Place to Escape Heat in Wangdue

Hotel Pema Karpo is a three star hotel in Bajothangu, opened recently, that's not important because I don't need a hotel here. The best part of this hotel is the swimming pool it has in the backyard. It's the first and the only swimming pool in entire Wangdue. The hotel has opened its swimming pool facility to public on pay per use basis or on monthly membership fee.

I have a Dream, yes I have a dream that one day I will jump into the pool without floater

Just a thought of swimming pool brings a cooling effect in place like Bajothang and actually having it is a heavenly feeling. This afternoon it was very hot, right time to take my family to the pool along with two family friends. The idea excited my little mermaid while Kezang was there just to watch us. She wouldn't even touch the water but my little one would not come out of the water until we called the security to scare her out.
While I talk so fondly of water and swimming pool I must confess I can't swim, the only style of swimming I know is so rustic that it was banned by my wife. So until I learn a decent style I spend my time on floaters and on the children's side of pool.

Information for interested visitors: The water is very clean and management very friendly.
The fee is as follows:
Adults: Nu.150 per person for 3 hours and children Nu.100.
Monthly membership fee: Nu.1500
Location: Bajothangu (Between Bajothang and Samthang)

A Piece of History in Bajothang

There is an old traditional house standing in Bajothang School and it seemed to have been there before the idea of school came around it. The school itself was founded in 1997 and the building looked like it was there for ages.

The old structure didn't receive any renovation and is slowly giving way to its unknown age. However, my school uses it for storage of books and sports gears, it also houses the Geography lab, and on the ground floor one huge room is used for carpentry and other equally big room is the school agriculture store.

The new developmental plan has two huge structures coming up and to create space for growing numbers of cars in our parking, school has planned to demolish the old house to expand the parking lot. Aesthetically, the building is an eyesore in the beautiful campus and I was looking forward to the change.
However, one afternoon I had a history lesson from the contractor who was building our new structures. He presented a vivid picture of Bajothang some 40 years ago, with names of people who had anything to do with the old house, as if things happened yesterday. His father was among the men who had worked here and he happened to visit the place with his father.

It was during the Third King's reign, when idea of business was farfetched to Bhutanese, that his majesty, Jigme Dorji Wangchuk ordered the construction of the house. It was intended to be the business center for the people of Wangdue, Punakha, Gasa and probably even as far as Trongsa. It was the first known shop in the entire region, and was operated by people on rotational basis. Those day, the entire Bajothang was uninhabited and it was the first and only structure standing. His Majesty instructed people to come and settle in Bajothang but people found the land infertile and not many came, just like the history of Changlimithang.
The business center was later handed over to Tencholing Army and they handled the business until the shop shifted to a new location in Tencholing, currently known as Army Canteen. The man who sustained the business and flourished was granted Royal Kasho to run the business as Army Canteen for generations to come.
After the shop was shifted to Tencholing the house in Bajothang became the center for Agriculture, from where seeds and tools were distributed to people. When the center first brought in a power-tiller and did the demo somewhere near the present football ground, the news reached far and wide. Large number of people came with packed lunches and to see the 'Iron Ox' ploughing the land. 

After hearing the story of the historical house, I went to my principal and shared it, but to my surprise he knew the history already because his brother had engineered the school back in 1997 from whom he learned. He gave me clearer details and when we were finished, the idea of demolishing the house seemed very brutal. We then discusses the possibility of converting the house into a Museum. Though the idea is wild and vague at the moment I strongly that the house deserves to stand there and tell tales of modern business in Bhutan.

***This is a weak attempt to write history, which was not written before, therefore I am in search of more information and old photographs. IF you happen to have please post them to my inbox.

Lamperi Park- A Place to Visit

I have travelled this road thousand times and for thousand times I have looked at the gate of Lamperi Botanical Park and wondered what must be there beyond the gate and wall. But I never had time to stop for a while and walk into the park- well today I asked myself, how long am I going to deny my excitement? How long am I going to rush through life and leave behind simple joy of living?

It's a wonderland beyond that gate. Nu.10 ticket has priceless experience to offer. There is a lake (tsho) with boating facility on the side, Orchid garden, Rhododendron Garden, Rock Garden, Children's Park, Medicinal Plant garden, library and the whole park is connected with Bike trail where mountain biking facility is offered (Nu.100/hr). If you are hungry there is a cafeteria and if you are pissy there are clean toilets around, but don't go behind the bushes- keep the park clean. The park is also open for night camping at Nu.30 per person and if you opt for guest house it's Nu.250 per person. (Full Details can be seen in the picture)

Enlarge and look for details

For a man like me who grew up in country it's like going back home but for someone like my daughter and all the kids who were born and bred away from roots it's like taking them to a fairy land and connecting them to who they really are.(entry for kids below 12 is free)
And for couples who haven't had much to to talk to each other recently, the park offers you the correct mood and setting to look at eachother and talk life. There is no TV, no WiFi, no Cars, no shopping, just the person you love in front with birds singing from the woods. Refresh your romance once in a while.

Taking my hyper daughter to the calm lake

One of the many interesting creations

After The Queen Grandmother- Rhododendron Kesangiae, seen in Rhododendron Garden

Another place to sit and romance

See the Orchid Garden beyond the bridge

 I am already planning my next trip there with pack lunch during a sunny holiday. I hope you will do that too.

Jigme Couldn't Find Taxi From Thimphu

My son Jigme was rushing home from Paro this afternoon. He wanted to spend this election holiday with us at home. But he is stranded in Thimphu tonight because he couldn't find a taxi coming to Wangdue. The taxi he got into asked him Nu.450, almost 100% more than normal rate, and when he questioned the driver, he was told that all taxi charge same rate today. His repeated protest made the taxi driver change his mind and direction. The taxi politely threw out my boy and went to Paro.
I made the following request on Facebook (see picture) and only respond I got was to note the number of the taxi and file a formal complaint against it in RSTA office. 

It was not about my son alone, it was about the illegal fare hike going on and I thought RSTA will go there and catch them red handed, but it turned out that we have to follow procedures, which indirectly meant there is no heart in dealing with the problem. Like a friend on Facebook commented,

 "That is the problem we have la; even, if we file a formal complaint with veh. registration No., they will ask for evidence and will go on..."

This was a problem since my school days and I am shocked even during my children's time the same problem bothers our country. I am sure many desperate travellers during this election must have been harassed by these taxi drivers, which will make the very voting experience bitter. Now I know why Monggar election officer chose to hire private cars rather than taxis. 

My Lost Turtle, The Free Turtle

When something wrong is going to happen you feel the energy from the first hour but because we are just human we can comprehend it only after it has happened. This morning I was up by 6:30 AM, something very strange for someone who sleeps at 3AM, and then by 7:30 AM I sneaked out of home with our pet turtle. I was like a little boy, wanting to let my turtle play in the Blue Pond which my class created in the school.

The Pond

The little creature lost its friend last year and had been alone in the aquarium so far. If he could talk he would have asked us to set him free rather than being alone among colorful stones in glass confinement. I took him out once and promised to take him once the pond is done. Yesterday I changed the water and cleaned the pond to welcome him there. kezang hates my rashness, therefore I ran out when she was still in bed.
The turtle in the Pond was an instant hit, there were students who never saw one in real before and there were teachers who knew everything about it but yet to see one outside TV. Excited kids wanted to touch it, feel its hardness, see it react, throw pebbles at it when I wasn't looking. I said nothing, I wanted them to experience it. There was crowd after crowd around the pond when I left for class.

During the First Outing

I finished my class with VIII C and rush back to the Pond to find no one around, and my dear turtle gone. The boy who was supposed to look after it has gone to his class too. I searched for my turtle everywhere around the pond and soon called off the search hoping the boy would have kept it somewhere safe.
The boy came to me asking where the turtle is, and perhaps he saw the color change on my face. Soon it was toilet break and dozens of students came to see the turtle but the poor thing was lost. Everybody helped in the search operation. There was no clue about what happened to the turtle, given it's speed it couldn't have ran so far from our reach, its hard shell would have protected it from birds and dogs, what else could have happened?
I couldn't go for lunch, because I was answerable to Kezang who has invested so much of herself to the little animal- from feeding to cleaning. It was her companion when I am in school. I snatched it away from her.
But looking at it from the other side, turtles, or for that matter any animal, are not meant to be kept in glass confinement, there are born free and deserve to be free. We humans exercise our supremacy over all species; eating what can be eaten, taming what can be tamed, and imprisoning beautiful creature for life by giving them a sweet name called 'Pet'. My lost turtle is finally liberated, hope it didn't land up with someone else to be confined in glass box again, hope it didn't land up in a dog's mouth to be crushed to death, I only pray that it finds its way to the river to be washed down to where it belongs, where he will find his kind, to play to mate and to reproduce his genes. Bye little one, farewell.

Lesson: I shouldn't be rash, must fence the Pond before I bring in the fishes and other aquatic lives I could get.

Translation of a Teacher's Dream by Students

I am a dreamer and have thousand things going on in my head. If I hadn't become a teacher I would have died of frustration. School is the place where I can express myself freely. I translate my personal dreams into spaces in school and spend sleepless nights of satisfaction. My students enjoy my wild ideas and become part of them, often adding their share of craziness. We work endlessly during our holidays and learn to celebrate work as art of life. I harness their talent and make them polish their skills. Students are treasure house of talents.
My school is right next to the river but strangely the campus is very dry and dusty. I had a refreshing feeling at a water body in sight would chill our mind and then planned a pond in the park. It took a long time to bring the mental picture on the ground but my VIII C students had the required skill to give shape to it.
I consulted two engineers but for a project of our scale students are the best engineers. My friends generously donated cement and love, and kezang prepared her best fried rice for my class during the long concreting hours.
More than the pond itself, the time I spent with my students gave me deep insight into their lives, about their families, and their life during vacations and at home. It's very inspiring to discover that many of them have worked as temporary labourers and paid for their schooling expenses. While the kids from well to do families take so much interest in learning from the experts friends. It strengthened our bond as class and as team. Tomorrow morning they will be so proud to see the whole school admiring our pond.
Following is a glimpse of our journey in creating the pond, in picture over a period of one month.

The First touch.

Groundbreaking (helping hands from Basketball team)

Laying foundation 

Concreting during a holiday

The shape is formed, first layers concreting done and watered for strengthening.

Trying out Colored-cement for the first time- Polishing was done with help from 5 experts from senior classes.

First Guest to my Pond is my Family- Sunday Morning 

Isn't it refreshing? 

Now the pond is waiting for fish, turtle, frog, lotus, or anything that will survive there to give students visual of some aquatic life. The least we have planned is to shift 8 fishes from school fishery farm (8 fishes because it's class VIII's work) and put 29 beautiful stones, each with roll numbers of my 29 students for, what they call, Long Remembrance.
When I have luxury of time I would like to share about amazing projects my teacher colleagues have done in Bajothang too because I think I am being very selfish my sharing only about those thing me and my class did on my blog.

Disclaimer: No teaching time was wasted in building this pond because we did it during weekends and holidays. And no contributions, in any form, were asked from students except their free time and skill.

Mob in Bajothang- iWitness

I heard of mob attack in Jaigoan, and saw in Indian movies but this afternoon it happened in my school. The school was over and I was with my colleagues shaking hands with movie director Tshering Wangyel who has come to screen his production "Sorry Wai" here. Suddenly we heard our noisy neighbours shouting louder than they usually did. We have over 20 Bengali  labourers working for a construction site in our school. They were chasing something with various weapons in their hand.
We said "Sorry Wai" to Tshering Wangyel and ran to the site to find that they were after the Bhutanese site supervisor who is responsible for looking after the work on behalf of the funder. Stones were flying in his direction, narrowly missing him. We stopped the mob, who were carrying bamboo, iron rod, stone, spade and going 'maro maro' after him. While I appreciate their unity I hated their action and intention.
Instinctively I picked up a bamboo too and pointed at those who were trying to cross beyond where we were standing, I only realized there was bamboo in my hand when my principal called on me to throw it.
"He hit our friend, we have to 'maro' him" They shouted.
"Are you police? Who are you to render justice this way? This cannot be done here. Call you proprietor and solve it with police." My principal sent them back.

Then their theakhadar said something to them which instigated the mob again. They wanted to drag him back and do justice. They began "maro maro' again and came running. We intercepted them and suggested, "How would you like to have it the other way, where we call 50 Bhutanese and thrash your heads with your weapons." By then there were people watching from all directions. The mob retreated silently.
Our principal called the theakhadar and warned him to total silence.

After a while the escapee returned with chief security officer of his company and police. The labours were called and the case was dug. From their conversation I could see that the supervisor had tried to stop a work which was not approved by the company, while the head labourer shouted at his workers to continue. The s supervisor became furious and dug out their finished work when a labourer punched him. He picked up a bamboo and knocked that man down and ran away.

Police after hearing stories from both sides said both of them must go to the office, and even asked the theakhadar to go. That's when I said "what about the mob that came with all sort of weapon?" and my colleagues supported me. Then the whole 'maro maro' gang was loaded behind police pickup and taken to police station. I hope their are not kept in the cell overnight though they deserved it.

Private Tuition in Bhutan- Where Teachers Can't Teach

This is one very interesting story about a licensed private tuition company writing complaint letter to Dzongkhag about some of my colleagues stealing their business. I say it's interesting because a businessman thinks that it's his business to tuition our children and not ours. It's even more interesting because there is a policy which states that teachers cannot take private tuition classes after school hours, and that's the legal point the businessman is catching at. Technically he is on the right side. 
Before I express my surprises let me clarify that none of my teacher colleagues take any tuition classes this year as far as I know and I have no time, space and intention to do it myself, therefore it's with clean conscience that I choose to be surprised.
The biggest surprise is that our own ministry thought teachers should not do private tutoring for money, and the justification was that some teachers would do half hearted job in the classroom so to gather good number of heads for side business. This mistrust is heartbreaking. Should there be any teacher who would resort to such cheap means, can anything stop them?
Another Surprise, licenses have been issued to businessmen to operate tuition classes, now justify the logic, if any, behind trusting some people, who may or may not be trained, to teach our students better than they were taught in the classroom.
If any student has problem with any subject no teacher will ever say no to
them during free hours and holidays, so where do we need tuition at all? And if some parents have enough money to blow off and wants to send their children to tuition anyway, who would be a better person- child's own teachers or some licensed businessmen?
Coming back to our ministry's decision, which may be guided by many wisdom I didn't know of, but I must say I was impressed by health ministry move at providing off hour clinic opportunity for doctors to earn some extra cash. I also envy the way engineers spent their off hours making drawing for private individuals to earn handsome cash. But we teachers are lavishly showered with rules after rules, instead of some smart ways to improve our livelihood. Name one teacher who has a car without loan, or name one teacher who has children in private school without two loans?
I would most respectfully accept the rule that says teachers are not allowed to drive taxi after school, or teachers are not allowed to do business in school involving students but excuse me on the rule that says teachers can't teach. What else can teachers do then?

Little Boy-The Victim of Fails

Kezang went to hospital this morning and was calling me and telling in deep anxious voice that my friend's child was hospitalized. I had heard the news of a young boy being attacked by pack of stray dogs in Khotokha about a week ago. The boy had gone beyond the fence to play when the pack of dogs attacked him. He was rescued by a monk who was passing by. And that boy happens to be my friend Damchoe's three year old son, who is now nursed back to health at Bajothang Hospital. It took 84 stitches on his head, back and arms to close his wounds. The boy is doing well now.

The repaired scalp 

The Dog Issue:

However, it's time we pay serious attention to stray dogs. Some half hearted dog rehabilitation attempts have separated dogs from human population and now many dog-compounds are shut down. Homeless and hungry the abandoned dogs are now roaming forest and villages attacking cattles. And this year alone we have reports of two incidences where humans were attacked- one was in Haa last months and the other my friend's boy. What measures can be taken to reduce the risk of dogs attacking humans? Who should be taking care of this issue? How long should we wait until we start taking action?

Drug Shortage Issue:

Another problem that surfaced today was the shortage of Anti Rabies Vaccine (ARV), which is a must take vaccine for dog bitten victims. Even a smallest wound from dog bite requires this injection and in this case the little boy was bitten by around seven dogs and literally peeled off from head to back. Unfortunately ARV ran out of stock. Tencholing didn't have it, Thimphu only has enough for their patients and was waiting for the new stock to arrive in two weeks. My friends was asked to find it on his own. Medical Shops are handicapped by new policy. 

It was boy's luck that Punakha Hospital had some doses left. He was taken to Punakha for the first dose but there is no guarantee if there will be any left when he goes for the second dose, which is on 17th May. I took the issue to Twitter and I was inspired by the support and concern shown by fellow Bhutanese. Some even offered to send from Delhi and another from Gelephug. Thank you to all the people who answered to my tweets this morning.

In such time we must awake to the reality that something in the system is not going good. Such emergency medications should be readily available in every corner of the country. I am hopeful this concern will be considered seriously by whoever is responsible. And if it's very difficult to pave through tedious Bhutanese procedures then why not allow private pharmacies to sell them?

#SherigCollection in my School

I am very happy that Sherig Collection brought Boaz Shmueli and Galit Shmueli to my school, which was a sudden decision of Boaz after he saw my tweets about the Book Fair and teacher crowd in our football ground. We pitched a tent outside the book fair stall with two computers and ended up stealing the show from the main event. We invited every passing teacher to our tent and no teacher left without being thoroughly amazed.

See how we stole the show!

Sherig Collection is a selfless initiative by Rigsum where Boaz and Galit work. It's a collection of offline learning resources for children, and if you are a teacher, student or a concerned parent you must get it. It's now available in nine Dzongkhags, with teachers who attended the Book Fair in Bajothang. Details of the sources can be obtained from Sherig Collection Facebook Group. If you are in or close to Wangdue I am your server. 

Busy in Bajothang

The Sherig Collection is basically a 24GB answer to all Bhutanese issues such as internet connectivity, internet speed, budget limitations and computer efficiency. It's too good to be true and you must own it to believe it. Come with external hard drive! 

When two of them were not so busy I chanced to  show them around. They were full of appreciation for the so many creative works done by our students.

At WiFiPark gate with Gasa Principal

Near Curiosity Post 

Thanks to my 8 C students who helped in pitching the tent and to Chidanand and other eLearning Club members who sticked around helping the team during the weekend. And Thank you Rigsum and team for Sherig Collection. I hope, and will work toward reaching, the collection to as many schools as possible.