Books in Bhutan

An college friend of mine kept a running list on her blog of books she had read while in the peace corps. This inspired me, and I decided to do something similar- I now have a running list of books in my agenda. But as I really wanted to share my thoughts on some of these books, and none of my new Bhutanese friends have read them, I thought I would turn to my blog, and write about them here.

I have been in Bhutan for 12 weeks, and have been trying to read a book a week. Somehow I have come out to 12 books…even though I know some weeks I have read 2 or 3 and some weeks I have read nothing at all.

So here they are, my first 12 books in Bhutan, with a short review following the titles (some are no longer in my possession and I didn’t write down author names).

1. A Baby in a Backpack to Bhutan- this book is a memoir about an Australian woman who leaves her job in publishing, marries a man who works for a Rimpoche and ends up living in Bhutan with her baby for three months while he works on the film “Travelers and Magicians”. It’s a lovely book, and is an interesting and charming story of a family who leads a traveling lifestyle. It’s a very rosy book, and although it tells a lot about Bhutan, it is very obviously (at least to me, who has lived here 3 months) focusing on the positive aspects of the culture. In any case, it is a lovely read and I recommend it to those who are interested in knowing more about Bhutan. I also recommend watching the movie “Travelers and Magicians” as it is a fascinating film.

2. The Wedding- This is the sequel to “The Notebook”. Enough said.

3. Three Cups of Tea- (I am assuming most people know what this book is about). I enjoyed it, as I am learning first hand about teaching in schools that are full of students who know the value of education (when you are the first generation to receive education, you value it more. I imagine it’s like being the first person in your family to go to college, except on a bigger scale). However, what I have read about the controversy surrounding this book has tinged the positive effects.

4. Water for Elephants- I read this based off a recommendation given to me by my dear friend Russell (if you read my blog I love you!) over a year ago. It’s a pretty good book, and a very entertaining story. I have not seen the movie, so don’t know how it compares.

5. Lonely Planet: Bhutan- This book is a traveler’s guide, and was mainly useful when I had that long weekend in Thimphu with nothing to do but go to restaurants. But after reading it a few months into being here, it took on an even more interesting (and sometimes comedic) level. To get a similar effect, try to read a lonely planet book about your home country. It’s pretty funny.

6. Emma- I am addicted to my kindle, and one of the great things about ereaders is due to copyright laws you can get any book written before 1920(?) or some year around that, for free online. So, I have started to read the classics.

7. Great Expectations- See the explanation for 6

8. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer- This book is really adorable (so many high schools in the US make you read Huck Finn, but this one is much more enjoyable I think. Easier to read in any case). It reminded me of all the boys in my class VI, who are very naughty but very clever and are hard to scold because they make me laugh so much.

9. A Thousand Splendid Suns- A good read, but terribly depressing. I now will probably never read The Kite Runner, as I really don’t like books that are that depressing, no matter how good they are.

10. Under The Holy Lake- This is another memoir of someone’s experience in Bhutan; a Canadian teacher in the late 80s who was in eastern Bhutan for two years. I really enjoyed it, it was well written and I thought gave a very thorough, honest, and positive all at once portrayal of what life here for a foreign teacher 20 years ago must have been like (and its strong similarities to what life is like here today). Again, this is one I recommend to people who want to learn more about Bhutan, and especially what it is like to be a volunteer teacher in this country.

11. Friday Night Lights- I bought this book on amazon after watching the first season of the TV show that is based off it. The book is so, so, so much better. It’s a memoir/sociological observation of life in a small Texas town in the late 80s where football is the center of everyone’s lives. The observations of how the sport completely dominates everything from the school to the town is really disturbing, and how this lifestyle manages to irreparably damage the high school football players it idolizes is ironic and awful.

12. 11/22/63- I LOVED this book. The funny thing is I probably wouldn’t have felt this way about it had I not been here. Don’t get me wrong; its good in any setting, but certain themes really resonated with me. The main character is an English teacher, and he goes back in time to try and stop the Kennedy assassination. However, he has to stay in the past for years preparing for this, and along the way falls in love and creates this great life for himself as a teacher in a small Texas suburb of Dallas. Throughout the novel the main character goes through this internal debate of whether he wants to stay in the past or not- and how he comes around to feeling at home and really living a full and happy life there, even though he knows he could never really belong, and its not really his home. Plus, other characters have these debates with him about whether he is meant to be a teacher or not, which is a conversation I think every teacher (teaching abroad or not) has with themselves at one point or another. Anyhow, amazing book in my opinion, I recommend it.

The Chili Conundrum

I am encountering problems with the Bhutanese diet. But not the problems you would expect.

Let me preface this by explaining the basic Bhutanese diet to those who aren’t aware of it. Its rice and curries for all meals (the word in Dzongkha for rice is the same as the one for food…this causes whole new problems when the students didn’t see me with a 25 kg bag of rice and passed the word onto their friends, creating the fascinating and frightening rumor that the new English miss doesn’t eat food, and is starving herself here)

And as for the curries…they are primarily chili based. No, not with a lot of chili powder, but chopped up whole chilis (that aren’t deseeded). My friend Zam regularly puts 5-6 chilis in a curry, which is average. Remember, this is for each curry in a day…breakfast, lunch and dinner. The classic Bhutanese dish is called ema datsi, which is a curry of just chilis and cheese. (They also eat a lot of cheese with everything)

This is a small food market outside of a shop in Thimphu. The green things in the basket next to the tomatoes are not beans, but chilis

A common Bhutanese snack is called ezee, and is pretty much like salsa, but again, includes the added ingredient of chilis and seeds. It’s actually pretty good, but you definitely have to aim for the tomato and onion bits until you are used to the chilis.

These are momos, (served daily to the staff of my school at mid-morning break...one of the many perks here) smothered in ezee

Now a little bit about me; as my family and friends will attest, I have never been one to really enjoy spicy food. Don’t get me wrong, I am somewhat of an adventurous eater, and am willing to try anything, but have always gravitated to the minimal spice level of things on the menu. For example, my favorite food is sushi. I am an avid sushi eater…have been since about the start of college. My abilities for sushi eating are amazing and somewhat disturbing; I have been challenged and beaten one of my friends at sushi eating competition twice (completely kicked his ass) and to give you some frame of reference, he is a 6ft 3 inches full grown man. I admit I’m pretty obsessed and will have it at least 2x a week at home. But it was only in the past year that I ever started to add wasabi.

When I found out I was coming to Bhutan, I started to force myself to eat food that was spicier, to try and prepare myself for my diet here. And yes, I took this as a great excuse to go out for sushi and thai food as much as possible (ordering green curry at maximum spice level and adding whole blobs of wasabi to soy sauce with enthusiasm). And as fun as all of my preparations were, I knew deep down that nothing could really prepare me for the Bhutanese cuisine, and I was right.

For the first few weeks, food proved to be the greatest of challenges. I looked at each meal as an obstacle to be overcome- and developed some defensive ways of eating (grabbing more potatoes then chili pieces when eating kewa datsi, and trying to swallow chili pieces whole so I wouldn’t bite into them and spread the hot flavor through my mouth, to give 2 examples). Plus, there was the problem of when you finish anything, the Bhutanese (ever concerned with being good hosts) will harass you to eat more and more. Although I learned and used the polite mannerisms of refusal, it didn’t seem to work as well for me as a chillip as it did for the other Bhutanese I ate with.

Yes, I treated my life like an episode of Man vs. Food, and in many cases it was. But then something strange started to happen when I was a few weeks into my experience here…I started to enjoy the chilies in the dishes. I found myself avoiding them less. By 6 weeks I had started to buy chilies and was experimenting with adding it to my own curries- first 2 chilies a curry and then more and more until I was up to the Bhutanese average of 5-6 chilies per curry (although I deseed mine. I like to try to participate in the cultural norms as much as possible, but we all have our limits)

And then, the strangest and most frightening thing of all happened- I became addicted to the chilies, and found myself unable to make a curry without them. My diet now consists of rice and chili curry for all meals, which leads to the consumption of between 15 and 20 chilis daily. Its terrifying when you think about it, and I am beginning to experience symptoms of what the Bhutanese refer to as “chili overdose” which is when you eat too many and your hands and face start to tingle.

So I am making a conscious effort to reduce the chilies in my diet, although it is much harder then it sounds as I have become so accustomed to it. I suppose there is such a thing as getting too immersed in a culture- and in diet at least, I have had a case of “overadaptation”.

I don’t like to think of what will happen when I return home to a chili-free environment. I have already started to have nightmares of going to whole foods in search of ezee.

Cleaning Campaign

March 24th

This week was a busy one at school. We had rimdo, and then international water day, and international TB day. This was concluded by a cleaning campaign on Saturday afternoon. The 4 different houses were assigned to clean different areas around the school. I was assigned to help Singye house (Lion house) clean Damji village. I was particularly pleased that I was assigned to monitor this group, as Singye house has some of my most entertaining students in it, and I really wanted a chance to walk around Damji village, a place that I had only been to once before (it is only a km. away from the school and I pass it all the time on walks to shops but rarely go into it)The group did a good job, and collected a lot of litter.

Posters that different clubs made for international water day

Students at the presentation for cleaning campaign...a few people talked about the importance of cleaning campaign before the work began

Singye house holding up the banners that Mme. Yeshi made this week before heading out to clean Damji village

Students cleaning up Damji village

Damji village, one of the most picturesque villages in Bhutan (in my humble opinion)