Monday, April 8, 2013

Reflections...the first of many

I need to start off this post by begging off the title...this is not one of those deep, long thought out reflections in the true sense of the word about Bhutan, what it meant to me and its effects on my life. That blog post will probably never come, because I don't think I could ever compose all my thoughts into a few paragraphs, and choose a few pictures to accompany it. The whole experience was just too vast to do that with. I am also not good enough with words, or images to do it even of a fraction of the justice that my experience deserves. And lastly, I haven't fully gone through all the reflecting and pondering and true deep thinking about my experiences with Bhutan. 

My experience continues, through the friendships I sustain with my Bhutanese friends at BMSS, my contact with the new BCF teacher at the site, and the connections to the BCF teachers in my group as we simultaneously experience and work our way through our return to our western lives (or for those special few their second year teaching in Bhutan)

However something I have been reflecting on lately are the day-to-day things I did while in Gasa and what of those I brought back here to the USA, in one form or another. You may recall I was without road access to my site for 4 months and without electricity for 6. With these difficulties, how I spent my free time changed (no watching old HIMYM episodes on my computer, or BBS with my friends). Although I spent a significant time hanging out with my friends, here are some other ways I spent my time which I probably never mentioned in other postings. This is because they seemed insignificant at the time, but now are something like artifacts to the very unique life I led in Bhutan.


First would be writing. Throughout the year I wrote 5 journals. Although I began this before the landslides and loss of electricity, it became more prevalent after. The black spiral-bound book was  February through May (the first four months) and the last four were June through December (I averaged about 2 months a notebook after the lights went out). From after mid-term break until the weather  got cold I would spend every evening on my porch writing and watching the world go by, which was always entertaining considering my neighbors were 200 boarder girls.




My second hobby was drawing. This is something I picked up after the landslides, and I have to say it brought me the most joy of all my solo activities. I branched out from pencil to pastel, colored pencil, crayon, and pen & ink. It also became delightfully social as my kids and co-workers would watch me draw and talk to me about it. It also became a weekly or bi-weekly treat for my classes, if they were well-behaved, to "be looking at miss sarah's drawings"



Reading was the third in my tri-fecta of hobbies. Over the year I read close to 100 books. Lost Horizon was my favorite. It is the origin of the ever-popular phrase "Shangri-La". The book is very,very different then I expected, but its wonderful, and well worth a read for anyone who has ever heard Bhutan touted as "the last Shangri-la"


Hope you enjoyed these pictures and comments about stuff I did in Gasa with "no light" as everyone says. I plan to write more as time goes on, as the blog began long before Bhutan (if there ever was such a time in my life) I hope to continue it after. It is titled "TravelS and AdventureS" after all :)