So school has begun, with perhaps more of a
whimper than a bang. A long slow fortnight in which classes may have started,
or may have not. A fortnight in which the students prepared items for His
Majesty’s birthday celebrations whilst teachers potted around in the staffroom,
sometimes planning, sometimes not. A fortnight in which I was happy to drift
along with the laidback atmosphere of things, despite my plans of coordinating a Himalayan DzongkaPop version of a
Michael Jackson medley replete with traditional circle dancing and
liturgical-style banner waving in honour of His Majesty’s birthday being
shunted to the sidelines. (I don’t know how this happened, it must have been something
in the way I pitched it).
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| Class VII kids dancing up a storm. |
His Majesty’s birthday celebrations went
ahead and they were beautiful. Students shimmied and twisted and ducked and
demurred to a series of glorious folk and more contemporary rigsar tunes. Senior students crowded
into the staffroom where, along with the teachers, they recited prayers for His
Majesty’s long life and for the upliftment of all sentient beings. Lilting
syllables of Dzongka text filled the room with a harmony and sincerity that was both humbling and uplifting. Pineapples and paw-paws were
offered, butter lamps were lit. I sang a ukulele tune with a little crowd
participation which took things down a notch but helped to pad out the program
for our visiting dignitaries. We finished the celebrations with all the
teachers and senior students (including Lula and I) joining in for the final
traditional circle dance in honour of His Majesty’s supreme dedication to all
of his subjects and the upliftment of all sentient being everywhere.
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| The audience |
We missed a day
of staffroom potting the week after, stranded as we were in beautiful Punakha,
the neighbouring valley to the east, where we had travelled trying to catch a
glimpse of the fabled Punakha Domchoe – a religious festival held in the
jaw-droppingly beautiful Punakha Dzong. As part of the festival, fully costumed
soldiers re-enact a 17th Century battle scene in which Tibetan
soldiers attempt to invade the dzong in an effort to recapture one of Bhutan’s
most treasured artifacts the Rangjung
Kharsapani – a self-created image of the Chenresig, Boddhisattva of
compassion. Brought to Bhutan from Tibet by the religious and political leader Zhabdrung Rinpoche - ‘precious jewel at whose feet one prostrates’ – who is
also known as the founder of unified Bhutan – the Rangjung was saved from the marauding Tibetans by a dastardly act
of cunning in which the Zhabdrung, in full view of the invaders, pretended to
throw the precious relic into the waters of the Mo Chhu river, after which the
disappointed Tibetan’s withdrew, leaving Bhutan in possession of this sacred
piece of self-creating wonderment.
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| Punakha Dzong |
Staying with our
truly excellent BCF buddy, Sarah who is teaching English at Punakha High School,
we all dutifully trekked down to the dzong on Sunday and Monday mornings but were
disappointed to find that most of the perfomances seemd to be either finished
or in perpetual rehearsal. We experienced great difficulty in gleaning any
reliable information from anybody about when any of the festival events were
actually due to take place and spent most of the days hanging around the
courtyards and drinking tea in the local tea house (oh the pain…)
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| Monk Watching |
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| Inside the dzong |
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| Festival Participant in a Traditional Guard's Outfit |
Despite these
(oh so unbearable) frustrations, I was unexpectedly charmed and delighted when
– after watching me tying myself in knots and at risk of toppling down the
vertiginous front steps – the monastery security guards intervened to help me
put on my kabney – a ceremonial scarf that needs to be worn when visiting
dzongs . Like so many times in Bhutan, it was the people more than the tourist
attractions which made the experience memorable. Two local engineering students
who’d come to see the festivities struck up conversation with me when Lucy and
Sarah were off taking pictures after admiring the fact that we were both
wearing gho and kira. When they found
out that Lucy and I were a couple, one of them grabbed my arm and in a
beautifully earnest and completely unselfconscious way exclaimed: “She’s
absolutely gorgeous!” to which, of
course, I heartily agreed.
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| Lucy and Shmitty | | | |
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And on the way home...snow! So much that we had to spend an extra night in Punakha before braving the cold at Dorchu La, the pass separating the Thimphu and Punakha valleys. The pass is also the site of 108 chortens built by the government in 2004 to atone for the deaths of three Assamese separatists who were killed by Bhutanese military during an operation to flush the separatists out of the jungles of southern Bhutan.
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| We have very different reactions to cold... |
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