Homeward Bound

After driving to Thimphu in one eleven hour day we decided to break up the return trip by having a couple of nights stop along the way home.

A fellow BCF teacher, also called Andrea returned from Bangkok and met us for our final granola, yoghurt and banana breakfast at the Ambient Cafe in Thimphu. We arranged to drive with her that afternoon to her home in Tashidingkha, a twenty minute or so drive from Punakha high on the hill.

We arrived at her place in the late afternoon, the day before the big national election was to take place all over Bhutan. Most Bhutanese returned to their villages, and Andrea’s neighbours who live in Thimphu had returned to their family home and invited us all for tea. Their home was large and old with beautiful wooden shutters that slid open allowing an expansive, glass-free view down to Punakha as the sun set. The caretaker of their home who lives there permanently prepared dinner for us all and we took it back to eat at Andrea’s simple but comfortable traditional two storey home.

Waking up in the morning, we enjoyed breakfast and then Bob took the boys down to the nearby stream and as it was so hot they stripped off for a swim. The heat took me by surprise – I hadn’t felt so warm in Bhutan and as I only had jeans and long sleeve shirts to wear I felt very hot.



The morning view outside Andrea's window.

Andrea gave the boys a Canada frisbee to play with on the grass.

The view down to Punakha (and the Dzong in the distant background).

A bit hard to see, but Andrea's house is high above the rice paddies.



Andrea and I talked about how we’ve adapted to a simple life here with few possessions and thus little clutter in our homes and I do think it will be hard to go home and unpack all the stuff of life that we have stored away, and yet survived quite happily without all year.

Our mission for the day was to drive to Phobjika Valley, about a four hour drive away. We hoped to see our friend Senge there as he had been staying at Gangtey Monastery high above the valley.

Being election day, it was quiet on the roads and not a single shop was open along the way. It seemed like a day for socialising, with people sitting around in groups outside homes by the road, enjoying the national holiday and the chance to get together with family.

The drive into Phobjika was very special – as soon as you cross the Lowa-la pass the valley opens wide and green. Gangtey Village was not far away and as we drove down the narrow main street, who should we see sitting out the front of a shop chewing doma, surrounded by locals and throwing a baby in the air: Senge!



The view of Gangtey Village.



We crept up and surprised him – and he took us for a walk up to Gangtey Goempa – built in the 1600s. It seemed so old, but has been undergoing restoration so around the outside were beautifully ornate art works. If we had been there the previous day, we would have seen Senge in his element – inside the temple participating in a day-long puja. But it was lucky for us that he was free and pulled some strings to find the key for a temple up a high ladder above the main prayer-hall. On the altar is a funeral chorten for the original founder of the monastery – his body in sitting meditation posture is preserved inside the chorten. If we hadn’t had a guide we’d never have known.

We all headed back to the van and drove down the hill into the Phobjika valley. The wide valley is grassy and cows were grazing lazily in the afternoon sunshine. We located the guesthouse that we had been recommended – Yue-Lo-Ki and were not disappointed. As the only guests we were given the best corner room – with large windows facing out to the valley. The room was lined with polished pine and had an enormous bathroom.

We ordered tea and biscuits and sat on the grass in the garden as the afternoon sun cast a spectacular golden glow on our surroundings – a very special afternoon. We went for a short walk up the farm road and returned for dinner – our last carefree day of holidays.



Bob got a bit chilly on the walk so Senge lent him his outer robe. What do you think?



Senge planned to return to the monastery but after having hot chocolate and biscuits and the night getting pitch black dark outside, we couldn’t send him walking eight kms through the valley back to the monastery as he wanted – and so luckily we had a room large enough for everyone and he stayed to the boys’ delight (we didn’t want Senge to get in trouble again for solo walking adventures).

View from our room.

Breakfast with the boys.

Art work in the hotel dining room of the famous black-necked cranes.

A model black-necked crane at the information centre.

Driving out of Phobjika.

We were blessed with such beautiful weather for our holiday.

One last glance at the gorgeous Phobjika Valley.

Our wheels!

At the Lowa-La pass leaving Phobjika.

After breakfast we dropped Senge off at Gangtey and then it was onwards to Rukubji to catch up with BCF teacher Valerie. She spent her holidays travelling in eastern Bhutan and had just arrived home. Rukubji is a picturesque village that can be seen below the main highway when you pass, and having passed a few times now, we were happy to have the time to look around and catch up with Valerie.

We drove down the steep rocky road to the village and parked under a tree. The sun was so hot – and when Valerie met us she said it was the hottest day Rukubji had seen all year. She took us looking through the village of homes that are clustered together – a fairly unique layout in Bhutan. We saw gardens bursting with cabbages and a woman who was laying out freshly slaughtered beef to dry in the sun.

Villagers taking a break with a heavy load of potatoes.

Rukubji has a suspension bridge too and we crossed the river to the school where Valerie teaches and lives in teacher’s accommodation.

Valerie and the boys on the bridge.

Her home is new and similar to ours, although as she lives alone her home is not cluttered with all the stuff we have. As we looked around suddenly the rain poured down and so we rushed back to the car so we could leave before the road out turned to slush!

We had lunch at the restaurant at Chazam nearby where travellers stop coming to and from Thimphu. A little further down the road there are a couple of shops that sell handwoven  baskets, and after seeing some beautiful examples at Andrea’s place I wanted to buy a couple of small ones that somehow I’ll be able to fit into our luggage to take back to Australia.

We made good time home after that with a quick stop at Trongsa to buy fruit and vegetables and then home sweet home in time for dinner. The boys were really happy to be back to their familiar things and as always at the end of a holiday it was lovely to climb into our own beds.

Generosity

I’ve been looking forward to writing this post for a while – a big virtual thank you hug and acknowledgement to all the people near and far whose generosity is helping us have an impact in our school and at the same time feel supported, loved and in our friends’ and family’s thoughts at home. I couldn’t be doing what I’m doing here without your help, and knowing so many people care has got me through some dark days.

I have received an enviable collection of stationery, books and learning materials, literally sent from all over the world – Australia, UK, USA, Canada, Mongolia – that mean I can teach in a way that is eye-opening and I know is inspiring other teachers at my school.

For a while the postman and Bob were kept busy with lots of parcels arriving!

With generous cash donations (thanks Tracey and Marg!) we doubled the school’s annual book buying budget, and stocked the library with good quality learn-to-read books for the lower grades and motivating teen novels for the older students that they can’t get enough of!



The class 6 students are enjoying reading Goosebumps and Geronimo Stilton.



A fun way to celebrate the end of term with Class 2 making masks!

In Australia we take for granted that early years education is full of fun, colour, creativity and hands-on – to enthuse our youngest learners, to respond to their innate sense of fun and play and to inspire them to become lifelong learners. We love to see the smiles on happy faces of children who buzz from the joy of learning, who are given time to grasp important early concepts in language and numeracy by approaching the topic from multiple angles that correspond to the multiple intelligences, free from the confines of a testing regime that eats up learning time. This is old school in Australia but ideas that are only slowly taking hold here, and in fact some believe here that the ideas are not suitable for local students for a variety of dubious reasons. In many cases these activities and ways of teaching require nothing more than a motivated teacher, but of course with all the coloured pens, pencils, paper, paddlepop sticks and other things I’ve received from home, I am able to take it to the next level.

Can you see some of the craft materials you sent?





Stamping sightwords (or maybe just stamping for fun!)

My UNESCO club girls loved learning how to Zentangle.

I love how they expanded on those skills when they helped make thank you cards.

Friday afternoon art is what the kids look forward to all week.

How gorgeous is Tashi's smile, not to mention her painting!

I am a woman on a mission to show that these new ways of teaching are not merely gimmicks, or a lot of useless play, but with very pleasing results at the end of term 1, I am keen to demonstrate my kids are not only loving school, but making fantastic progress. On all the assessments I have taken their reading has gone from next to nothing to all students moving forward, perhaps only a year behind levels we’d hope for in Australia with native English speakers, and these kids are learning English as a third language! Non-writers are now writing and their confidence to attempt new sentence structures and spelling to express themselves is pleasing.

Colourful sentence strips.

Class two also helped make cards to say thank you to those who made donations.

Busy making sight word paper chains which decorated our class for a while!

 I love how they organised themselves with this task and worked in small groups.

I used this as an opportunity to introduce a written procedure - not part of the curriculum, but an added extra!

 From drab to fab! Kids brought the balloons from home to add extra colour and fun!

Mathematically we have spent time consolidating a lot of basics in number and other areas of maths. This term we have started working with larger numbers to 1000 and the groundwork seems to have paid off – they are grasping new concepts quickly.



A few packs of cards have been really handy in maths - here exploring 3 digit numbers.



Colourful streamers made measuring and comparing the length of body parts fun!

In recent weeks I received nearly $1000 from three friends in particular and I want to acknowledge the contribution they have made. Chris made three beautiful quilts and raffled these off among her friends coming up with a grand total of $570. The fact that I have never met Chris in person makes this all the more amazing!

Another old friend, Allison,  who I completed my final teaching internship on Thursday Island with about 13 years ago is now a teacher in Canada and organised her school community to raise more than $200 by baking ‘Bhanana’ Muffins and collecting Pennies for Bhutan. And a friend at home, Michelle, that I met through Xavier’s kindy has raised more than $200 by harnessing the power of social networking and sharing our experience with her facebook friends. I also know that my own school community of Bellevue Park on the Gold Coast has been organising to send more books over which will hopefully arrive soon.

In the recent holidays I was able to go on a massive shopping spree with all this money – to buy more of the type of books that will help students learn to read, and then books to inspire them to keep reading. For my primary school library I stocked up on more levelled readers and I bought two large boxes full of fun novels aimed at early teenagers, of which there were almost none in the high school library.

The easy readers are a hit because suddenly even the lowest students can read!

More and more readers!

Just some of the new books for the highschool library.

I bought sports equipment for children to use during P.E. lessons as the school had none. I chose skipping ropes, frisbees, hula hoops, badminton and tennis sets, a cricket set and a soccer ball and I have a system in place for giving this to each primary class for their P.E. lesson so I can keep track of all the items and none go ‘missing’. Of all the things I have managed to do in this school, perhaps watching a class of kids energetically playing outside now with this colourful equipment is the most gratifying of all. The kids had never used a hula-hoop and these are the big hit among the students. In a week many have mastered the technique and I can just see how much joy this brings to their lives. Even a couple of teachers have cancelled other lessons to take their class out for some fun – secretly longing to play themselves I think. Anyone wondering how to ‘make a difference’ may consider how much joy, enthusiasm, and even health benefits about $150 worth of equipment can bring to a developing world school. Priceless.

Xavier helped me deliver hoops to school.

Go Yeshi!

Happy!

Plastic tennis/badminton set.

Howzat Yeshi!

But that’s not all! Recently we visited Aungsang village near Chumey where a development agency has built a lovely library that is unfortunately still bare. I bought about 100 books to give the library a kick start. I chose lots of board books for little hands – the main users of the library will be children aged from birth to six years old who spend their days there with their mums who weave in the adjoining weaving room. I will post an update when I am able to deliver these to the library with the help of one of our school teachers who has a strong relationship with the community.

Aungsang library has some nice posters and has great potential, but needs books!

Before this year I could say I had no facebook friends who I had not met personally, but my friendship circle has opened wide and I have many friends now that I’ve met in the virtual domain – including a group of kind-hearted, interested friends from FMS photo-a-day who amaze me daily with their care and interest in our life here. And former Bhutan Canada Foundation teachers Sabrina and Vicky who I hope to soon meet in person feel like old friends from their help, support and friendship.

Without the generosity of Bhutan Canada Foundation supporters we wouldn’t be here at all, wouldn’t have been given the opportunity to network and build friendships with our fellow volunteers who have been a life-line and a source of sanity when the going has been tough.

Here is my big thank you from me to anyone and everyone who has helped directly and indirectly and I feel like the outpouring of generosity is a bundle of positivity that is what the world needs to become a better place. We might be having an impact on a small bunch of students in a small village in Bhutan, but I can feel the goodness has the power in subtle ways to ripple beyond these mountains. I’m sure all those who have given- of their time, concern, knowledge, money or material things are feeling warm and fuzzy anyway – generosity is like that I’m learning, those who give freely are the ones who are happiest. Kadinche la!