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..