Rinchengang Aree- From Where I live

The famous Rinchengang Aree(Paddies in Rinchengang)in Wangdue covers two beautiful hills facing Wangdue Dzong. If the whole paddies grew rice it could feed Wangdue for a year but ever since I came here I never saw those paddies cultivated. The famous name of the landmark lives only in the famous jokes of Phuba Thinley, where wrinkled foreheads are compared to those paddies in Rinchengang.

Lets look at Rinchengang Differently...

People blame lack of water supply for their inability to cultivate, while I see lack of commitment and abundance of greed toward easy money through sale of land to construction industries. Those paddies are registered as wetland and therefore cannot be transacted which is why they are left uncultivated for years, knowing that someday it will remain wetland no more.

My Kitchen Garden (10X4 m yet enough)

I live a few kilometers across the river and I have used a small piece of land around my house as kitchen garden. In these two years I have discovered that the soil in Wangdue is nothing less than gold. There is nothing that doesn't grow in Wangdue. I grow sixteen varieties of vegetables and I have not visited Sunday Market for months. I even share my produce with my friends. When the whole nation was worrying and about vegetable import ban, and crying over inflation in vegetable price I was in my kitchen garden wondering what the hell.

My Girl and her friend with Corn Harvest

I wake up early in the morning and work in my garden, and I keep working when the students walk through the gate, just to show to them that I grow my own vegetable and that they could do all the same. I often wished if children from Rinchengang saw me working so that they get inspired to look back at their endless paddies and see what they have left behind.

Radish, Broccoli, Chili, beans, you name it...

P.S. I wish if Lyenpo Pema Gyamtsho could look at the paddies once from across the river and ask if lack of water is justifiable when there is huge river flowing below Rinchengang.