Explorations

The past two weeks since my sister Barbara died has been tough for me emotionally, and also logistically. Underneath the grief and sadness, I have been experiencing lots of head-banging in dealing with the logistics of getting to be fully functional here. I am no stranger to cumbersome bureaucracies in developing countries, but this place is really on the far edge of the continuum. The last month has been a process of two steps forward, one step back. Or one forward two back at times. Dealing with everything all together has been hard. But that also means I get to celebrate my successes, of which there have been some! I want to share one of those, from the night before Barbara died.   Jay and I have made friends with a young woman who runs her family’s stall at the market. One or both of us goes to the market quite often, as it is a 10-minute walk from our house, so we go get fresh veggies frequently. And it is open every day into the evening. People keep telling us that local...

I am amazed at the technology that keeps me in touch with family and friends, like email, or WhatsApp messages and calls, when I am halfway around the planet. And I am grateful for the ability to communicate when something happens that I need to know about. Like the other morning, when I got woken up by a message from my brother, saying ‘call me now.’    My sister Barbara had died suddenly. She went to take a nap and didn’t wake up.    I am trying to process this, as is the rest of the family. It’s hard being so far away, though being closer probably wouldn’t really make a difference. There is not much I could do. But even though I am often a Luddite, it’s been the technology that has made me feel closer and connected, and it has been a source of comfort to know that I can reach anyone I need to.   I know that many of my friends met Barbara during her many visits to Seattle over the years, or maybe we connected up somewhere else where she and I had ventured. I w...

All of a sudden, the weather has turned. In the last week I have gone from wearing multiple layers under my down coat to walking outside in a t-shirt. Most mornings, the sun comes up over the mountains and stays out, warming the air and the earth, until early afternoon, when the up-valley winds start and big puffy clouds take over the sky. The trees are budding out, people are digging their fields, and I expect to see rice and potatoes planted soon. It’s a relief to not be so cold now.   We are entering the third week of the semester, and I know that time is going to fly by before I can accomplish even part of what I want to do here. I am doing my best, though we keep getting distracted by logistics. We have finally gotten our house pretty much in functioning order, but then this past week, we spent several days trying to take care of getting our visas extended beyond the 30-day work visa we entered with. Everyone told me that it took several days in Thimphu, the capital, but I tho...

Jay's musings on the dogs: We had been told in advance of the many wandering dogs in Bhutan, so we had expected random, roving dogs, and were not disappointed. Some reports were all about being careful about these vagabonds, and we are indeed careful. But thus far, each one seems to approach us with the question of,  Are you a dog person or not a dog person ? And a friendly response will send each on their way, or they will step aside for us to pass by, or just keep sleeping. These are not dogs that grow up with stones being thrown at them. They appear to be just part of the fabric of life here, which makes sense for a seriously Buddhist country. But there is much more to learn about them, as there is much to learn about everything in this wonderful, gentle, and, at times, frustrating or confounding country. We have a particularly happy dog dude that lives in our immediate neighborhood, or in our yard, or whereever, who does not ever appear in the company of a human, but was immedi...

Though this confuses the order of these posts, I am adding here the first email I sent out soon after we arrived in Bhutan: Hi all, This is coming from our lovely house in Paro, Bhutan, where we have been for 4 days now! Still a bit jet lagged and waking up at 3 in the morning, but getting grounded and excited about classes starting next week. Our house is across the road from the Paro  dzong , an incredible structure and one of Bhutan's more well-known sights. There are  dzongs  throughout the country, built many years ago as fortifications to house local leaders and monks, and many of them, including the Paro  dzong,  are still used that way. We can see it from our house, especially when it is lit up at night, and it's a great landmark to help us find our way home. We are working on wrapping our heads around language, food, left-handed driving, and so much more. On our second day here we went to the student Foundation Day festival at the La...

The  Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of  Law was commissioned by the fourth king of Bhutan, who it is named for, after the creation of the monarchy's first constitution in 2008. After being at two temporary campuses in the capital city of Thimphu, the school moved last year to its newly built permanent campus at Pangbisa, Paro. I have never been at a more beautiful campus, both the buildings and the setting. Entry path The dining hall The library View of the campus from above The academic block The Buddha of  Compassion, inside the entry hall to the academic block Jay getting dressed into a  gho , the traditional Bhutanese clothing for men Ready for class!

For a long time, I used a quote from the Buddha as my email signature line:   Th ree things cannot hide for long: the moon, the sun and the truth . I left it there for a long time, thinking maybe I should change it up, but only when a friend asked if she could use it also, I thought it was time to move on. At the same time, I came across a new quote that I wanted to use instead. But that got me thinking about what appealed to me about this line. I started to put it on my emails after the 2016 election, when the  difference  between truth and fiction seemed increasingly and purposefully blurred. Science is science, right? Depends who you are. Math is open to interpretation. Your eyes lie. So I wanted to say something about facts and reality.  But this quote also alludes to the inevitability of the natural world, and the malleability of the human one. Two things that I realize Jay and I continually seek to explore in our travels and in our lives. So I think that’s what...