Pakshikha... My Room, My Castle...

Well, I'm here. In a power cut. In a thunder storm. In Pakshikha. It's cold because my heater is electric, but that's ok. I've got a boiler in my bathroom that provides me with hot showers. This really is ok. There's 2 fans in the ceiling. This is amazing. I can't seem to stop a little of river of water that extends about 6 feet into my room from the bathroom area. I thought I'd resolved the issue but I haven't. It doesn't particularly bother me. There's easily another 15feet beyond the encroachment; plenty of room for little old me. It kinda feels like the anti-chamber that goes between a changing room and a swimming pool, but that's ok. It's big, perhaps too big given the scanty possessions I have to fill it.

Last night I opened all the windows and doors and scrubbed surfaces as I always do when I move in to a new place. Then I laid out all my bits and bobs in their provisional homes and surveyed my new castle. No turrets, but it will do. No, wait... it needs curtains. Soon there'll be kids running around everywhere, peering through the windows at this strange-looking fellow who teaches physics. So, I guess I need to go to India. Twice. In one day. Weird, unexpected, but true, and all due to my new principle.

Whenever I was asked what school I was going to by officials back in Thimphu and I told them Pakshikha, they inevitably replied by saying 'oh yes, you have a very good principle.' Turns out they were right. He's younger than I am by a few years but he recently won an award for basically being the best principle in Bhutan. Last night he invited me for dinner and I met his family over an urn of the local hooch – it's a boozy-eggy-oaty drink that is surprisingly delicious (and nutritious). I mean it too – eggy-oaty, as in, it has eggs and oats floating in it. And it's delicious if you drink/eat it hot. So drink/eat it fast! And be careful of bits of egg hanging from your lip.

On the topic of food, so far I haven't fallen foul of any nasty chilli experiences. I've been in the presence of such incidences, where other teachers have sweated and cursed and fled the scene, but for some reason, my mouth and guts have tolerated everything. To the extent that I am now treating the humble chilli as a vegetable and not a spice. This surprises me, but I do not question it. I am grateful for small blessings.

I fear I have digressed. Two trips to India in one day will have to be the title of my next post. And I haven't even mentioned what you see through my window. The school is 1500m up, perched on the edge of a jungly mountain. The valley goes all the way down and all the way back up. I can see for miles and miles and miles... As Hazel said when he found his Watership Down... 'You can see the whole world from up here'...