by Jamie Zeppa
Snaps? I feel my face creasing up into a hundred lines of bewilderment as I try to guess what “snaps” could possibly mean. I have an insane idea that they want ginger snaps.
“Miss,” Tshewang Tshering says. “Snaps. Mother, father, sister, brother.”
“Oh, you want to see pictures! Snapshots!”
“Yes, miss!” They are nodding vigorously.
Oh hurray! I understand! I hurry off to the bedroom and pull out a Ziploc bag of photographs.
“This is my mother,” I say, handing out the pictures which they seize eagerly. “My father. My father’s house.”
“This your sister?” Karma Dorji asks, holding up a picture of my brother, Jason.
“No, that’s my brother.”
“Your brother, miss?”
“Yes, Karma.”
“He is lama!
“A lama? No ...”
“Why—why he is having long hairs?”
“Oh, because—because, hmmm,” I search for an answer. “Just like that only,” I finally say, and they nod.
Tshewang Tshering is looking at a postcard of the Toronto skyline. “Miss, this your house?”
“No, that’s a bank.”
“This your house?”
“No, that’s an office. All offices.”
“This one your house?”
“No, no! That’s the CN tower.”
Another postcard, of Yonge Street. “This your village, miss?”
“Yes. Toronto.”
“Who is this?” Tshewang Tshering asks, pointing to some tourists on the postcard.
“I don’t know,” I say, bewildered by the question. “Just some people.” And then I understand. I explain that there are two million people in Toronto, more people in this city than in all of Bhutan.
“Yallama!” they say softly, the Bhutanese expression for surprise or disbelief.
Karma Dorji is flipping through a stack of magazines and music books. “Miss, this your mother?”
I get up to look and almost fall down laughing. “No, that is not my mother!” It is Johann Sebastian Bach.
Finally, I ask them if they would like some tea. “No, miss,” they say. But I know this is a Bhutanese no, so I go into the kitchen. They follow. Karma Dorji takes the pot from me. “We is making tea for miss,” he says.
“Oh no, that’s okay,” I say. “I’ll make it.” I try to prize the pot away from Karma Dorji, but he won’t let go. “You’re too young to be making tea by yourself,” I explain. “My kerosene stove is very dangerous.” They are reluctant to go, and stand in the kitchen doorway, watching as I pump up the stove. “Back, back,” I tell them, gesturing wildly as I throw a match at the stove and push them out of the kitchen. They think this is hilarious. They have to hold each other up, they are laughing so hard.
“Not funny,” I say crossly. “Dangerous. You boys wait in the other room.”
“Miss, I am doing now,” Karma Dorji tells me when he manages to stop laughing. “I am knowing this one. My house is having same-same stove.” And before I can stop him, he is pumping up the stove. When it begins to hiss, he lights a match and deftly applies the flame to the stove. A strong blue light appears. I stand openmouthed as Tshewang Tshering fills a pot with water. Norbu is rummaging through the kitchen, pulling out packages of tea, milk powder and sugar. Karma Dorji shakes the cuff of his gho out and wraps the length of it around the pot handle. He pours the steaming tea into the mugs. I follow them into the sitting room with a packet of biscuits. Karma tells me that he does the cooking at home when his parents and older sisters are working outside.
“What do you know how to cook?” I ask.
“I am cooking food, miss.”
“What kind of food?”
“Food, miss,” he says again. “Miss is not eating food?”
“Of course I eat food,” I say. “What do you think I eat?”
“Miss is only eating biscuits, my father is telling.”
“How does your father know?”
“My auntie is having one shop. She is telling miss is not buying food, only biscuits.”
“Aren’t biscuits food?” I ask, a little miffed that my eating habits have become news.
“No, miss. Food is rice.”
“Ah,” I say. “Rice. Well, in my village, in Canada, we do not eat very much rice, so I don’t know how to cook it.”
They obviously find this hard to believe. “What people is eating then in your village?”
“Oh, potatoes, bread, noodles.”
“Miss,” Karma Dorji says, his mouth full of biscuit, “I am teaching you how to cook rice. Just now, miss. You have rice?”
“Yes, but—”
All three of them are back in the kitchen. Tshewang Tshering is washing out the teacups. Karma Dorji has found the rice, which he pours onto a tin plate and picks through. I watch helplessly. Within minutes, the rice has been cleaned, rinsed and put into a pressure cooker on the stove.
“Miss.” Karma Dorji is looking around the kitchen critically.
“Yes, Karma?”
“You is having onion and chili? I am making momshaba.”
“Now wait a minute, Karma. The rice is enough.”
Karma Dorji begins to chop up onions and chilies. Norbu is separating the spinach leaves he brought this morning and washing them in the sink. The pressure cooker whistles suddenly, sending me scurrying out of the kitchen. “What does that mean?” I ask from the doorway.
“Not finished,” Karma Dorji says. “Three times then finished.”
After the third whistle, they remove the pressure cooker and Karma Dorji fries the onions and chilies, and then adds the spinach leaves and some tomato slices. Tshewang Tshering pulls the little weighted knob off the pressure cooker lid and steam shoots out to the ceiling. I flutter around the kitchen, issuing unnecessary warnings—be careful, that’s sharp, watch out, you’ll get a steam burn. When everything is ready, I tell them that they must stay and eat. They protest, but I insist until finally they pull their tin lunch plates from inside their ghos. I am always amazed at what the upper portions of these ghos can hold: books, plates, cloth bags, a bottle of arra for me, rice crisps, dried apples, a cucumber, a handful of chilies to eat in class. Karma Dorji serves the food and we eat in silence. I cannot believe how good everything is, the rice sweet and unsticky, the spinach perfectly cooked, although extremely hot. I ask how many chilies are in this dish. Karma says ten.
“Ten! Yallama,” I say, wiping my eyes and nose. “How old are you, Karma?”
“Eight,” he says and plops another serving of rice onto my plate. “Now miss is knowing,” he says. “Now miss is eating food.”
When they have gone, I write in my journal: “Anyone can live anywhere, even you. This is for your kind information and necessary action, please.”
Morning Clinic Day Duty.Evening walk
Jane arrives for the health course with presents for me from Jangchuk and Pema: a basket of plums, a bottle of arra, a ball of raw cheese and a lump of fresh butter wrapped in a banana leaf. She stays with me, and for a week we sit with teachers from all over the district in an airless hospital classroom, taking notes. The course is taught by the Norwegian medical staff. We learn first about traditional beliefs regarding common illnesses: diarrhea is believed to be the result of too much water in the system; an inflammation anywhere on the body may have been caused by invisible arrows fired by certain forest spirits; mixing Western medicine and Bhutanese medicine can kill the patient. We move on to common childhood diseases: scabies, lice, parasites, conjunctivitis. Tuberculosis, leprosy, malaria. At the end of the week, we are given a box of medicine to take back to our schools: packets of Oral Rehydration Solution, acetaminophen, tall tankers of benzyl benzoate for scabies, deworming tablets, waxy capsules of antibiotic eye ointment, gentian violet powder, gauze. Jane packs up her rucksack with luxuries from the Pema Gatshel shops—jam, biscuits and coffee. I refill Pema’s basket with packets of tea and sugar—it is inauspici
ous in Bhutan to return a container empty—and send it back with Jane.
Maya, a vivacious teacher from southern Bhutan, is my clinic partner. On the first morning after the course, we open the staff room doors to a dismally long lineup of customers. The most common complaints are: stomach paining, head paining, cough-and-cold, and diarrhea. There are various forms of diarrhea: water diarrhea, burning diarrhea, gassing diarrhea and, my personal favorite, shooting diarrhea. Students often end up in my apartment or at Maya’s, infected hand or foot soaking in a bucket of hot salt water. A boy brings a slightly swollen finger to my house before I am dressed one morning. I can find no wound and send him away. Two days later he is back, his finger swollen grotesquely to the size of a small cucumber. I send him to the hospital, where his finger is lanced and drained. I vow to be more careful.
One morning before school, Karma Dorji brings two red-eyed children to my doorstep. They are holding copies of Canadian news magazines and sniffling. Karma Dorji pushes them into the room.
“Yes, Karma?”
“Miss, you is knowing these two girls? Class II B.”
“Yes, I know. They came to visit me yesterday.”
“See, miss. They is taking these magazines yesterday. Stealing!”
“Hmmm.” I had not noticed the magazines were missing. “Well, I’m sure they were going to bring them back.”
“See, miss, their eyes? All red.”
Their eyes are indeed red and inflamed. An obvious case of conjunctivitis, I think, and tell the girls to come to morning clinic for ointment. But Karma Dorji has another explanation. “No, miss. They is reading stealed books and their eyes is all coming red.” No wonder there is so little crime in Bhutan, I think when I hear this. People still expect karmic retribution even if they escape punishment.
Before school, after school, Saturday afternoon, Sunday morning. There is always someone at my door and it is making me crazy. Sick kids, fighting kids, kids with boils, scrapes and gashes; kids offering potatoes, garlic, enormous bitter white radish; kids wanting to see snaps, play the keyboard, listen to the Walkman, look at things (“Miss! What is these?” they ask, holding up sunglasses, a nail file, a box of tampons). Kids wanting just to come in (“May I come in, miss?”). Big kids wanting help with English homework, wanting to help me with my housework or cooking or shopping, if miss is ever needing anything, they can help. Fellow teachers, coming for tea, coming to chat, have I settled myself up, do I have a boyfriend at home, why did I come here actually, and do I want to sell my camera. Mr. Iyya, trying to get me to agree that Lord Tennyson was the greatest poet who ever lived, a man at the zenith of his glory, isn’t it, and would I mind reading this small something he has inscribed of late, a poor plain wordly offering to the muses. Men and women from the village coming to ask if I want to buy cloth, handwoven kiras, belts, bags, do I want balls of cheese or butter, a bottle of milk or arra, anything at all? Hang rang tshaspé, they ask. What do I need? They will find it, they will bring it.
I need to be alone. After a full day of talking, smiling, listening, showing, nodding, translating, I want to be alone. I want simply to come home, close the door, and sit in silence, gathering up the bits of myself that have come loose. I want to think, or not think. I want to rest.
But no, this is not to be. They feel sorry for me because I am here alone. Miss, poor miss, she lives all alone. Cooks alone, eats alone, sleeps alone. They shake their heads at the thought of it, and they want to help. I think of the Bhutanese houses I have been in—a kitchen, an altar room, and the main room where parents and grandparents and children and any other relatives eat and work and sleep—and I understand. People in Bhutan are rarely alone.
I decide to go for a walk every day, out of town, along the curve of the mountain to the waterfall and back, alone. The first day, I lock my door—not because I fear theft, but because I know from experience that if I leave it unlocked, I will have a houseful of people waiting for me when I come back—and walk quickly through the bazaar. Sangay Chhoden comes running out of her mother’s shop as I walk by.
“Miss!” Even when she shouts, her voice is just audible. “Miss, where going?”
“Korbé,” I say. Roaming.
“I coming, miss? she asks, pushing her heavy bangs out of her eyes and smiling shyly, and I cannot say no. Soon we are joined by Phuntsho Wangmo. Sangay and Phuntsho practice English, I Sharchhop. What is this? This is a road, a rock, a tree. That is a house, a cow, a chicken. Big dog, little dog. Where do you live? This is the temple, that is the school.
The next day, several more students join us. Soon, half my class is waiting for me after school. They insist on carrying my jhola because “in Bhutan student is always carrying lopen’s things,” and we continue our lessons. I learn about the intricacies of Bhutanese names. Although most are used interchangeably for boys and girls, there are a few which indicate gender. Wamgmo, Chhoden, Lhamo, and Yuden are girl’s names. Wangdi is always a boy’s name. Phuntsho Wangmo would definitely be a girl, Phuntsho Wangdi a boy, but Phuntsho Tshering could be either. All the names have religious or natural meanings. Karma means star, Sangay means the Buddha, Pema is lotus, Tshering is long life. The combinations can be surprisingly poetic: Pema Gatshel, lotus of happiness, Karma Jamtsho, lake of stars.
The kids try to teach me the name of every tree and shrub and plant but I only retain the name for the marijuana which grows wild everywhere: it is called pakpa nam, pig food, because it is given to the pigs. We move on to adjectives and human traits, and I learn that it is okay to be poor if you are kind, it is even okay to be lazy if you are generous, but the very worst thing to be is arrogant. “Showing proud,” the kids tell me, their faces wrinkled in disgust. “Like a high shot. This is very very bad.” I ask them to describe various people. The school captain is proud. Mrs. Joy is angry. The headmaster is strict. “Mr. Iyya?” I ask. He is nyospa. They tap their foreheads to show me. Mr. Iyya is mad. We are shaken by a fit of conspiratorial giggles.
I begin to string together longer sentences, and my students are pleased with my progress.
One evening after my walk, I find Mr. Om Nath, the Bhutanese science teacher, waiting for me on the doorstep. Over tea, he says that he has come to explain about “day duty,” which each staff member takes turns doing. Tomorrow will be my turn to supervise morning study for the senior students (six a.m.), an hour of social work (seven a.m.), breakfast (eight a.m.), lunch (noon), dinner (six p.m.), evening study (seven p.m.), and lights out (nine p.m.). At the end of the day, the duty officer must record his or her comments in the duty register. For me, day duty will also include morning clinic (8:15 a.m.), classes (8:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.) and library duty (four p.m.).
Mr. Om Nath tells me I don’t have to worry about the girls. Miss Maya is the girls’ matron; she looks after the girls. He says this rather darkly, nodding at me knowingly. I nod back knowingly. I haven’t the faintest idea what he’s going on about, but I think I’ve taken in enough for today.
The next morning, I plod across the playing field at dawn, listening to the children’s voices droning morning prayers. In the silvery light, the world feels like a large, cool temple. I sit bleary-eyed in a classroom while the students murmur over their open books; it is the longest, coldest, slowest hour of my life. At seven o’clock, I wander around the school compound, watching students clear drains, sweep walkways, pick up garbage. There are no janitors here: in Bhutan, the students are responsible for school maintenance. This is called social work, and it is officially part of the curriculum. At breakfast, I look on uselessly as the students line up for a breakfast of boiled bulgur served from cooking pots large enough to bathe in. There is actually no need for a teacher to supervise, I think, flipping through the duty register during evening study. The students are exquisitely well-behaved. What am I supposed to write? I begin to read:
March 15. Not enough dahl at lunch time. Smaller students did not get. (Signed) Mr. Om Nath.
March 17. Class II C students
very noisy at lunch time. (What! Well, of course they’re noisy at lunch time. Kids are supposed to be noisy at lunch time! How dare someone write about my kids in the duty register? I am outraged.) Scolded class VIII girls for reading library books during evening study. (Signed) Mrs. Joy.
I skim through the entries. Sangay Dorji (class V B) went to toilet during evening study, did not return. Cooks adding too much water to dahl. No water today, students could not wash. Class VIII boys sent to fix latrine. Petromax lamp broken, evening study canceled. Sonam Wangmo, class VII A, caught writing love letter to Sangay Dorji, class VI B (Mrs. Joy again). Window in girls’ hostel broken. Mr. Sharma did not show up for evening study duty. And then I find this:
Night came striding with her strident strides,
Ere gloried flowers blosoom‘d, now shadow loom’d,
And the hoary hand of abysmal darkness o’er the darkling land did
boast,
And the Lord said, “Let there be light,”
And Lo! There was no light.
From this, I surmise that the Petromax lamps were broken again. Mr. Iyya has signed his entry with a flourish.
Hidden Valleys
The strike has lifted in Assam: there is no mail from home, but fresh supplies of fruit, vegetables and staples have arrived in the market. I walk home with two bulging bags, down the road from the bazaar, past the row of teachers’ quarters. A man with a mean, swollen face is leaning on the verandah of Mrs. Joy’s place in an undershirt and a towel, smoking a cigarette. This is my first glimpse of the infamous Mr. Joy. Maya has told me that Mrs. Joy’s husband is a drunk. He used to teach, too, but was fired after passing out in the classroom. Mrs. Joy never comes to staff parties, Maya said, because Mr. Joy gets drunk and becomes “too nasty.” The man leers at me as I go by. Poor Mrs. Joy, I think. Her name seems painfully ironic now.
Outside my door, a woman with reddish gold hair and vividly blue eyes is sitting beside a box of groceries. She is Lesley, she tells me, a British teacher, she is visiting various friends and teachers in eastern Bhutan, she will go to Tsebar tomorrow to visit Jane but she’ll have to spend the night here if that’s okay with me, she is sorry to barge in like this without warning but what to do, that’s Bhutan for you, she has brought these things up from Samdrup Jongkhar for me, she’s very glad to meet me by the way, and who is that awful lecherous man in the undershirt a few doors down?
