best prayer flag photo yet!

On the bridge, near my house

Mathematics Day

Well, two months of organizing finally culminated in the third annual maths day, hosted by Paro College of Education, on November 10th. Whew, what a day it was!

We started out with a debate on "mathematics is the most important subject"
here is our packed house:

The debaters:

I had been grooming both teams for weeks - they do have debates here, but it often consists of grandstanding, shaking the podium... And excessively stated arguments to prove the point. Both teams picked up debating really well, and despite some nervousness over cross-examining in front of several hundred people, they pulled it off with panache.. Sadly, our judges were still operating from an old-school stance, and the points they gave the individual speakers was definitely mysterious to me! oh well, all in good fun..

We then had a quiz contest between students from the schools (pen and paper, based on the Canadian math contests, modified to suit Bhutan of course), and a live one between four students from our college, and four students who joined us for the day from the other college of education.


After that, everyone toured an exhibition on math - based on 5 different principles of teaching and learning mathematics: communication, reasoning and proof, problem solving, representation, and connections. (See the NCTM website if you want more info!)


One of my students explaining his work..
Students from the schools looking at online math games.

and then there was a huge lunch.. I have to say I'm impressed that our students could cook for 400 people!

An excellent day all told.

feeling like a queen!

yours truly and her boy-harem!

actually some of my most beloved, hilarious students

morning assembly

Well, I have been here almost an entire school year, and finally I got around to take a picture of morning assembly.

This is the national anthem. there is also a sung prayer at the beginning, announcements, and 2 speeches from 3rd year. alternating between incomprehensible, edifying, and downright hilarious.

Religious days

Well November 1st is the Descending Day of Lord Buddha. Thus, a national holiday in Bhutan. Two of my wonderful students took me out to a nearby temple, so that we could turn a few prayer wheels, pay respect. It turned out that the highest monk in the land, the Je Kempo, was celebrating at this particular monastery, so all foreigners, me included (depsite many protests by my colleagues and students that i'm practically Bhutanese!) were not allowed to go near the main part of the monastery. Oh well!

A Monk in front of one of the altars adorned with fruit.

Sonam Choden and me!

On Friday, we were all given the day off of school to go get a "long life" blessing from the Je Khempo. It was sort of like a silent folk-festival really. We all sat around on the grass, for HOURS, and waited for him to come and tap us on the head with an arrow (or batton, i'm not sure really, since we had to have our head down, I couldn't see it) wrapped in holy cloth. Here are all the monks up front.


Here you can see the Je Khempo (under the yellow umbrella) beginning to make his way through the crowd, followed by the procession of monks.

More of my students, sitting around.

Tshering Penjor and me!

The ironies are often what get me. Here we are at a religious celebration, which is unfolding very similar to the way its been happening probably for centuries (except now the monks arrive in SUVs..), and the planes are flying overhead! If you look close at the top you may be able to see it. The mix of technology with traditional is onmipresent in this part of Bhutan.

Garbage is unfortunately another of the repurcussions of the mix between technology and tradition..

druk path trek

I have been a very lucky girl, staying in the guest house at the college. There has been a train of absolutely fabulous international guests that I have gotten to know. The most recent were two Australians, who I had a most hilarious time with. Robyn and Anne had organized a 5 day trek from Thimphu (the capital) to Paro, over all the mountains in between, and they invited me along..

Unfortunately, we were in clouds most of the way (at 4000 m, quite literally), but we did have a few cloud breaks that allowed some pictures of the spectacular mountain scenary

Morning, Day 5. The really sunny last day!

The three us of at the first mountain pass, day 2.
Yes, more prayer flags

Wangda, a good friend, and our guide, had organized the most plush trip I've ever been on. As you can see, we were well treated. Tea time every afternoon. There was no chance of losing any weight on this trip, that's for sure! (We even had a toilet tent)

Our pack horses, waiting to load up..
(2 of the 9)

Mountain wildlife. The bonus of going trekking this late in the year is that the yak herders are moving down to lower elevations, coming back from the Tibetan border etc. So we got to camp with the yaks! One scared me one night by nearly walking into my tent..
Mountain colours in the fall

rice fields

Rice... the staple of our diet. Bhutanese eat it 3 times a day, usually. Me, I go for limiting it to once, maybe twice

The rice harvest has just completed itself in the Paro valley.. a gorgeous patchwork of small fields..Of course you know me, and prayer flags... whenever i can get them into the shot..

a small chorten (holy building, often they have large prayer wheels inside).. you are supposed to always walk around them clockwise
two ladies harvesting the last field of rice.. the Dzong in the background.