Saturday, June 9, 2012

A day in the life


we can only grow
stretching, leaves take their pattern
one day at a time

I am often asked by friends at home what a typical day is like here in the village. I haven’t yet given a complete response to this question because, like anywhere in the world, each day offers something new. Even so, there are routines that give my days structure. I also didn’t feel ready to answer this earlier because I was still adjusting to my daily life. Now, 5 months into the experience, I feel like I’ve got enough days under my belt to form an average.

            5:15am: Wake up, meditate, yoga practice
            7:00am: Breakfast, make rice for lunch, boil water to drink, check my email (I have bought oatmeal the past few trips I’ve been on, and I’m back to coffee thanks to my new French press from Thimphu)
            7:45am: Get the kira and teogo on, get ready for school (recently got another kira stitched so I don't have to do the complex wrapping and belting. So much easier!)

The full kira: I got a hand-woven wool one from Madam Dema. I needed a lesson from my students in putting it on.
March 2012
            8:00am: Walk to school (3 minutes walk on a dirt path)
            8:15 am: Open the library for the class whose turn it is that day
            8:30am: Morning assembly (chanting, speeches by students, a student reader, announcement by the Teacher on Duty, and singing of the national anthem—which I can sing now)
            8:55am: First class begins. Teach Class IV and III English, then interval for 10 minutes, then Class VI science, then V English.
            12:25pm: Lunch. I go home and prepare some vegetables and eggs or dal to eat with my rice. Boil more water to drink.
            1:15pm: Back to school, read to Class II, work in library, then teach Class III again.
            3:00pm: Evening prayer (students chant prayers for about a half hour)
            3:30pm: Co-curricular activities (either working on the school grounds, in the agriculture garden, or some kind of sports)
            4:30 or 5:00pm: Students go home. I change and go for a walk. Mostly I walk to Tsengaypokto or to Chazam, each are about an hour round trip. Sometimes I get dinner offered to me at Chazam. If I go to Tsengaypokto, I often visit my student Vim’s mother who gives me eggs and sag (mustard greens).
            6:00pm: Arrive home and make dinner if I haven’t eaten at Chazam. Heat some water for a bucket bath (with my immersion heater now, but with the bukari—wood stove—in the winter). Boil water to drink. Clean dishes.
            6:30pm: Lesson plan, grade notebooks, read, listen to a podcast, write. Take a bath when the water’s hot.
            8:00pm: Yoga practice if not done in the morning.
            9:30pm: Sleep!

The weekends are spent eating buckwheat pancakes for breakfast, doing laundry, cleaning my house, going for longer walks, and hanging out with students if I am not traveling somewhere.

I have joked that my life now closely resembles a monastic life. The pace of my life is slower and there is a lot of opportunity for stillness. My days are loud and filled with kids, but when I go home, it is quiet.  This kind of quiet can be hard to get used to. At first, it is a gift. Then it becomes a challenge. I felt lonely, homesick, desiring company. But those feelings come and go, and now I am learning again to appreciate the stillness and quiet because this kind of opportunity will not be common once I go back to the US.

My recent trip to Thimphu granted me a new appreciation for the quiet and community of my village life. I went to fix my retainer, which had broken a few months ago, was “repaired” in Bajo, but then broke again. Thankfully it is now fully repaired by a wonderful orthodontist at the Thimphu hospital (for free!). While in Thimphu, I stayed with friends of friends, in their apartment. We had a great time together. We went dancing on Friday night—probably the silliest and most energetic group in the whole club. Then on Saturday night, M (who I was staying with) was performing stand up comedy. He asked his roommate to be the “beatboxer” (making percussion sounds with your mouth) for his intro rap, but she declined. I joked that I’d do it, and he accepted the offer before I could take it back. Thus, I beatboxed in a club in Thimphu. Bucket list item checked off?! On Sunday night, Noorin, Sarah (fellow BCF teachers) and I were treated to dinner by the former Mr. Bhutan and a few of his friends. What? Yes, you read that correctly. As my sister said, “This sounds like a crazy dream that you had, not your life”. And Mr. Bhutan speaks Finnish, so the crazy dream continued as I conversed, to my own disbelief, in Finnish with him. The next day, which was a holiday (Lord Buddha’s Parinirvana), brought me home, waving goodbye to Sarah and Noorin in Kuruthang. I’ll see them in 2 weeks on our midterm holiday in Bumthang.

Though Thimphu allowed me to make new friends, see old friends, do a lot of errands and shopping, I felt an incredible joy as I opened the door to my village house on Monday evening. I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to come back to my house here. Why such contentment all of the sudden? Possibly because Thimphu is like any other city to which you are not connected. Perhaps because it is not as green and high as my village. There are no cows roaming, no stray chickens, no flowering potato fields. No huge oak trees, no rushing river. No scent of woodsmoke and rich earth. No students coming to my door to say hello or offer me things. No one asking me "gati jo ni madam?" as I walk down the paths. I found a certain emptiness in Thimphu that exists when people believe too much in the façade they’ve created for life. Yes you can buy many things, you can eat at whatever restaurant (Italian? Mexican?), you can go out and enjoy nightlife. But there’s something missing. For me, that is community. And it is also the dramatic beauty of nature. I feel for people who are disconnected from these things that bring me so much meaning in life. I know there are many people in Thimphu who are part of communities there, who are working for progressive causes. In fact, I met many of them. Still, I am grateful that my placement is in Rukubji. Here, I get to experience life on a smaller, more tightly knit scale. I get to live closely with nature and farm life. For a city girl, I'd only glimpsed a life like this before I came here. 

So, if you are a Thimphu dweller, come visit itty-bitty Rukubji. See how the village life is. You might enjoy it.

PS- The village is extremely green now, the potato fields are in bloom, the strawberries are red and ripe, and the monsoon has begun. Sadly, all the pictures I am taking from now on are on film, so you'll have to wait until I return to the US to see what early summer looks like here.