:: One People, Many Cultures ::



::Living Together in Respect and Friendship::

Today was perhaps my last day with the RIM students. They leave on the 18th of June and my family will be around until then. I’ve been asked to judge the student’s final projects which is a great honour and will probably be fun. Then again, it could be tough to have to give honest marks when results aren’t impressive.

To celebrate this farewell, they invited me to join them in the student dining hall for lunch. They provided me a plate (they all bring their own and wash them afterwards) and we chatted for the hour. Of course, most of the conversation was about Michael and how we’d ended up in the movie, but we also talked about what was next for them.

It turns out that they’d already taken the government exam after year 12 and were at RIM because they’d been selected. The question now was not whether they’d be able to find a job, but how good the position would be. That explained the lack of interest shown by many of them. It also raises questions of where they’ll fit in the new model without a bachelor or masters degree.

I’m sure I’ll see them around town in the coming months and have the last question answered.

Bureaucracy strikes again. I asked my favourite travel agency to fax the visas for my family to the Drukair station managers at the respective airports, but they refused to send the one for my brother on the grounds that it said he was coming by land.

I pointed out that it had the correct name, the correct passport number, the correct nationality, the correct dates and clearly stated that he had permission to enter Bhutan. The only indication that he might be coming by land was that it was addressed to the visa officer in Phuntsholing, a road entry. Clearly a mistake by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but not a big deal as far as I was concerned.

They told me that the station manager at Kolkata would throw it away since it wasn’t addressed to him. Easily solved, I thought, and crossed out the existing address to write the new one.

Not good enough.

I had to go back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to get a corrected version.

There have been gurgling and clunking sounds above our flat almost since we arrived. A few weeks ago, Marie met a girl in the stairwell who was on her way to work at a printers in the flat above ours. The noises suddenly became clear, but how could the landlord let his residential flats be used for noisy business. Especially when that noise runs mostly at nights and on weekends?

It never bothered me much, but it keeps Marie awake and that does bother me. After checking with a few people, all the locals agreed with me that it was against the law to use residential flats this way and I decided to complain to the landlord. It wasn’t a conversation I was looking forward to, however. After complaining about the lack of hot water, the lack of water, the lack of useful sockets and the cutting of our fuel pipe, our relationship is getting strained.

Perhaps it was the worrying about this that kept me awake most of the night, listening to the clunks and gurgles. Eventually I decided to get up and confront the printing staff. Surely they could find business places in town for the same price. Or run the printing during the day. But as I made my way upstairs, it became clear that no one was there. The lights were off and the sound wasn’t coming from that flat.

Instead, I followed the sound to a hatch leading into the roof where the water tank would be. Our noises are the pump pulling water into the tank. Somehow, I feel the conversation with the landlord is going to be worse if I ask for the pump to be set to run during the day, than if I ask them to get rid of the printer.

I’ll have to be culturally sensitive and ask friends if it’s normal to run the pumps at night. That or pick the lock on the hatch and change the settings myself.

There’s little doubt that the rainy season has come early this year. Most of today was warm and dry, but the rain that hit at 5pm this evening has flooded Thimphu. As we were driving into town, we saw a block of concrete about 2 feet on all sides sitting on the road a metre from the curb. It looks like it comes from the side of the drains and has been washed down the hill and onto the road.

You know those dreams we all have of turning up to school or office naked? Well, I’ve started having a Bhutanese version. In this dream, I get to the top floor of Chang Lam Plaza where we have our office and realise that I’ve forgotten to put on the belt to my gho. The hem of my gho is now dangling around my ankles and the front is gaping open like a flasher’s coat.

Perhaps I’ve been in Bhutan too long.

A family friend is visiting Bhutan at the moment and invited us to dinner at the most expensive hotel chain in the country. At $1200 per night, this is where Steven Seagal and Richard Gere stay. Mike, the friend, is having his way paid by the hotel on the premise that he’ll write a review for them.

The food was fantastic and Marie is embarrassed at just how enthusiastically she attacked the slab of Aussie beef. The rooms were just as amazing, with a large cushy bed and a bath in the middle of the room. We were shown the rooms and the massage area by the hotel manager, an Indonesian woman.

Bhutan is still at the stage in development where top positions in international businesses are taken by foreigners. While there are some amazing minds in the government, they seem to be rare. Most people in management positions have no vision or interest in coaching their staff. That will change quickly now that the borders are opening up, promotion is becoming performance based and education is improving. Improvement comes at the cost of an unevenness in wealth distribution and rising level of crime due to the same forces. Bhutan is at the point where good meets evil and it’s up to them to decide which wins.

I was crossing the main street on my way home this afternoon and saw two policemen converging on a stationary scooter, blowing whistles. I don’t know what he’d done, but from the angle it was facing, I’d presume negligent driving at the least. The rider managed to get the scooter sorted out and took off before they reached him. While one of the police used the radio to call his colleage at the next intersection, the other gave chase. Not in a patrol car or high power police bike. No, he pulled over a passing taxi and said, ‘Follow that scooter!’

My office mate’s van was stolen on Saturday evening. He was working in Chang Lam Plaza, the up market shopping centre where we have our office, until about 9pm. When he went out, he found a bunch of teenagers sticking something into the lock of the building manager’s car and told them off. They stood shame-faced while he asked which school they went to and whether this was conduct the school condoned. Eventually he let them go, only to find that his own car was missing. There’s no proof that the kids were responsible – it’s likely they were just mucking around rather than actually trying to break the lock.

‘It’s embarrassing,’ he said after relating the episode. ‘We like to brag about how peaceful Bhutan is, but then things like this happen. It’s surprising in such a small town.’

He spent the night driving around in his personal car, looking for the company van, but no luck. The police haven’t found it yet either. There aren’t many places to hide a car in this country is it will have to turn up soon, but it’s shock that it happened at all.

Little to report today – it’s been a cold, wet and gloomy weekend – but yesterday I went to VAST for the first time in a while. I’ve been looking for another way to get involved in society and recently decided that I might be able to help at the Voluntary Arts Studio Thimphu.

They’re doing a great job of keeping kids off the streets, giving them a hobby and perhaps employable skills. With the western ideals and problems swamping them, kids are turning away from Bhuddism and peace to theft and gang mentalities. VAST creates an alternative that I’d like to help with. Not that I have any true artistic talent, but I may be able to get some interested in writing, and they often need coordinators for outdoor activities.

Yesterday was a bit of a write-off as far as getting involved as the king’s sister came to have a look and possibly enrole her son. The first hour was taken up with films of activities like the recent hosting of ‘Chacun son Everest’ a French group helping children recover from cancer. VAST members had taken them for a weekend camp, shown them around Thimphu, then helped them up to Thakshang – their Everest.

While all this was going on, I was tucked up in the office talking to the less well-dressed members who were too shy to meet the Princess. As far as I know, the session went well, and from next week, the king’s nephew will join us.

I’m home relatively late (late for me, early for others in my life) from the pub on a Friday evening. The expats generally congragate at Benez on a Friday evening to drink the week’s frustrations away. Ironically, it was on my return from this outing that I found reason to be happy. And it’s not just that I wasn’t attacked by dogs.

I never noticed, until I moved into town, that Thimphu has street lights. It’s not many streets, but it’s enough to remind me that despite water and electricity problems, we’re actually living in a well-off country.

Perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised, given the recent census results. The previous estimates had put Bhutan at just over 1 million, but the census of last year shows that there are just 550,000 Nationals living in Bhutan and just over 100,000 foreigners like me – mostly Indian. If the GDP is the same, that means the per capita income is double the estimate!

But back to street lights. There are even lampposts in our street. They’re never turned on, but they provide a feeling of modern security.

I’m declaring tomorrow international Hug a Lamp post day.