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.

biswakarma... the God of machinery

Little did I know there was a god of MACHINERY! Biswakarma.. Actually one of the pantheon of Hindu gods, but well loved in Bhutan. Most people festoon their cars with streamers in honour of him (and to ask for a blessing) - often to the point that I seriously wonder about the safety of driving these vehicles!

The construction workers who live directly below me were very excited to invite me into their altar..

road workers

One of the few really hard things to watch in Bhutan is road work.. Always done by labourers from India. Back breaking. Often with terrible living conditions - shacks that are often only about one meter high, so I can't imagine what it's like during the monsoon..

My outsider view of it is that Bhutan takes advantage of Indian labourers, who would often be in even worse conditions in India it is true, and justifies their minimal wage and living conditions by saying just that "they'd be worse off in India"... why they can't be paid a bit more, or given a couple more tin sheets so their buildings could be at least human height, I'm not too sure...

And right now there are lots of them - they're trying to widen all the roads, especially the one from the airport to the capital, by next year (the coronation of the 5th king, democracy etc..)..

Some women road workers.. All that stone... it's broken by hand..

Mother and child

chilies

We are in the middle of chili harvesting season, and a Bhutanese favourite is dishes cooked with dried red chilies (and one of my favourites as well... i'm happy to report that I too can now eat chilies like vegetables..)


Chilies hanging to dry, Paro town


Chilies drying on the roof

Yes, I know... more prayer flags.. but how can you not take pictures of them??

a rose by any other name..

I went on an impromptu walk with two of my students yesterday, and got around to asking them how they got their names. most people are named by a lama when they are born - which is why there are so many pemas, dorjis, tashis.. i think lamas often have a small list of favourite names..

but one of these boys has a name that is fairly unique - Pema Tender. Well Pema is dime a dozen, but Tender???

It turns out that he was born just before the census, so when his father went to register the family, they hadn't given him a name yet. So the father, together with the village headman, came up with the name, Pema Tender (I think Tender must mean something else in his language.. although who knows really.. it seems to suit him in the end, he's a sweet guy).. and hysterically when the father got home, he forgot what name they'd written down! So they called him something else ENTIRELY (Tshering Dorji or something like that..). So he happily went by that name until the next census, when he was 13, and he found out his "real name" and so he switched back! apparently there is still great confusion among his childhood friends as to who that Pema Tender guy is!!!

It makes me realize how funny my attachment to my name is. I have had heated conversations with some men about why women would change their name when they get married (still doesn't make sense to me) - and here women don't change their name actually - but my reaction seems a little extreme when you see how many people here change their names or the spelling of their names simply because the census official got it wrong! and no one seems to care too dramatically. apparently the paperwork involved in changing your name in the census, or on official documents, is simply not worth the hassle... better to change your name!

class photos

I thought that since I've been here for several months, teaching, it might be about time I actually posted some pictures of what I do... My students are hilarious as always, they absolutely love having their picture taken. "Thank you Madam!"... So here's some shots of the doing some problem solving questions on sets. They are surprisingly adept at working with sets, they do a lot more work with sets in elementary and high school than we do in Canada, but they do very little problem solving. But it's suprising how a little candy and a sense of competition between groups can get the problem solving juices flowing! what was absolutely impossible to figure out on Tuesday, turned out to be quite doable on Wednesday!


Some good discussion.. Finally they're getting the idea that there's only one of me, and fifty of them! Praise be!



The right half of the class..


Hmmmmmm


the hilarious group in the back corner.. you know the one...



I love my job... I really do.

new style

I have to say, the picture options in my computer's "photo booth" are certainly a good time..
and here you see my latest hair do... i actually wore my hair to class in pigtails the other day, and the reaction was extreme. In my first class, I got applause, and the general commentary was "MADAM!!! you look fabulous... no ABSOLUTELY fabulous! Great style"

In the second class, the reaction was "Madam, how old are you? FIVE???"

As you might imagine, it was a great teaching day...

Truly gorgeous mountain light...

Victorious at the pass!

In the Nomad's Tent

We were walking along, going up to the highest pass of the trek (5600 m), and there were a group of nomad tents below us. Alex joked that in her itinerary, "we were supposed to get invited in for butter tea now..". And just then, a man emerges from his tent, sees us looking at it, and waves at us.. so we did end up having butter tea, chapati, and yogurt with his family! very lovely

Marzena turning the prayer wheel

Christophe and Alex

And the mother and son...

There were actually 7 children in the family, and all go off to school in different places (some in Leh, some nearer..). This son was home for the summer break. I have my doubts that there will be nomads in another generation - all the children go to school, and I can tell you, much as I like being outdoors, this type of nomadicism is TOUGH. They have to move their herds every day since the pasture is so minimal (or it will get overgrazed). And we were in the full "heat of summer" and snow was often only a few meters elevation above us on the hillside... i can't imagine the winters..