They share labor and water mills freely and I believe they also do collective marketing.  Unfortunately, the language barrier makes it difficult to ask meaningful questions to the farmers, which is frustrating.  I can use the extension officer as a translator when she comes, but I feel that this will paint a very biased picture.  I just want to know what the farmers think about “organic farming” (what they’ve been doing traditionally), as well as agricultural mechanization and improved inputs.  I want to know their challenges because as of now, it seems that there aren’t any.  Walking to see the farms was an adventure in itself as we went up and down through the jungle, crossing streams over rickety wooden bridges.  I guess that is one challenge: the roads here are horrible quality, rendering the transport of produce really difficult.  However, it is kind of nice being in a place where tourists rarely come and my hosts have never had a foreigner stay with them.  Yet this novelty is subdued somewhat by the fact that I look very Bhutanese.  I know that everyone I meet is quite confused when I tell them I’m American and when I wear the traditional dress (the Kira), the perplexity is amplified.  Speaking of the kira, I hope to be able to wear it tomorrow at a wedding ceremony in the village.

Homestay in Tsirang

Traditional water powered mill/thresher for the millet

Paddy terraces everywhere

Buddhism

Homestay mom sifting the grain

Cleaning/sifting the millet with a hand woven basket

Such a beautiful place

My bed for a few days :)

Getting to practice milking cows. I was much better this time around (as compared to learning how to milk goats with the pastoral Maasai in northern Tanzania)

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Homestay family in the traditional kitchen

Cozy cats always curled up somewhere

Churning butter. Also putting the skills I learned in Ladakh to work :)

Making cheese!

Shelling beans

Learning how to make cheese from my homestay family, which they bring to the weekly market

More paddy terraces

A traditional water mill for grinding flour

Traipsing through the jungle to visit various homes in the village

Never too early for a beer...homestay dad was "feeling cold" at 10 AM. ha.

Photo shoot with neighbors :)

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December 10, 2013 – Bhutan: Land of Shortcuts and Surprises

“Long ago, on my first trip to Bhutan, in a strange, new place where everything was the opposite of what I expected, I asked and got answers to many questions.  Sometimes when I asked a question, I was met with silence.  But sometimes in the silence there were answers: What does it matter when we get there?  We are here now.  How is it or you here?  There probably won’t be any hot water in your hotel room.  The world is getting smaller.  What each one us thinks and matters and our smallest actions affect everything on the planet.  There is no power in not seeing and in not being aware.  Try to get out of yourself and overcome your ego.  You might be a good mother.  You might not.  What good does it to do ask that question?” (Leaming, p. 216)

Unexpected aspects of Bhutan:

• Even though Internet and TV didn’t come until 1999 and it was an absolute monarchy until 2008, the capital city of Thimphu feels more like home than any place I’ve been so far (hot shower, [yak] burger and fries, American music/acoustic covers at the local bar, movies on a flatscreen TV, checking my email on my host’s Ipad)
• I’ve eaten more meat in the last week than the last six months combined (and Bhutanese are Buddhist, meaning they shun the killing of animals and thus I expected them to be largely vegetarian.  Not to say that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy the yak burger or wild boar, but my stomach is overwhelmed and confused)
• The world is small: I was late getting to the ministry office so I was trying to hitchhike.  After unsuccessfully attempting to flag down near about 10 vehicles, I came by two young Bhutanese who were on their way to work at the local security company.  They helped me stop a truck and it turns out that the woman knows the Pioneer Valley and even my hometown of Easthampton, MA since her eldest daughter did undergrad at Mount Holyoke College and is now studying architecture in a Master’s program in Boston.  What a strange world it is.  I also saw a Middlebury College sticker on one car in Thimphu.     
• For being a relatively insulated rural nation, love marriages, dating, matrilineal land inheritance, and relative openness about sex as compared to India
• The sale of tobacco may be banned in the country, but the Bhutanese love their alcohol!  Drinking seems to be a way to both pass time and to keep warm (alongside chewing doma or paan in India, the beetel leaf and nut, which stains teeth and turns spit red).
• Integrated farming practices might actually be better than going completely organic, as told to me by several civil servants at the Ministry of Agriculture (the jury is still out)
• Today I attended my first ever marriage ceremony 

That’s right, in my 22 years of living in the United States, I’ve never attended a wedding.  And my first is in Bhutan, go figure!  This place continues to astound me, catching me off guard at every turn, hence “Land of the Unexpected.”  I tried so hard to attend a wedding in India, a legitimate excuse to wear my sari and to be able to witness the Indian occasion that I had heard so much about from friends.  I came close, as I was invited to a wedding in Punjab at the end of November, but alas, I could not make it back.  And I didn’t try at all in Bhutan…the wedding just appeared before me and it couldn’t have been more epic.  I was able to dress up along with the other members of my homestay family and we set off, everyone donned in their kiras and ghos (except for the granddaughter who preferred to wear jeans and a plaid pea coat). 

“I wore a kira, the floor-length woven dress of Bhutanese women, cinched at the waist with a tight belt and pinned with a brooch at each shoulder…A kira requires frequent, yet discreet, adjustment.  Eventually, I learned to incorporate the necessaries into my personal mythology: I’d stand up, smooth the skirt of my kira, and tuck my hand into the front to straighten the fold of the pleat and show that I was ready to get going.  It’s a no-nonsense gesture, like rolling up your sleeves.  It means “I’m ready,” or “I’ve had enough.”  It’s a great gesture for teachers.  Smooth the collar of your wanju, or curl it under with your hand as you talk, and this says you are charming, coy, and girlish.  You can soften what you are saying by doing this.  Its equivalent in Western dress would be playing with your earring.  When you walk up the stairs, you hike your kira ever so slightly so you don’t trip over it. [or like myself, you hike it up past your knees, revealing the worn leggings underneath so you really don’t trip over it, especially when traipsing through rocky footpaths in the southern hills].  This gesture feels quite antiquated.  If you do it right, it’s elegant and sexy.  If you do it incorrectly, you look prim and stuff, or in my case, like a Western woman who’s not used to wearing a long dress.” (Leaming, p. 42)

We traipsed through the Bhutanese countryside, following a meandering footpath through the jungle and up endless hills before we reached the neighbor’s home, again perched on the edge of a mountain.  As Leaming noted, it is necessary to hike up one’s kira when climbing hills, which does feel rather Victorian.  This wedding marked the union of three couples and nearly 100 people, mostly from the village, attended.  There was delicious food (beef and mutton with vegetables, rice, black dal) that was served cafeteria-style as family members came around with big buckets filled with food and slopped it on our plates.  I was the only person given a spoon, since they assumed I would be uncomfortable using my hands. 

Side note: You know you have been traveling for a while when it’s actually more comfortable to eat with your hands, when you are accustomed to squat-toilets, and when you actually prefer to take a bucket shower.  I think my mother would be appalled.  Moreover, I continue to reply to people with the distinct Indian head wobble/wag that indicates yes/no/yes/maybe, despite that I have been out of India for some time now.  And over Skype, my boyfriend told me that my accent has changed.  I guess that’s what happens when you become accustomed to speaking English with non-native speakers (those to whom it is their second or third language), so I have found myself changing my inflection, using the gerund much more (e.g. “you are looking” instead of “you look”), and just generally talking slower.  I have also grown accustomed to waking to incense overwhelming my olfactory system, a distinct part of Buddhist puja (prayer) each morning.  

At the wedding, alongside the delectable fare was of course, homemade alcohol: both ara (homemade wine) and Bungchang (a weaker drink made from pouring hot water over fermented millet and consumed with an oversize bamboo-like straw), as well as Druk 11,000 supreme beer (“super strong” at 8% alcohol by volume).  It was 10:30 AM and I was already drinking a beer…“this day is going to be interesting,” I thought to myself.  And it certainly was.  I drank, danced to Nepali and Dzongka music, watched a traditional Sherpa dance, and was so grateful that my kira had a lot of extra fabric because the outhouse lacked toilet paper for my numerous pee-runs.  I was also grateful that I look Bhutanese on an occasion such as this because I wanted to maintain a low profile and not disrupt the ceremony, drawing attention away from the brides and grooms in their special day.  However, Dawa, my homestay father insisted on speaking loudly in broken English to me, ushering me to the front of the ceremony and commenting that I could take photos.  I winced as I tried to avoid being perceived as a tourist.  I constantly think to myself, however, that many of the events I have attended, people I have met, places I have visited, and activities I have engaged in would most definitely not have been possible had I been a traditional tourist or in a group.  So I am infinitely thankful for the Watson Fellowship because it has given me the opportunity to intimately and independently explore cultures through a unique window.  Today, I found myself so overwhelmed by the culture and the situation that I almost cried.  I thought for a second about how I was nestled in the lush mountains of southern Bhutan, off the beaten path so to speak, joining in a marriage celebration alongside an entire village.  It blows my mind sometimes to think about what I’ve been able to experience over the last six months and I feel so full of life and gratitude.  I was able to meet two of the brides today, one who was picking vegetables for her mother-in-law.  I considered how at a wedding in the US, the bride would not be caught dead doing any kind of work.  The day would be hers entirely and she would expect the limelight to fall on her the entire time.  In contrast, these Bhutanese brides hardly vied for attention and instead held a low profile after the initial ceremony.  They weren’t dancing in the circle or taking meals with everyone else.  In fact, I could only identify them by the mass of white Buddhist scarves wrapped around their necks like a shawl of fluffy icing.  To me, it just seems to attest further to the sense of humbleness here.  And to boot, both brides were very excited to make my acquaintance, commenting that this was a most auspicious occasion having a foreigner in their presence.  I was presented with a white scarf called a kata (the same as I received from my rural homestay in Ladakh), which is apparently a sign of status; it confers to others at the wedding that I am a guest of importance.  As you can imagine, however, I was the one who wanted to thank them.  Moreover, I think I confused most of the people there, again, because I was looking very Bhutanese, especially in my kira, and they were surprised when I said I was from America.  It’s a strange and interesting feeling being with people whom I so closely resemble.  Regardless, I had a wonderful time at the wedding and am happy to be able to cross it off my bucket list.

    

With my homestay family before the wedding

Ghos and Kiras

The union of three couples. A mix of Dzongka and Sherpa (Nepali)

Lunch was served cafeteria style

Homestay brother

One of my favorite portrait photos. This little girl and her grandmother are family of the bride. You can really tell the resemblance. So adorable.

Dancing!

A traditional alcoholic drink: millet mixed with boiled water and consumed with a big wooden straw

With one of the brides

And another :)

As I sleep and wake to the rhythms of the Earth, it’s like heaven here.  It feels like I am closer to the sky, within kissing distance as the clouds engulf the lush hillside.  Today, while harvesting pole beans, the sun’s rays pierced through and peaked out over the impending clouds, as if the gods were splitting open the heavens with a triton of sunshine.  The air is so fresh and life just seems to make sense.  I am not saying that it is easy (e.g. preparing the vermicompost was actually quite labor intensive – the fetching and preparing dung and green material, the digging, hauling, sifting and applying and frankly, I can’t imagine creating it in large volumes to feed a hundred acre farm.  Moreover, the physical difficulties of preparing the field for cultivating, the dirtiness of handling cow dung and urine is not pleasant), but it is logical.  The Earth is ready to give us so much – why not borrow it as long as we give back?  For instance, harnessing and mimicking nature through vermicompost or the water-powered mill – these simple schemes are low cost and environmentally sound.  I am truly amazed by how productive such a small landholding is – the way the fields are just bursting with life and an abundance of fruits and vegetables.  The feeling of having fresh compost slip through my fingers or the snap of the stem when picking beans.  I think that in the west, everything is much too sterile.  Of course, personal hygiene is important to some extent, but in other ways, I think our hands and clothes were meant to be dirty and we are too obsessed with constantly washing.  I had the not-so-bright idea of digging the compost barefoot today, which left my feet freezing but also huge laughs as I sprinted back up to the house to wash them in warm water.  I just feel so close to the earth here, it’s indescribable.  I crave self-sufficiency to some degree and I hope that I can take some of these lessons home: the slowing down and letting the seasons and daylight be my time keepers.

Barefoot in the vermicompost

Preparing the mixture of cow dung, urine, green waste and food scraps for the vermicompost

Spreading it onto the vegetable plot

I think Bhutanese people must have very strong heads/necks as they use this hand woven basket to tote heavy things around

Harvesting pole beans

Poetry inspiring imagery

And finally, I will leave you with another inspirational quotation from Leaming’s book, this time about slowing down and being aware:

“Using and honing intuition changes one’s thinking.  An American friend who visited Bhutan from the U.S. commented on the frenetic level of physical energy everyone seems to have in the U.S.  There’s all this multi-tasking, and we have to schedule our days and carefully plan so we get everything done.  We talk more in the U.S.  The opposite is true here.  Multitasking is not evident yet, and the pace is much slower.  But the mental energy here, the level of awareness that comes from paying attention, from having less stuff around and have less in our calendars, is formidable.  In the West, many have lost their sense of wonder about things.  If miracles happen, how can we possibly know about them?  We are too busy to notice.  We’ve gained wonderful things such as wealth and efficiency, but I think we’ve lost a great deal of perception – sixth sense, insight, call it what you like.  When you’re occupied every minute of the day, there’s simply no time for this kind of awareness.” (80)