March 12
The crows here gurgle in their throats. It’s a disgusting sound, really. The other day I was walking with my principal’s son and he told me that the ones with the black beaks are bad luck, and the ones with the orange beaks are good luck. It’s the black beaked ones that gurgle and bubble in their throats. A few days ago I was walking cheerily to the morning assembly and a black beaked crow said the word “asshole” as I passed, clearly and audibly. I was the only one around. I could not help but feel it was directed at me…
The other day I received an invitation to a wedding dinner; it was addressed to Meghann Turner with the “and family” crossed out right after my name. For some reason this made me laugh. It is just such an uncommon thing here to be without your family. To travel is not really a concept that is understood by any of my Bhutanese friends either; why do I not have children? Why am I not married? My answers to this seem far away from being understood. I wanted to see the world. The world to a people who may never ever leave their country even once, is far away. As much as I am entering their lives, and they mine, we are still far away from understanding each other! I sometimes feel like a circus spectacle to these people, they are watching everything I do.
There was a lightning and thunderstorm outside last week, so I took my homemade rum and water outside and sat and watched it. I sat on a big rock amidst a pile of my own stinking compost, which I have just been hurling out my kitchen window into the fields below. Karma, I figured, for my laziness.
Thunder sounds different in the mountains. It’s almost as if it starts under the earth and rumbles up through the mountains. Like mountain-speak: the thunder grumbles and shakes between them.
I live in an apartment made of rammed earth. My students call it mud. I live in an apartment made of mud I guess. There are 4 suites, and big extended families live in all the other ones. Always I see new faces as aunts and grandmothers and nieces and nephews and uncles come and go for indeterminate amounts of time. I’m actually never really sure who lives here, I’m not sure if it’s something I need to actually know or understand. Families are an open door here, always.
The rammed earth has cracks in the windows and walls. Where I am living the wind is so strong it blows the roofs off of houses, so they put large rocks on top of all the sheet metal to hold it down. I asked my class six to design houses and explain the materials they used for a science project. I said they could use any materials they could imagine, and still more than half of them drew roofs with rocks holding them down. I asked the students questions about ways that could be more efficient than just plain old rocks on top, but I don’t think they understood me.
It takes hours everyday to keep one’s self and home clean here. I sweep my apartment daily, but my neighbour told me it doesn’t matter, and as he brushed his hand across my wall I saw why: dirt was falling off my walls made of dirt. Go figure. The walls are painted, but it is with some sort of earthen paint, so every time I lean against my wall I this chalky lime green dust all over me.
The topic of laundry deserves mention. I haul water up to my second floor. I light a fire. I place two large pots on the buccari and wait for the water to heat. I wash each piece of laundry by hand in a small bucket. Then I set it aside to be rinsed. Usually the water still comes out so brown because I basically live in a dusty wind tunnel, I have to rinse two or three times. Wringing the clothes out is the worst part I think. Each piece, I try to squeeze out the last drop of water because I know that this means my clothes will dry that much faster. While I am doing this and my hands are red and raw and my arms are killing me, I have the time in my brain to think about washing machines back at home. Brilliant inventions: how have I not appreciated the spin cycle before this?
I teach 6 days a week. Last Saturday after class, my grade five students prepared to hike up a mountain with me. They were so excited, they all gathered outside my apartment with packed lunches. The clouds were a deep purple grey and becoming more ominous by the minute. I tried to tell them that it might rain and maybe it was not such a good idea to hike. My precocious class captain looked at me like I was crazy and said “It is only a little bit of snow Madam”, holding up his fingers a pinch, as if to indicate that I might just be a chicken.
It started hailing as we reached the foot of the mountain. During our ridiculous hike up the shortcut path the students were laughing and singing loudly. This, they told me, was to scare the bears and tigers. Which is true, there are both on these mountains. They picked bunch after bunch of these little purple wildflowers for me, which looked so strangely beautiful poking up through the white snow. It was incredible.
We went into the temple and the lopen showed us three different rooms. He went out of his way to let us in, to tell us about the different Buddha’s, to bless us with holy water, twice. I’m only hoping that my double blessing was enough to redeem myself from washing my hands in the water hole with a demon haunting it afterwards!
After our temple visit, we sat on a cement wall at the edge of the mountain and ate our lunches amidst the crows and wild dogs. The students would bring me biscuits and fried dough in their dirty little hands, and against my better judgment I ate everything. They gave me fanta from their bottles and drank my water and ate my rice. We hiked down the slippery mountainside together, and I played them Michael Jackson on my ipod. They had no idea who he is. That made me feel very alone.
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March 23
Yesterday, I had been here for two months.
Today, I feel very strange. I feel very out of place in this foreign land. I am out of toilet paper, but my toilet is as clean as a whistle. Great, now it is the cleanest place in the house, and all to receive shit.
The sun has already risen. Sir’s words from last night echo in my head; once you are hung from singchung, you are hung not only for one day but for another at least. Rice juice, Libay had said as he handed it to me with a devilish grin.
Last night turned blurry and warm as Libay continuously filled my cup. I held his small adopted daughter in my hands. I think he was drunk. They were talking to me and all I could focus on were the beads of sweat on Libay’s brow, trickling down the side of his face. Principal Sir was rambling on and I was thinking, why is Libay sweating? It’s not that hot in here. Maybe it’s the booze.
My mind is overwhelmed with Bhutan. Last night I had a dream of my hometown. I NEVER dream of that place! The white store. Carson was there with me. We couldn’t get along. I was showing him the small bakery selection and the largest selection of chips you can imagine in a dream.
I was rollerblading down the school street, and the Geisbrechts had decided to construct a pond right across the sidewalk. I only noticed this after I fell in and caused a commotion. They thought I was a troublemaker. And back then I was…
I woke up feeling strange, feeling slightly savage for being here. Yes I can fit in. Yes I can adapt. Does that make me lawless?
I don’t remember putting myself to bed last night. I don’t remember making fried rice, but I can see that I did. I am now wiping my ass with writing paper. My drinking water smells like feces and I can’t get rid of that smell no matter what I do.
I try to keep my own standards, but it feels like waves breaking against a rock. What can I do when I can’t do anything to change it?
I don’t want to lose myself, my morals, what I believe in. I don’t want to hit children. I don’t want to have affairs with married men. I don’t want to wipe without toilet paper…
****
March 29
Today one of my teachers tied up four of my students with rope and told them he would throw them in the river. My students told me this in secrecy. I think the teachers are beating my students more because I won’t.
My two Class fives and I planted the garden today. The bell rang and it started to rain, so I sent the classes inside, but Baby and a few others stayed to finish planting. The rain was pouring but neither Gyeltsen nor Baby wanted to stop, and we had to get those seeds in so we planted them in a hurry in the rain. I’m sure there will be random carrots and bean plants sprouting up all over.
I ran back soaking wet to Tshewang and the lunch she made for us. She promptly told me I shouldn’t make the students work in the rain. I told her it was actually them who were making me work in the rain. No one else seems to understand how much work, sweat and love we have put into the creation of this garden. My students understand; they are obsessed with that garden.
They handpick manure, hoist rocks using hands, levers, poles, smash stones, bring tools an hour walk to school, dig and scratch holes in the soil with their hands. We have spent two weeks building a stone fence, and then encasing this fence with a bamboo fence. The students are always certain that some sort of “small animal” or “small calf” could break in somehow, through some careless gap in our system that needs improvement. They give me visuals of how a small creature might get through. I laugh at this because it is funny to see their little heads poking through the fence. I know they don’t want to go back to the classroom.
I look out at the mountains and tell myself to remember this.
