Porn is Illegal in Bhutan

This weekend we had Blessed Rainy Day, which is a day when you bathe in the rain to cleanse yourself of sins.  It was a day of baths, prayers, picnics, and hilarity.  My friends and I went for a hike to a monastery in the rain.

I think since getting here my taste has changed in several ways.  As much as it is great to be independent, blah di blah… it’s not awful to have a guy who can help you do handy stuff around the house.  Bhutanese men take this to a whole new level.

As my friends and I stepped into a clearing during our hike, we could smell freshly cut wood.  We approached a handsome, smiling, young man carving a large piece of wood with a machete.  We asked him for directions and then as we were leaving, threw in, “and by the way, what are you making?”

“My family forgot to bring a ladle for our rice, so I am making one.”

I guess what I am trying to say is, if this small family-oriented society in the mountains had a Brawny commercial, there would be no sexy blonde man wiping down your countertop with a paper towel, then picking up a small puppy.  Paper towels are hard to come by and rabid puppies, not so cute.

However, there would be a smiling man in the middle of the forest carving a four-foot wooden ladle to feed his entire extended family a gigantic pot of rice.

Believe it or not...

I lie.

So, I have been trying to instill honesty into my students.  In fact, there is a giant sign in my class, which reads, “Honesty is the best policy”.  The first story I told them was the story of me lying to my mother as a child about stealing money from her purse to play store, and how I was rewarded for telling the truth with fake money to play with.

But this week I came to the conclusion that … sometimes I lie for the right reasons.  As I reexamine my childhood embedded with lessons of honesty, a few moments stand out that have really defined who I am as a person.  Both of these times, a person I trusted lied for the right reasons.

1)   My grandmother once threw a Baby Ruth into the pool and convinced us someone left a giant turd behind.  Nobody likes being submerged in any body of water near a soft nosed brown trout.  We were horrified.  One point Grandma.

2)    On the first day of 5^th grade, my childhood dog was very ill.  After breakfast my mother told my sisters and I to go and say goodbye to Chelsea because she was going to take her to the vet that day to be put to sleep.  Ten years later, I found out Chelsea died as I was munching my Cheerios and the loving Kathy Adams took us out to pet a dead Golden Retriever so that we wouldn’t miss our first day of school.  Kath even pet the pooch herself so she could move it back and forth to simulate breathing.  Off to school we went.  Moms know best.

I now find myself in similar situations.

1)   I found a new hobby for my free time… phantom texting.  I enjoy sending texts from my unknown number and signing them with different names… beware.  You may have 37 people show up at your house in clown costumes because “you” invited them.

2)   School is no better.  The children go through fads of bringing toys that are not allowed to school.  Every now and then, due to school policy I confiscate toys.  Finally after one student asked if I give the toys to my children, I tried to convince the class I actually throw theme parties with the toys on Saturdays.  So far I have had a slingshot party, a balloon party and soon I’ll have a Pokémon party.

3)   When the statement “that is dangerous”, may not motivate an impulsive child to stop doing something, I sometimes find myself starting a sentence with, “I knew a guy who…”  Sometimes the guy I knew fell through a roof or got an eye poked out.  One common denominator is that there is usually blood and guts involved.

If there is anything I learned from mom and grandma, it’s that lying can make your life more hilarious and simpler.

California Dreamin’… PG-13

Let me give a disclaimer for this post.  I know that the thing to do when you are living in a secluded mountain area is to blog about your “vivid dreams” and relate them to the person you are becoming though your experiences.  That being said...  yah.

Last week I had a “vivid dream”.  An old male friend and I were running down the streets of Encinitas to a bar… the bar, is still unclear to me.  I say that the dream was “vivid” because we were clearly intoxicated in the dream and as we sobered up, the dream became more clear… so “realistic” is more like it.  The bar we went to was darker than The Cliffy, was in near proximity to The Leucadian, was cozy like The Office, and I am sure had a name shadier than The Back Door.  We guzzled DRAFT BEER with friends until we were buzzy and…

At this point I would like to hit the pause button so that baby kittens won’t die.

Later in the week I went to a meditation class in which the lama spoke of allowing thoughts and feelings to arise then fade away.  He spoke of coming back to the feelings later and instead of asking why they were happening, noticing what they felt like.

I have been pushing the dream out of my thoughts now for a week, and I think it is time to revisit it.  Tonight, instead of blaming my dream on the fact that I am craving a Draft Beer (among other things), I am going to meditate on the feeling of intoxication and wonder if I can stumble across any hints as to where the hell I was.

You know you are in Bhutan when… (5th & 6th Grade Teacher Edition)

You stop class to mediate a disagreement that occurred while your 6^th grade students were playing “fight club” in the boys’ bathroom.

In the staff room, a teacher approaches you and explains that two of your students wrapped bird shit in a candy wrapper and convinced a third student it was chocolate.  You laugh a little.

You see one of your sixth graders drinking from the outside tap, despite the fact that students have been told a million times to drink the filtered water 20 paces away.  Instead of scolding him, you say:

“Well, looks like you’re gonna get worms.”

“Yes Mam.”

You walk to the back of the class to find one kid laughing as his neighbor rocks out with his **** out.  You decide that the humiliation of his sixth grade teacher seeing him masturbate is punishment in itself.

You have a group of students illustrate the adjectives “filling”, “more filling”, “most filling”, and the students draw 3 different sized glasses of beer.  You refrain from saying, “That’s why I drink whiskey.”

A student writes a “Rape Song” instead of “Rap Song” and later titles a story “Magical Hores” instead of “Magical Horses”.

How I know Karma is the real deal…

One of my gentlest 6^th graders calmly approached me one day.  “Madam, Karma is beating me.”  My student turned around and I saw a small person hanging on to the 6^th graders back like a little koala.

“You are lucky my sixth graders are so nice Karma.  You do realize this boy is twice your size, right?”  Karma said nothing, gave my 6^th grader another mini smack and took off.  The sixth grader and I shrugged.

Karma is a pudgy little third grader who zips around the Early Learning Center slightly little hunched over, with one squinty eye, saying things like, “Mam, may I have a word with you?”  He is articulate, honest, and a wiggle worm when it comes to studies.  He frequently sprints into a classroom, comes to a screeching halt in the doorway, and looks around for someone to tell the latest third grade news to as if he were Cramer from Seinfeld.

One day over our 2-week summer break, I was in a car about 30 minutes outside of town.  I heard a small voice and noticed a little chubby kid covered in mud shuffling over to the car.  “Mam.  This is my house and this is my dog,” he proclaimed as he gave the scruffy mutt two firm pats on the head.

A week later, upon arriving back to school, the little guy ran up to me again, this time saying, “Madam... you were at my house.... you met my dog.... and your 6th graders... they are like family to me."

There is something about my sixth graders that the kid loves.  I once held a tutoring session with a group of sixth grade boys and I was pleasantly surprised when I looked over to find Karma sitting at a desk, his feet dangling from the oversized chair.  The bad teacher in me held back from asking him what study session he was ditching to come hang out, just to see what his intentions were.  After about ten minutes of listening in silence, he casually walked out and picked a playful fight with his best friend in the hallway.  My sixth graders excused themselves from my study session to go and break it up, and the day carried on as usual.

Karma, who is constantly sucking up nose danglers, once told me that the King is more handsome than him because "the King has less snot".

When I asked my sixth graders to ignore another student’s challenging behaviors and just set a good example, Karma, who was nearby replied, “You should probably start ignoring me as well.”

At meditation, I can’t help but hear the mission impossible song play in my head as I see Karma creep in the direction of a teacher and stop to do a fake meditation every five feet so as not to disturb the people around him.  He typically wants to wash the mud he was playing with during morning prayers off his round little fingers.

The phantom knucklehead slips into my room and quietly joins tables of sixth grade boys eating lunch.  On the schoolyard, he convinces the boys twice his size to hop onto his back for a quick spin around the schoolhouse.

I guess what I am getting at here is that, Karma’s honesty, self-awareness and confidence to not give a damn what others think is admirable.

When one of Karma’s classmates brought in a smourgesbourg of food for her birthday, I asked Karma if he thanked her.  In the middle of shoveling cake into his mouth he explained, “Actually, she is my total enemy, but I just said thank you anyways to be polite.”

While holding back my laughter, I said, “Oh, wow Madam Jessica, Karma shared something interesting with me.”

In the middle of the party, Karma pulled me aside, well aware that Madam Jessica has the loudest laugh at ELC, and said, “Madam, please wait to tell Madam Jessica when she is outside of the classroom.”

The kid is classic!

I don’t know if it is the fact that I have seen him noogie the tallest sixth grader on the playground… or the fact that when he does a karate kick, his running start, and the momentum of his kicking foot pick his pudgy body off the ground so that both feet are in the air.  Whatever it is, I like it.  And that my friends, is Karma.

One Phallus, Under God, With Liberty and Justice For All.

On the Fourth of July, I went to the Devine Madman’s Monastery.  The Madman, or Lama Drukpa Kuenley, is a figure from the 15^th century who is a bad ass to say the least.  He blessed women by having sex with them, and he is the reason Bhutanese paint penises on their homes.  Along with celebrating sex and fertility, legend has it, Drukpa Kuenley created Bhutan’s national animal, the takin.

When it comes to saints, in my book, this guy wins.  Being the smart ass he was, when some people asked him to perform a miracle, he decided to have some fun.  He looked at his lunch, which was a goat and a cow, combined the two animals, and created the takin… maybe the dumbest and ugliest animal to ever exist.  The Takin is in a taxonomy category of its own, and science tells us the Devine Madman is cool because of this.

My Fourth of July was spent at the Madman’s monastery of fertility.  While you were BBQ-ing and watching fireworks, I was being blessed over the head by an ancient wooden phallus and a bow and arrow.  No hamburgers or beer for me, but at least I got a wiener.

100 Bucks, Beers, Ringing Bells, and Dowries… Almost Vegas

My friend KP is awesome.  A few lines in a blog cannot do this kid justice, but to sum him up in a few short lines, I’ll just say the following.  You can spot him from a mile away in Bhutan.  He will be carrying a book and he will not respond when you call him because he will be wearing headphones.  He is one of two men in Thimphu with an afro.  Between my chillipness and his modern look, we get some great stares when we walk together after work in our traditional gho and kira.

Summer break means camping, so KP and I packed some backpacks, boiled a few eggs, and threw some crackers into a bag.  Off to Punakha.

We had things down pretty well… I watched the packs while KP made any purchases to avoid the chillip price for cabs and such.  We arrived at a campsite.  Two kids approached us to collect our fees for the night.  We knew the Bhutanese rate was 25 bucks (about 50 cents).  The kids saw me popping the tent and immediately said, “200”.  KP struck up a conversation with them in Dzongkha.  I chimed in a few Dzongkha phrases, and they said, “Okay, 100 bucks”.  Then KP said I was a teacher living in the country.  The younger of the two boys smiled and said “50 bucks”, at which point his older friend nudged him and gave him the evil eye, saying “No, 100”.

We tossed them a 100 dollar bill.  From that moment on, the two boys became known as “50 bucks” and “100 bucks”.  50 Bucks and 100 Bucks helped us carry our sleeping bags and told us they could lend us a pot to cook with for the night.

KP and I took a short walk and we came acrossed a tiny, one room monastery.  We walked passed new puppies to the front door, where a small boy let us in.  We paid our respects and spun the large prayer wheel out front.  After our stroll, we were happy to return to camp and join 50 buck and 100 Bucks around a campfire.

Later, some other men joined us all around the campfire.  The men were from India, and had been working near by as laborers.  KP spoke with them in Hindi.  They explained that the building they were constructing was for the upcoming royal wedding.  They told us they enjoyed our company because not many people hang out with them.  They spoke of their families, and one of the men said he was working to pay his daughters dowry.

A dowry is dependent on income.  These men made about 4-5 US dollars a day, and the going rate for a dowry in that income bracket was a bed, a cycle, and a small lump sum of money.  One man told us he was happy to have 3 boys because he is getting three beds and three cycles.  (Listen closely Mike Adams.)

The men asked KP if I was his wife.  Though I do not speak Hindi, I understood the question through the context and the look on KP’s face.  I told KP to tell them I could not afford a bed and a cycle and therefore we were friends.  They laughed.

The men expressed their surprise and concern upon discovering that I moved to a new country alone as a single woman.  We took turns throwing wood on the fire, we shared food, beer, and laughs, and then we retired to bed.

In the morning the Indian men invited us to breakfast.  We watched as one of the men guzzled down clay colored water straight from the same river they used as a toilet and bathing area.  KP asked if they boiled the water.  In Hindi, the man replied, “we did not know if it was okay to drink when we arrived, so we drank it for a week and it seems fine.”

After breakfast, KP and I took an amazing hike along a paddy field lined road.  We hiked up higher this time to another monastery in the hills.  Miles of paddy fields being ploughed by oxen and the sounds of dinging prayer wheels sucked me into craving a simpler life.  Our walk was a treat and when we reached the top, we meditated with our backs to the monastery and our fronts to the mountains across the valley.  The monastery was impeccable and as we sat on the large, clean walk way, the only sound we could hear was the occasional clicking of a large dung beetle carryon his business, and not looking twice at the giant praying mantis basking in the sun to his right.  Not bad… not bad.

As we were packing our belongings to leave that evening, 50 Bucks and 100 Bucks ran up to us.   “Why are you going?  Are you bored already?”  We explained how our tent would not be able to withstand a storm and the rain appeared to be coming.  The boys helped us carry our belongings to the roadside.  They sat with us for a half hour or so while we waited to hitch a ride to town.  100 Bucks recently finished the 6^th grade and does not plan to go back to school.  He aspires to become a rafting guide, and he never plans to get married because if he dies on the river, he does not want to leave behind a family.  50 Bucks is in the 3^rd grade, aspires to be a movie director and plans to have a nice wife some day.

We flagged down a car, thanked the young gentlemen, and we were off.