The Best Public Toilet in the Country

If something is not good enough, go and change it. If you can’t change it, seek help but change it.

It was my turn to design a social service activity yesterday afternoon at the Royal Academy. My team knew I would certainly point at a toilet, because ever since I founded Bhutan Toilet Org I have been after toilets like Romeo.

Dr. Prabrat was after me for days, wanting me to plan the program in detail and on paper, in his very Oxford way but I assured him about how I had everything on my fingertips, after all it was a toilet we were talking about.

The plan was to whitewash the wall, scrub the pots and tiles, educate the caretaker and make the only public toilet in Paro town worth Nu.5 it charges per use.

I requested Dasho Dzongrab, Kinley Gyeltshen for approval and he in turn instructed Municipal authority to assist us. From the municipal we understood that Paro didn’t have a wet sweeper after the one they had, died. The current caretaker is an employee who is assigned toilet duty only on Sundays. The only sewage truck in the valley is broken down.

But I made it clear to the Executive Engineer of the Municipal office that we were going beyond complaining, by becoming a part of the solution, something I learnt from BCMD’s media nomad workshop last year.

The condition of the toilet however shocked my team; my worst description was just the tip of the shit-berg that even I, who made few inspections before, couldn’t believe. The door was locked with countless dents of break in attempts. There was a fresh poop right at the door. No portion of the wall was spared from doma stains. The two sinks and four toilet pots were coated with thick layer of deposits. God knows how some poop went right up on the wall. The only remaining two flush tanks were filled with bottles and sanitary pads. The caretaker used the useless bathrooms for scrap collection. The worst was what lies behind the toilet; all the connections to septic tank were blocked and therefore sewage has been overflowing straight into open drain for years. The drains have eventually disappeared under overgrowth and you can see fresh yellow all over the green.

Any logical person with authority would recommend demolishing of the out-of-hand eyesore standing in between taxi stand and vegetable market, two populated areas. But we were there to rescue it. We whitewashed the wall first and our artist Nima Tshering wrote “A Clean Toilet!” and that was what we went there for.

The Driving Force

The 14 of us dug, swept, brushed, scrubbed, and washed in our effort to make this toilet worth paying Nu.5. After three hours the inside of the toilet started glittering but tones of poop behind the toilet didn’t seem like something we could deal with.

God Knows, how this could happen

The only institution that could help was fire department of the Police. We made a few calls and big red fire truck appeared. Three rounds it took to wash down the whole history of shits in Paro. The three firefighters went out of their ways to help us. We can never thank them enough.

Help from Police Department

The clean toilet that we aspired was ready. But in two days we didn’t want all our effort to be covered in shit. Municipal already said they were running short of manpower to look after the toilet. But the executive engineer readily agreed to allow us to hand it over to some organization that could take better care of it. That’s when my team thought of Chithuen Phenday Association, with whom we share close ties. We called them over to consider our proposal and right there standing near the toilet Paro Municiapl Authority agreed to handover, and Chithuen Phenday agreed to takeover. The orphan toilet finally got adopted and hence it will be open throughout the week and a gate will open to taxi stand too. Anybody misusing the public property will be held responsible and if the culprits are not found then the association will be help responsible.

The toilet will be handed over formally in few days after the plumbing damages are fixed but ownership and accountability are transferred with immediate effect. Paro will hereafter have the best Public toilet in the country. Other Dzongkhags are encouraged to follow the Paro model or innovate better strategies to make their public toilets less terrifying.

Here we Go! 

The Royal Academy would like to thank Dasho Dzongrab, the Police Department in Paro, Paro Municipal Authority and Chithuen Phenday Association for coming together for a cause. Together we did it.

And I personally would like to express my greatest appreciations to my colleagues Nima Tshering, Pema Chhomo, Sonam Ura, Dr. Prabrat, Sangay Wangchuk, Deki Pem, Sonam Palden, Ben, Hemant, Penjor Ghalley, Karma Tenzin, Ram Dahal, and Tshering Nidup for job well done. You guys cleaned the hardest shit!

Following are some memories we cleaned and washed away:

A World Class Flower Exhibition

I overheard a foreign tourist asking his guide at least three times, "You mean all this is put up in a week?" The guide was as proud as me, "Yes, all in a week."

For the first time in a long time I have seen something done by Bhutanese that's truly world class. We always had that excuse of being Bhutanese that gave us the license to under perform and still be proud. From a crude machine made of wood to some funny software or animation, they always made it to headlines despite being no better than anything the western world made half a century ago, but we still say, "come on, it's Bhutan. A Bhutanese doing so much is amazing." Which is why we are considered third world.

But the Royal Bhutan Flower Exhibition was something that proved to ourselves that we too are living in 2015 along with the rest of the world, and that no form of excuse can justify why we should be lesser country. 

Besides, in my wildest imagination I couldn't have guessed Bhutan had so many passionate florists, let alone the vastness and variety of their collection. And the timing is magical, with almost every flower in full bloom, which remained continuously glorious the entire week.

Thank you your Majesty, your visions are always clear and beautiful. Heartiest congratulations to every beautiful soul involved in creating that heaven on earth. Next year is going to be unimaginable. 

Following are some shots I took to celebrate the grand success of the Exhibition and to remind myself from time to time about how much our people can do.

Are you convinced now? 

Visiting Museums in Bhutan

I have seen too little of the world outside Bhutan but that little experience away from home awakened my appreciation for the depth of our own country. Now I desire to travel deeper in our own country and its history than anywhere away.

Isn’t it sad that we have nothing much written down as history. We say we are rich in oral literature and history but if you realize, much is lost in transmission from one mouth to another and one generation to another. More than losing is the threat of manipulation as stories travel through time.

What hasn’t been changed, what hasn’t been altered are the stories stored in objects from the past. But sadly those stories are collecting dust in museums, and much of what people had in their homes have flown to Nepal through black market routes and rest are waiting in the handicraft shop to be sold out to western tourists.

So considering that our villages are transformed, though even if they were intact not many of us spend time there, museums are our only hope of finding original stories that are rarely heard, or never heard in its truest form.

Sometimes the mystery of our unclear history is frustrating but other times it turns out that the same mystery defines what Bhutan is. It is that desire to explore the unknown, which makes life all so meaningful for some of us. It’s the urge to travel in back in time and not just live life forward but also add a backward dimension to life. Life becomes so much bigger.

While time machine called museum is as cheap as Nu.20 per adults and Nu.5 for students; a pizza can fund a class of 40 students to any museum in Bhutan but in my 7 years on Facebook I have seen thousands of pictures of children posing with pizzas but not a single picture of child posing outside a museum.

Paro Penlop Dawa Penjor Heritage Farmhouse, one of the private museums I visited was confused when my group asked for visiting fee. They have never received any Bhutanese visitors and therefore haven’t thought of an entry fee for Bhutanese. The lady was so happy to receive the first group of Bhutanese visitors that she offered us ara and suja like she did for fee paying tourists, all for free. We were so touched the we offered no less than any tourists.

Dear parents take your children for swimming to given them the best physical exercise, take your children to a library for the best mental exercise, and take your children to a museum to exercise their imagination. Take them back in time because so many answers they may seek in the future are buried in the past.

Following is a list of Museums I have visited. It’s just a list for now, specifics of each will be written in the following blogs.

• National Museum of Bhutan, Paro
• The Tower of Trongsa, Trongsa
• Paro Penlop Dawa Penjor Heritage Farmhouse, Paro
• Folk Heritage Museum, Thimphu
• Simply Bhutan, a Living Museum, Thimphu
• Druk Home Museum, Paro

*BookMyTour has a museum specialised travel guide to help you in case you are planning a museum tour in Bhutan

National Museum of Bhutan

The Tower of Thongs

Druk Home Museum

Paro Penlop Dawa Penjor Heritage Farmhouse

Simply Bhutan, A Living Museum

Folk Heritage Museum

La Ama- A Book Review

Book Title:  La Ama ... a mother's call
Author:        Chador Wangmo
Publisher:    Miza Books
Published:   2015
Pages:         198
Price:          Nu.250

 La Ama is perhaps the first book I have read completely in a long time. And the very first book I have finished in on sitting. I am a very slow reader and 198 pages would usually take me over a week but Chador Wangmo has begun her book with a tight knot of suspense and I didn't want to put down until I untied it. Soon I found myself too engaged with Dechen Zangmo and wanted to be by her side until she wakes up.

Chador has invented a unique plot that is strategically woven to fly us across time and places and put us in exactly same state of being as the narrator. Chador's mastery over English language brings out the strong waves of emotions that the story has to offer.

The story is about a girl who is abandoned by her parents and abused by people in whom she places her trust. She has surrendered to her fate and hungry husband, until one day it becomes too much for her. In her attempt to escape from her brutal husband and with nowhere to go she meets with an accident. In that deep unknown space between life and death, she finds herself with her mother putting together the pieces of puzzles from the past and reconnecting with her. She discovers that she has been reliving her mother's mistakes.

"was there any reason to fear the outside world when brutal predators existed within the family walls?" (p.126)

I don't want to risk writing any more about the story lest I land up looting the charm from your desire to read yourself. Chador Wangmo has subtly and creatively exposed the secrets hidden behind the closed doors of our society. It's a book every Bhutanese woman must read to find the strength to make right choices at the right time, and it's a book every Bhutanese man must read to ensure that it happens but not as a favour, rather as natural as it should be.

"I wonder if marriage was a union of two souls as it is often said or merely the ownership of one soul over the other." (p.172)

The only problem I saw in the book was on page ii, where she disclaims that "Any resemblance to actual person, living or dead is purely coincidental" When it should read, "Any resemblance to actual person is intentional, and if you are offended you know where to go."

The book has impressed me in more than one way; I loved the title, the cover design, the size and promotion, the paper quality, and the general design. Chador has left no page unturned in the publication of her debut novel. Thank you for writing La Ama.

Crime Hidden in Pine Forest

In 2003, I was severely ill in the first week I reached Sombaykha Primary School. I wanted to run back home but I was officially four days away from everything familiar to me. I knew I was going to die in the place so new and so remote. Everything about the place made me lonely. It was then that I accidentally broke a thick red ruler in headmaster's office. You won't believe how the scent of pinewood that came from the broken ruler suddenly made my heart race. I took the two broken pieces with me and kept them hear my pillow. From the next morning I felt more alive than ever.

Coming back to Paro and living among the Pine trees is a gift of natural happiness. I know the trees, I grew up with them, I played on their branches and slept under their shade. The scent from the free sends me heart dancing. I am home. But wait, what's under those trees?

Below my training centre in Dop Shari, there is a small patch of pine trees. It's too small to be called a forest but the small group of trees seemed to have survived so many human interventions. Between the trees and the road there is clearly a pit overflowing with garbage. It doesn't seem like a recent activity but now that we live and work in that area, people could easily blame it on us. My colleague Ram took it on to himself to clear that area as part of his social initiative. He got us gloves and sacks.

We thought an afternoon would be enough but as we dug we discovered that the place was used for ages. The waste was obviously from a hotel- countless wrappers of milk, sugar, biscuit, frozen chicken, wine bottles, broken plates and glasses, carton boxes,... It doesn't require much intelligence to analyse that the former occupant of our office was responsible. This place was earlier a tourist hotel, and evidently a very irresponsible one.

Tip of Plastic Iceberg

What we discovered later broke my heart completely. Beyond the pit, cleverly hidden under the pine trees was a secret world of plastic. It was clearly years of intentional and irresponsible dumping of plastic waste, which should be a criminal offence to the nation. It's a wonder how the authorities didn't spot at least the pit that was just below road to Paro Dzong.

The bigger question is, where are other hotels hiding their waste? I have seen a few patches of landfill here and there in Paro. Above Gaptay I have seen a depression in the woods filled with hotel waste, and above that I have seen at least three hotels. It seems to a trend in Paro to hide their waste in the woods. I would therefore like to alert National Environment Commission and Tourism Council of Bhutan to investigate this issue in Paro and perhaps elsewhere in the country. 

Revealing the Hidden

In Paro the problem must have cropped from the failure of the Dzongkhag Municipal. I assume that they can't possibly assist the hotels in managing their waste when they seem to fail in managing the waste in the middle of the town. The waste collecting trucks are small and manually operated, and the frequency of collection seems very less. The bins placed at prime locations are small even for a single user, and therefore are seen overflowing perpetually. Everything seems so half hearted.

Wherever the problem is there seems to be a serious need of intervention. This beautiful country we are so proud of may soon lose its countless adjectives, and our proud environmental efforts may just turn into myths on paper. 

I'm Scared of Him No More

I knew Au Sonam since my days in Gaupay, way back in mid 90s. He was a terror. He lived outside our school gate with his father and stepmother. His muscular body, complimented by fluent English made him a fearful star in the neighbourhood. He was always high on his substances and would be surrounded by bunch of bad boys from our school. Every little problem in school will reach him and he won't hesitate getting into our campus and solving it his way.

Once even I was on his hit list. Someone went to the godfather and he came looking for me. I was in the dinning hall over lunch. It was like a typical scene from Bollywood movies, where the villain comes to the college and nobody says anything. Even the teachers won't want to mess with him, so there I was on my own. He found me out and to my surprise he said, "Jada, he is just a kid. Give me some big guys." After that day I, like hundred other avoided being seen by him.

Over the years, I have seen him in Thimphu, Paro and Phuntsholing, always alone and high, swaying from one end of the road to other. There weren't many people, even from across the border who dared offend him, let alone Bhutanese.
With Au Sonam (Center)  After so many years here he was, as our honourable guest speaker at the Royal Academy. Well dressed, well spoken, very committed and very open with his thoughts. He was invited to speak to us about his life and to give us insight into the minds of addicts. He is now one of the successful recovering addicts who is doing everything to help those who are headed into the direction he once was. 

He said he hated his stepmother, and went on to give her hard times after he grew up. She passed away and his father also left him few year later. He got married and gave his wife hard times too, and she left him. He became father and never justified his role as father. Everybody closed their doors on him. He slept on streets, begged from friends. He went behind the bars several times. He wanted to stop everything and live a normal life but it was no more in his hands. He relapsed several times, and in his low days he got beaten by his rival gangs. Once when he had his withdrawals he had walked from Paro to Haa and his relative there sent him away with Nu.100. On his way back he hallucinated and jumped of a taxi. The driver left his bag on his still body and drove away.

He said that's when he hit the 'Rock Bottom', the time in life where you turn around and see nobody and nothing. You are alone in the world. He said the pain of addiction is not the beating you get from gangs and cops, it's not the pain from hunger and cold, it's the not the pain from the withdrawals. The real pain is realising that all the doors are closed on you. That's what he called the rockbottom. There is now one important decision to make- to leave or to live. And he decided to live.

Now here he is clean and a respectable man, though still fighting his personal battle with his past and its implications. He vividly remembers those last individuals who opened their doors for him and he is striving to do the same for those in need. He is working with Chithuen Phendhey Association in Paro. Of all the people I never thought he would make it, he is an inspiration. 

The one regret that he says will always haunt him is his misinterpretation of his stepmother. He realized that the problem was never with her, she had tried her best. She raised him. But he lived with the stereotypical notion of stepmother, which never allowed him to understand her and love her. He admits that any mother would kick son like him out, but she didn't. He wants to say sorry and hug her and thank her for trying so hard but he has waited too long.

NOTE: His office in Paro has established a Pre-Rehab centre at Shari, the place where they keep their clients before finding a suitable place and funding. And he is looking for some recreational tools, like books, carom board and computer to keep them occupied. If you wish to donate please come forward.