The Real Bhutan ???

Two weeks in Thimphu and a few days in a school that was only built last year can colour your impressions in all sorts of misleading ways. Yesterday I went for a walk. I'd already gone down to the river (think going down Sca Fell and back up – it's not a casual venture). I'd passed through some 'villages', each composed of 2 or 3 houses, but my stomping brain must have been turned on because I didn't really register what I was passing through. I gave out Kuzuzamgpo-las and big smiles to everyone I passed. They either returned in kind or stared at me like I was an alien. I was hunting for nature and solitude, and it felt like the world was at a little distance, ever so slightly removed from me.

So yesterday Mr Tukten and I went wandering and in no time at all we found ourselves in one of these villages. We met some folk there and Mr Tukten engaged in the kind of passing-the-day banter that I would love to be able to indulge in. Dzongkha lessons absolutely necessary now. Turns out the young lad was one of my students-to-be, the Year 10 School Captain no less. He invited us for tea. We accepted and went into his house.

In the first room, the fire was blazing and the air was smoky. This was the room where it all happened. I was unable to discern the function of the next room I passed through, but the final room was the 'good room', replete with shrine, a soft cushion, cuts of meat drying on the rafters and what appeared to be a very ill 83 year old man wrapped up in the corner. Turns out he'd fallen foul of Sunday afternoon drinking. Mr Tukten and I sat down. In no time at all, a cup of Suja appeared in front of me along with fried rice snacks, maize and biscuits. I struggle with Suja. It's tea, of a sort, made with butter and healthy dose of salt. It's basically butter and hot water and the thought of it now makes my mouth go oily! I drank it happily.

The family stayed in the kitchen while Yenten, the boy, brought us these things. Bhutanese hospitality is the stuff of legend. Arra came next. I was warned about Arra, the local Saki-esque liquor. They told me it would keep appearing in my cup. Yenten brought out a a big bowl of it, and when Mr Tukten told him he didn't eat egg, another smaller bowl appeared without egg. So I had a bowl designed for two. I love it when it's hot, but I'm not too keen on it cold. So I got stuck in. We stayed for a while, chatting and enjoying ourselves and then took our leave with great difficulty – they wanted to feed us dinner and had been sneakily preparing it despite Mr Tukten's adamance that we would not be dining. I left a present of a bag of cashew nuts and off we went.

We got about 300 yards before another family invited us in. More Arra. I hadn't had lunch and was starting to get a bit tipsy and sicky, but I was really enjoying myself. It felt like I was in Bhutan! So we stayed for a while again. The gentleman was a primary school teacher and we had plenty to talk about. When I went to the toilet he made apologies for it's condition. He also told me the home was temporary, clearly concerned unnecessarily about my impression of how they lived. We left again, and in the absence of cashew nuts, I promised to return.

We got about 200 yards before another family invited us in. And gave us Arra. By this stage I'd loosened up plenty and was really enjoying myself. The first thing that struck me was how cute the kids were, a lad in a baseball cap who just stared at me the whole time and a girl of about 7 years who was a bit more playful. I tried to get her to sing into a video and made a fool out of myself leading by example. Their grandma was a very striking looking and warm woman, all smiley and giggly and very friendly. I felt completely relaxed in this home and we managed a basic level of banter with help from Mr Tukten.

Life here in the real world is different to the cloistered concrete school or the city of Thimphu. It's dirty. It's hard work. It's cold. It's what you expect of an 'under-developed' country; poverty. It isn't like the destitution of the homeless Indians because they have houses, they own land and they eat. But they have to work for it. You can read the difficulty of a person's life in their hands and feet, and all the hands I saw were swollen with work, all the feet tough and leathery; a far cry from the condition of my privileged digits. There's very few possessions here at all. A peacock feather was worthy of note. But what stuck out was the dirt. It's a part of life here in the villages and even those who have the facilities to clean kitchens or toilets tend not to do so with any rigor. Perhaps through habit. What a strange picture I must have made on my hands and knees scrubbing the walls of my toilet with tea tree! The immune systems of the Bhutanese are probably far greater than those in the over-sanitised west.

The meat on the rafters was another surprise for me. I presumed that hanging up raw meat would stink, lead to illness and bring in the flies. But it just dries up there, protected by 'oils', I was told. This is worthy of one of those 'imagine that' moments. Try to imagine sitting in your living room entertaining guests with pieces of raw and old meat hanging like socks from a clothes line above you, spanning the length of the room.

By the time I got home I was a bit wobbly; my first Arra came at about 2pm and now it was evening. Mr Tukten and Mr Rinchen came back to mine for a night cap and a chat, but I was in bed fairly promptly. I reflected that in many ways I would prefer to be down there in the villages instead of up here in the school. Some of the other teachers live down there and it could be an option. To what degree would I miss my hot shower? I'm having an easy ride in some respects, and I'm not sure it's what I want.

The children arrive tomorrow.