More friends and on to Gasa

23^rd April

Zangmo ready for school

The plan for the morning was to attend school with Zangmo – she was keen for me to interact with her students and I would stay until morning interval – about 10:30am.   It turned out with her timetable that the only class she had during that time was class 9, and as she was ahead with the curriculum, I could have the period just to chat with them. I would attend her husband’s class before that; he was teaching plant nutrients and was hoping I would contribute to that lesson.

We had hoped that I could also attend her son Tenzin’s English class, currently taught by her brother Tashi on pre-service teacher placement, but that was not going to fit easily, so unfortunately I didn’t.  It would have been nice and I believe it would have given Tenzin great pride to introduce me to his classmates.

Addressing Assembly (photo by Zangmo)

During breakfast the school principal called to ask if I would speak at assembly, which I did, and gave them my message reinforcing their own writing that they are lucky to live in the beautiful, democratic and fairly ruled country of Bhutan, comparing with my experiences of working with refugees from across their northern border.  Attentive looks and nods from some of the older students showed that my message was hitting home with at least some.  I reinforced the beauty aspect with the “keep Bhutan clean” message and educate their younger siblings and family members  not to litter.  I also talked to them about how lucky they were to be able to attend school – there would be some in the community who did not have that opportunity when they were young.

Class test in prog

After assembly, the principal invited me to drink tea with him and we chatted for a bit; Zangmo’s husband popped his head through the door curtain to remind me that his class was on, and when I had finished my tea, the principal accompanied me to his class and I was introduced. 

The lesson was in progress and I asked if I might invite the students to ask me general questions before talking with them a little about plant nutrients, nutrient deficiencies, the nitrogen fixing properties of leguminous vegetables, fertilizing with animal manures and the importance of crop rotation to reduce nutrient depletion in soils.  I tried to link to what they already knew and current farming practices they observe every day and reinforcing the importance of additional knowledge to produce better crop yields.  It wasn’t strictly the curriculum as set out in the text book, but I thought all useful stuff and relevant.

Farewell to Zangmo at her house

Zangmos class 9 was quite slow with their questions to start with, but was really warming up as the lesson came to a finish.  I shared with them about my family and an aside to the girls that my son is tall and handsome elicitied the desired “warm up” giggles and interest in seeing his photo – which I could produce quite promptly on my phone.

Zangmo walked with me back to her house, via the assembly ground where a class test was in progress.  This is one place where a teacher can get the students far enough apart that there might not be wholesale copying of test answer.  We met my driver Narwang and guide Sonam and I thanked Zangmo for her hospitality and bade her farewell.   It really had been wonderful to spend that time with her.

Then it was on to Thimphu, retracing our route of the previous day but passing a truck that had turned on its side and relocated a quantity of its load of sawn wood down the steep hillside.  It was lucky that the truck had not followed.

That's no way to park a truck!

The diversion into Thimphu provided an opportunity for a little semi-essential shopping, another failed attempt at using the ATM, lunch at a restaurant I approved of and receiving papers for my trek.  I was very glad that Galay, from the agency office, was very flexible about the payment I owed for the flight to Bangkok, this had been worrying me.  We worked out that should the worse come to the worse, I could always do an international bank transfer.  In the meantime, I would need to be careful of my money – luxuries such as tipping hotel staff just might not happen.

Wangdi Dzong

We continued on to Goen Shari, detouring via Wangdi as the road was closed for blacktopping operations between Lobesa and Punakha.  I asked for a photo stop - there was a good viewpoint for Wangdi Dzong, which is still under reconstruction after a fire some years back and a couple of passing small boys requested a photos.  We later stopped to pick up the owner of the farmhouse where we would spend the night in Gasa before starting our trek to Laya the following day.

After some complicated conversations about whether there was sufficient time, I stopped for half – three quarters of an hour to have a cup of coffee with Phub in Goen Shari.

Some random small boys who wanted their photo taken

The drive on to Gasa was much slower than I expected, based on what I had been told, and there were a couple of further delays as we paused for collection of eggs, which took ages and then another stop to buy toilet paper.

We finally arrived; I was really too tired to eat but felt a bit revived after rice and vegetables – organically grown on the owner’s farm.

I found my sleeping bag inner from my luggage and snuggled between the provided blankets (no sheets were provided).  I was soundly sleeping when it seemed that something was walking on me and I woke to find it was the farmhouse cat.  Not comfortable with that, I shooed it out and found something to block the hole designed for it to roam into that room, but resuming sleep took quite some time.