Drug Peppers

While at the farmer's market one day, I picked up a bag of what appeared to be peppercorns. When I looked more closely, however, it appeared to be nothing but peppercorn husks, if it was pepper at all. The bag of something remained untouched in Jon and my cabinet until one day one of friends came over and, after glimpsing the bag, expressed glee, to which we replied with confusion. It turns out the things are actually a kind of Bhutanese drug - you chew them, and they numb your mouth like novacaine. Your mouth and lips get all tingly for a bit, and if you chew too much they apparently can cause your throat to swell up and you aspirate to death.

So, sounds like lots of fun, right?

So, completely unimpressed with Bhutanese methods of getting your buzz on and quite happy with cheap and delicious Bhutanese whiskey and port, we again abandoned the bag in our cabinet, untouched. Then, while haphazardly googling around, I discovered this wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sichuan_pepper. Turns out the things are actually a spice used in traditional Himalayan and Chinese cuisine, and seeing as Jon and I have had our fair share of momos and the accompanying sauce since we've arrived, we've probably consumed our fair share of the things anyway. I am really excited - our cuisine consists almost entirely of ema datshi, curries, and french fries, and any new addition is very welcome. I think I am going to buy a chicken and make fried sichuan pepper chicken as soon as possible...

First Look at the National Exams

So, Jon found examples of the Bhutanese national exams online. They're national exams that everyone in 12th, 10th, and 8th grade takes every year, and people's performance in them basically dictates their lives - you fail them, you'll get kicked out of school, and getting kicked out of school and thus not being able to find a job is the number one complaint we hear from people we talk to around here. Also, only the best students get to stay in the government schools, so even not doing well enough can screw you over if your parents aren't rich enough.

So anyway, Jon and I are tasked with getting our kids to perform well on these things. And, by God, do they look terrifying. Here's the English exam. The first 2 tasks, from part A, are to write an argumentative essay and a short story. They have 2.5 hours to take this test - writing a good essay and a good short story in that time would alone be very challenging. Then we go onto multiple-choice questions with easily confusable answers followed by college-level questions asking you to discourse on the features and inner workings of language itself.

The next section would be easy for any native speaker but insanely difficult for anyone not a native speaker. I can't explain why "It is time you disposed of those jeans" is correct; it's just a colloquial way of speaking that I grew up with. It would be the easiest thing in the world to get things like of/away confused; I know from experience with Spanish that prepositions just don't make any sense to anyone. This is followed by a vocabulary test containing words like "dearth" that I doubt most Americans know. Fortunately, the next section about rewriting sentences doesn't appear too difficult, but then we end with an editing section. Let me just say that this short passage is far better than almost any piece of writing any of my students has written; if anyone turned in a paper like that I would be ecstatic. Let me repeat again: these students are not native speakers. This test is absurd.

As for the math test, my first impression was that, though it's really straightforward (except for that proof by induction question on page 5, even easy proofs are dynamic and require a different sort of mentality to do, a very different than the Bhutanese learn-by-copying mentality), it was really long and requires a lot of different skills and therefore was pretty hard. Then I saw that the last 2 pages were filled with formulas for the test taker to freely peruse, and all my sympathy melted away. Bah.

The Tale of the Dauntless Cow Lady

"Dzongkha dzongkha dzongkha dzongkha charo [friend] dzongkha dzongkha"

"?"

"Dzongkha dzongkha dzongkha, lots of gesturing."

"Gesturing up towards the temple at the top of the mountain."

"Dzongkha dzongkha dzongkha. Dzongkha."

"It was nice to meet you, kadichila [thank you], turn around."

*MASSIVE bull locking horns with cow*

*MASSIVE bull throws cow to ground, stands alone on a rise in the trail*

*Its horns as big as my thighs*

"Ya! Ya! Dzongkha dzongkha dzongkha!"

*Grabs stick and charges*

*MASSIVE bull flees*

Van Gogh

One of the talented young students drew this during the art competition last Friday.

Head Asplode

So while living on the bleeding edge (Bhutan sits right on the ringed edge of the blackened caldera sucking the electricity out of that lower image there) of the modern world (the story of how, 100 meters up from our apartment, there's a power plant and then, literally, nothing - no lights, no stores, no houses, nothing but valley and mist and shadow and mysterious Buddhist shrines hiding in the darkness up there and how Jon and I discovered this last night, later), I happened to be connected to the most modern of all items, concepts, experiences, the internet, partaking in all of the hideous exclusivity and technocratic in-ness, and ran into this. Yes, this. The words on the pages of a William Gibson (and not only are there links to it, but to his glimpse upon it) novel turned corporal, explorable, and gone.

The future is gone.

(Cyber)Punk is dead.

This news brought to you by cyberspace itself.

The following are not correct uses of apostrophes

Il'l
flo'ors
obviou's
mis'use
I ran 'into several packs of dogs on my way home'.
I heard' several packs barking at night.'
I saw' several packs tracks in the mud after the rain.'
The 'basketball teams of Pelkhil will win every game they play because' of the basketball' teams skill.

We're gonna beat you, Justin Gerald; alternatively, Zeb tries to teach the Bhutanese an American Sports Ethic, Hilarity Ensues

Basketball tryouts were this weekend, for both boys and girls. 7 girls showed up, so they all made the team. As for the boys, Jon and I were left with the task of culling a field of 22 and shaping them into a cohesive whole. We started out with five laps around the court during which Jon, not exactly in the physical prime of his youth, outpaced everyone. Everyone.

Ignoring this, we moved on into a drill designed to measure the defensive quickness of the players. We had them sidestep from one corner of the court to the intersection of the half-court line and the other side of the court and then to the opposite corner at the other end of the court. All the numbers from this little exercise were useless, though, as no one was capable of sidestepping properly - most either just gave up and ran or did more of a quasi-parabola than a triangle. No one would have stopped anyone dedicated to driving the lane.

Okay, at this point I'm realizing that even the Delinquents (who participated in and supposedly won one of the coronation basketball tournaments, impressively beating teams like the Army's) and the boys who claim (somewhat legitimately - several were decked out in national team shorts) to have been on the under-16 national basketball team (there is no over-16 team) have never been exposed to anything even like what junior high basketball team practices are like in the states. We move onto the next drill: running down the court one at a time, throwing the ball at the backboard, grabbing your rebound, making a layup, and returning to the other end to make another layup. I think only one or two kids were capable of catching their own rebound, and most couldn't make even one layup. Again the data is useless as no one is actually sprinting or apparently grasping the fundamental skills being displayed here.

We move on to suicides (which one of the boys has done before. Ironically, this messes up the drill, as he does them correctly while everyone else does the bastardized easy version I explained to everyone) and then to push-ups, at which point I am flabbergasted to hear this coming from my star-suicider:

"No, we never did push-ups on the national team."

What?!? How do you compete in any skill without the most basic of strength-enhancing exercises? I demonstrate the usefulness of strength in basketball by demonstrating a posting-up move on the youth, only to be met with absolutely no resistance. Apparently he wasn't lying.

Okay, I take a deep breath and get back to the push-ups - 10 of which we are unable to complete - and then continue on with 2-on-2 matchups (half of which end without any scoring from either duo) and end on power layups: jumping with both feet into the air 2 feet from the basket and banking a shot in, grabbing the rebound/made shot, switching to the other side of the basket and repeating (also commonly known as a "bunnies" for the hopping motion). They do decently at this, with most of the kids posting between 10-14 made shots in 30 seconds. At half a second a kid, this leaves most people left with nothing to do for a while, which becomes a blessing in disguise - the really dedicated kids wait around for a second chance at the drill. Finally people are showing some dedication here.

We run another 3 laps and then perform some free-throws under pressure: for every 3 shots they miss, I promise to make them run a suicide. We get up to four, and I relent by offering to reduce the number by one if the last shooter makes his shot. Fortunately this is the most skilled kid at the practice, and he nails it, thereby saving me from the impossible task of getting these guys to do four suicides. We slog through the three and move on to scrimmages and the most absurd mismatch of showy dribbling, no-look passes, and missed shots found outside of the AND1 tour.

To wit:
Total number of successful drills (out of 4): 1
Total number of mullets: 1
Total number of shots made by both sides in the first 5-minute scrimmage: 3
Total number of water bottles brought: 2, both mine
My new nickname (overheard by Jon by the water spigot/sprinkler system): Coach Carter

There were several bright points, however. Bright point numero uno: Jon and I have observed a fair number of pickup basketball games around Bhutan, and these kids are highly skilled compared to the general populace - they have correct shooting form, for one. Bright point numero dos: K***** T*****, a footballer for the Bhutan national team who claims to have not played basketball before but who is obviously a gifted athlete and a quick study - he starts out doing the bunnies by making only 5 in the half minute only to repeat twice and end up making 18, the highest score by 2 shots. His form is great, he's quiet and respectful, and I see him grabbing the rim at one point - I am going to teach this kid to jam. To steal Jon's words, take that JPBG - you can teach non-native English speakers to sing along with the Arcade Fire; we're going to teach Asian children to dunk.

F********************************************************************************************************

So apparently I missed the greatest day of March Madness ever...

Archerying

So on Sunday Jon and I were walking past the national stadiums and happened (not really happened, that implies a rare event and this happens all the time) by an archery game. The opposing teams really do stand right in front of the target right up until the opposing archery lets fly. No one's really accurate (we only saw one person hit the board the target was on in the 20 minutes we watched), but the way the arrows only make little "pfft" sounds when they hit the sand makes the danger seem supposed and banal. Anyway, after said hitting of the board, there was much dancing about by the obstructing team, which you can see in the bottom two pictures. In the first picture, you can see a little tiny white smudge behind one of the flags that the guys are standing in front of - that's the board the target's on.

From Man to Dog

Every morning Jon and I walk down our holler, and at the end of it we come into sightline with the the giant statue of Lord Buddha across the river above Pelkhil. Whether or not we can see him is treated as a sign of how the day will progress. The first day, for instance, old Siddhartha was completely covered in clouds and there was chaos everywhere. Today, Lord Buddha was surrounded by clouds all around in an aureolar cloud. You can take this as you may, the day progressed nonetheless.

Teaching is nothing really to speak of - all of Jon and my talk about teaching and the day basically amounts to gossip about the children: who is hard to handle, who says ridiculous things, what to expect in one lesson or another. Let's sum it all up and say that keeping control of 30+ 11th graders is really really difficult but I do it pretty well. They've been doing a lot of pushing, but it's only really to be expected. As Jon and I are the only ones it seems are assigning homework, I think we're gaining a reputation as hardasses, or at least we hope we are. God help us if the students find out our ages.

So while Monday was chaos (the schedule the first day consisted of an assembly and...three hours of picking up textbooks., which we don't have any of anyway.) and ended up with teachers mostly giving up and letting the children roam the grounds, it was a benign and aimless chaos. Today we had our first "cultural" period after regular teaching hours, which consisted of all the students being given crayons, colored pencils or watercolors and being told to make art. This kept the children occupied for a bit, even if by the 11th grade this wasn't really their cup of tea. But once some of them had completed the barest semblance of a painting, it was on. There were multiple ruses to get class dismissed or effectively dismissed, including wandering around the classroom, claiming to need to go to the bathroom to wash one's hands and disappearing into the (very, very visible) inner courtyard of the school to play soccer instead, demanding that class be dismissed, and of course, pointing out that several of their friends were wandering the hallways already. At the last point I relented, mostly because at this point I had had taught 5 periods, skipped morning tea, nearly worked through lunch helping with math homework, missed out on afternoon tea, and tried to control the fiddling urges of 30 kids who had been explicitly told to express themselves for an hour.

Amongst the art there was very little variety. Most of the kids drew landscapes, with a strong second choice being copying the tigers of the front of their notebooks, since our school mascot is a tiger. Of interest in my class were only one girl who was drawing what appeared to be a pretty sweet mandala and one boy (who had bonded with me over being Christian) drawing a picture of what I think was Jesus along with the words, "God said I am the truth and the light." A bit of a misquote, but he seems sincere.

There's also something rather special that happened during the art contest, which I'll reveal tomorrow. Not to be a cocktease or anything but, uh, this surprise can't be fully appreciated without a visual element, and I lack that at the moment.

Anyway, I felt that I shouldn't be denied the opportunity for creative expression, and while the children were laboring away, I took to the chalkboard and made a picture of my own. It got graffitied at some point when the general population of Pelkhil was let out, but it survived in pretty good shape:

I was pretty proud of it. You can't see the whole thing, but the man's face you see was sitting on top of a starved body, and was speaking the images shown, illustrated by wavy lines encompassing everything emanating from his mouth. The woman at the far right emerging from the rabbit hole covering her ears was to be the hidden point of interest.

So, from top to bottom, the following pictures are (1) the Simtokha Dzong 2 minutes' walk away from where Jon and I live in Simtokha (2) the mysterious, door-less sentry post/store house also near where Jon and I live (3) part of the national stadium (4) the cutest dog in the world.

Other less important impressions

The children respectfully ask you if you can enter your classroom, but have no problems leaving if you are gone the slightest amount of time.

I have successfully memorized one name, I have successfully managed to get one child to read aloud in class (which is apparently a big deal in Bhutan), I have successfully completed one day of teaching.

Jon and I have already picked out the starting center for the Pelkhil HS Tigers.

The catering is never going to work.

Roy is not out.

Yet.

First impressions

No electricity

yay!

Change is coming

Great moments from today:

While walking along the side of the road, Jon and I passed a young monk wearing a Playboy sweatshirt.

While at the vegetable market, one of the vegetable venders did not have any 5 nu notes, and gave me change in cucumbers.

While at a "supermarket", Jon and I bought a brand of ketchup called Crosse Blackwell snack dressing that is marked only for catering purposes, not retail sale, is capped with a beer bottle bottle cap, and is delicious in the way that only American food that is eaten by an American not in America can be.

While sitting around this evening, one of our neighbors brought us tea in Hello Kitty mugs.

I'm planning on posting pictures tomorrow, both pictures from the hike up a mountain I took way back when, and new pictures from around town, once I have a steady source of internet and the ability to stay out of the cold outside. Stay tuned.

I can put a spare bulb in my hand, and light up my yard

There's a power plant up the holler where I live, right off my front yard. As you walk back through a misty midnight rain, you can see the glow over the ridge.

It's been one week since I posted anything to this blog, but so much has happened since then. Met a man last night who insisted upon telling me all about the separation of the powers of state and religion in Bhutan, that Bhutan is heaven, and that when he is reincarnated, he wants to come back to Bhutan and will be very disappointed if he is not. I don't know, getting reincarnated in the same place - even heaven - would not suit me; it would have all been done before. I mean, it's the same kind of distaste for the ordinary that got me to come to Bhutan. You've got to throw off the chains and addle your brains with madnesss - we've got plenty of time to grow old and die, and the white picket fence will always be there waiting for you.

And you never have to give up your old life. We got our schedules for the year. The school year ends in November, though the state exams are in December, so it's possible I might be able to leave to spend Christmas with the family.

But back to the power plant. As one of Jon and my coworker's so eloquently ranted the other day, "Nothing is cheap in Bhutan except for whiskey and electricity!" And the Bhutanese put water in their whiskey. Bad form. All I need to say about that.

I've had internet for several days now. I got a usb stick from tashi mobile that claimed on the package to work with GRPS and EDGE networks, but which when I plug it into my computer informs me that it is working on tashi's 3G network. Hey, if they want to give me a better deal than advertised, fine by me. Unfortunately, living in a concrete shell prevents me from using the internet while in the apartment. For instance, if I'm on Skype, you can call and I will answer, but the connection will last all of 25 seconds before dropping for the next five minutes. Still, I'm very excited that it actually works and costs a very reasonable (in my mind) 777 nu a minute for unlimited data.

The cars here are of the type we used to see driving around maintenance men in Princeton - tiny, tiny, and underpowered. Fine by me; it's rather weird sitting in front of an SUV or even a sedan by yourself and thinking, this entire mass of metal is here simply to move me, and then compare that to the utilitarian simplicity of a bike. Of course, the American way has its advantages. We were sitting in the car of a Bhutanese friend tonight and her car simply lacked the power to make it up a hill. And Bhutan is in the mountains. There is nothing that is not a hill or a bigger version of such.

The bar food in Bhutan is excellent. The salted herring which is simply only adequate as a source of calories and protein suddenly becomes tasty when the bartender tosses it in the microwave and slathers some chili sauce on it. And the various balls of fried dough/onion/stuff goodness are, as stated, good. And Jon and I are going to make fried chilies as bar food a thing in the states; spiciness just works perfectly with a refreshing Druk 11000. But as for the liver dish that one of our Bhutanese friends tried to get us to try, I think never is enough.

March Madness starts next weekend, the American event I am most disappointed in missing. Of course, CBS broadcasts the games online and I do have my usb stick... Now, those daytime games there do start at midnight over here and end at nine in the morning, but who needs sleep? Actually, I think I might take some Advil PM, conk out at eight or nine here and wake up at 5 in the morning to watch some of the night games. Doubly certain about that plan if that's when Duke plays. My bracket's gonna be pretty much chalk this year, especially with such a weak bubble, with the exception of 2-seed Duke (90% certain WVU or Purdue will be given the nod for the final uno over the Devils) which is going all the way. When it happens, remember I told you so. Even though I tell you this every year.

There will be more writing - there's some fantastic things I haven't even had time to mention. I'm going to go to sleep now, and dream (what will I dream about?), and wake up here. I wish I could go over and be with you, and light up your room.

Teh Internets

I'm not sure when I'll get internet again; I'm in a cafe in Thimphu about an hour from my apartment and it'll be a bit till I get internet there, and I've burned through my battery trying to upload the pics in the previous posts. I will return!

While you were asleep,

I climbed a mountain. A journey into the clouds will commence once it gets rainy again.

Another important detail

The concierge was wearing hipster glasses.

American culture trickles into Bhutan

One thing before I begin. Talked to the owner of the Pelkhil School yesterday. First thing he asked: "Are you bored?" Are you serious? I think anyone who was bored visiting a foreign country must either be really boring or have something wrong with them.

So, while waiting for passport photos, Jon and I engage in conversation with another man at the shop who has been to America several times in order to visit friends. He'd visited L.A., Chicago, Houston, and San Francisco. We talked about the usual things, the weather, the economy, and the black people. Yes, the black people. "I don't like those black people. I don't like the way they talk. They do a lot of crime. I don't like the pants hanging low. I don't like the drugs." (The last statement said as his compatriot rolled up a doma quid and stuck it in his mouth.)

We talked with him a bit before we had to go, said all the usual things, you know, all black people aren't alike, poverty and crime are often a vicious cycle, societal problems aren't restricted to a particular race, etc. The man wasn't hateful or vicious; he just had a dislike for a culture (rap culture) that was far different from his own and was misplacing that distaste onto people of a race that that culture largely consists of.

As Jon said, his perceptions were skewed by a sample bias (haven't seen a single black tourist in Bhutan, while there are lots of white ones and they're generally well-mannered, rich, and a big boon to the local economy (black/white is such a natural dichotomy, like day/night or love/hate; our terms influence our thoughts)). I also think his views are skewed by a media bias. It doesn't sell records being a black man who dresses like a middle/upper-class American (unless you're Jon Legend and your voice is absolutely amazing) because then you're not controversial, you're not getting the free news media advertising, you're not fueling that crucial teen-to-late-twenties market that's looking to rebel and be something, anything that their parents aren't. And there's a thousand other reasons why putting forth a stereotypical thug, gangsta, black-is-dangerous, black-is-real image is better for the bottom line. Hell, it's practically a brand.

So really, how could you expect someone whose only perceptions of black people is through bits and pieces of American media possibly have a positive image of black people, especially in a country that has never really had to deal with racial tension and thus is completely not interested in racial politics and the like?

So it really shouldn't be a judgment about people; it should really be more of a cause for restructuring our system of media capitalism in such a way that it doesn't reward disseminating images which (on a society-wide basis, though not necessarily in any particular instance) unjustly disenfranchise a portion of the population.

Anyway, second discussion with a Bhutanese man about America. Jon and I talked with a concierge at our hotel first about California, then about Hotel California, then about music, landing on the topic of Michael Jackson, who's pretty famous here as well as in India and apparently everywhere in the world. And then of course that led to three discussions: (1) why Michael Jackson no longer looked black (which we didn't know why either) (2) Jackson's trial as well as innocence/idolhood (3) his death, which led into a discussion of "who would be the next Michael Jackson" which our concierge friend put right out there as being Criss Angel.

Yes, this man.

I think now you can draw your own conclusions as to how America is representing itself abroad.

No Yeti Yet

So I found out today that the Abominable Snowman lives in Bhutan. In fact, according to this incredibly reliable site, the Sakten Wildlife Sanctuary was set up solely for the purpose of providing a refuge for the yeti.

This greatly saddened me, as I realized that I had to downgrade the veracity of reports of the existence of ridiculously adorable animals that smell like buttered popcorn. And likewise, barking deer, blood quails, snow leopards, and half-goat, half-cow takins. And I also had to up the idea that Bhutan, the magical land of happiness, progressive ideals, and basketball-playing kings, and especially in particular the Pelkhil school (which isn't even fully constructed yet), is just an enormous and elaborate practical joke.

But then I reconsidered: the existence of a large, hulking primate, residing in the Himalayan mountains and covered entirely in thick fur. Hmmmm...

Bureaucracy is a word I find nearly impossible to spell

So. That two month visa application process you went through? Yea. That one. The one that you nearly had an aneurysm over because nothing ever seemed to happen, despite its needing to happen right then?

Well, guess what - it's not over. That visa you got is actually a 14-day visa that allows you enough time to get your work permit (which you were, unbeknownst to you, supposed to have before coming to Bhutan) which you need in order to get your actual visa. And in order to get that work permit, you need to get medical clearance. And then once you've got the work permit, you've got to re-apply, sending in copies of your passports and your CV and even the old visa itself.

And in order to effectively communicate with anyone about this so that you know what step of the process exactly you've been skipping, you need to get a SIM card for your phone that allows you to text people in Bhutan. And in order to get that card, you have to fill out an application. And in order to get that application, you need to make passport photos and copies of your passport and visa. And provide proof (talk your way into making the guy believe) that you're employed.

And despite the fact that the apartment exists, you're not actually moving into it just yet. For some reason. Not really sure why. Perhaps there's an application process you still need to go through.