People sometimes tell me I'm bonkers. In recent years I've noticed it
happening with greater and greater frequency. Maybe I am. Bonkers.
The average Joe usually deploys the word 'crazy', a far inferior
synonym to my favourite word. I think my actions are perfectly
reasonable at almost every turn. Almost. And I can explain why.
Almost.
In Bhutan I get called
bonkers for the most unbonkers of things, like walking down to the
river. Completely bonkers! Why would anyone do that? All that lush
vegetation and the river rushing underneath the 25ft high metal
foot-bridge, the thigh-pump of a 900m ascent and the fast-flow
bounding from rock to rock on the way down. Stay at home and watch
telly, that's the reasonable thing to do. Or climbing up the highest
mountain I can see from the school, the only one that tops out into
rock with patches of snow? Clearly bonkers. Imagine the view? Who'd
want that? Although there may be bears, which changes everything. I
have no mace.
So imagine the reaction
when I started asking around for a car to rent for a 600km round trip
journey on the notoriously dangerous Bhutanese roads to say hello to
some of the other teachers. You can guess what they said: bonkers.
But after the fourth or fifth time of asking they could tell I was
serious. They may have picked up on the fact that until I get my 'see
Bhutan from behind the wheel, free and carefree' bug out of my
system, I may be no good to anyone.
Let me put this in
context. I'm in the Himalayas. But I can't see them! The foothills
are rippled so tightly and so steeply that the big 8000m monsters of
rock and snow are hidden from me. But I must see them!
My approach to this
year can be summarised by a word: service; giving as a default and
taking without asking for anything in particular. It's a wonderfully
liberating feeling to not be thinking about the self all the time.
There's no career ladder here for me. There's no race to be ratty at.
There's just service – doing the best I can. I'll no doubt take
away more than I expect in ways I haven't fully realised, but for a
year (minimum - contractually - maximum 5), I give myself to the
Bhutanese and do what I can to enrich the education of children who
hail from materially poor backgrounds and have very limited access to
stimuli beyond their villages and the recent encroachment of bad tv.
Service... but...
... the Himalaya! I'm
so close! The only condition I really had on this adventure was to be
immersed in the mythical natural beauty of Bhutan. I pictured a log
cabin in an alpine meadow with white-toothed peaks guarding my sleep.
A stroll over rushing white water and through rice paddies to get to
work. I didn't get this. When I knew I was getting this, I voiced my
concern. My concerns were assuaged, perhaps rightly. So I am down
south. The Indian adventure wouldn't have happened were it not so. I
wouldn't have met Mr Sanjay, Mr Gembo, Mr Tucker, Mr Rinchen, Mr Bal
Badr, Mr Amber and all the rest of my colleagues. I've been welcomed
into my school as a brother to a family by a Principal who is always
keen to stress that a school is a family. Teachers are more than
parents; the school is more than a home. It's all great... but... the
… mountains... Must... see... the...
So I rented the car. I
braved the precipitous drops and the crazy trucks that don't seem to
acknowledge the existence of cars. At the first checkpoint the police
told me my UK driving credentials didn't amount to diddly-squat. I
had to pay a stranger to drive my car the last 80km. 500Rp. Luckily,
when he got out at the other end he refused to take my money. I must
have changed his mind with banter. Tonight I sleep in the capital.
Everybody I know here isn't here, except the inimitable Mr Tucker
(real name: Thukten, but it's ok, he calls me Mr Greener). Tomorrow I
drive solo for the first time and I go by Dochu La, from where the
peaks can be seen. Then Punakha. Then Rukubji. Solo.
Herein lies the rub.
When people tell me I'm bonkers, it seems to me like I'm just doing
something fun. Exciting. I don't get it. Perhaps there's some risk,
but what things are fun that lack some risk of some variety? People
drive here all the time. I can drive... So.... I can drive here, eh?
I've had a couple of
beers now and I'm hungry so there's nothing wrong with saying things
like... you've got to make it an adventure when you can! If life reads like an exciting story you'd like to be in, you must be doing ok. There's only one life
after all. Make it a page turner. When you can (in episodes - not always easy to maintain).
Last night Thimphu
didn't let me be alone. I ended up in the company of UNICEF staff and
their families at their Losar Party (New Year) dancing all night. We
ate heartily, drank well and danced for hours. I even startled the
assembled dancers with a few carefully purloined Bhutanese moves.
Bollywood, however, is beyond the limitations of my dancing ken.
Lesson learned.
No comments:
Post a Comment