Spring

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 thought, oh it can’t be take that long. Well, joke’s on me.

 

Immigration requires a number of health tests to qualify for a long-term work visa. That means going to the national hospital to get a chest x-ray, blood test, and UA, and documentation for immigration. That’s doesn’t seem so hard, right? The challenge is that the timing is not coordinated for getting everything accomplished simply:

 

Day 1: 

Go to Thimphu to hospital to see the doctor, who is not there until 4:30 in the afternoon because he has a day job as a forensic pathologist. Doc takes blood pressure, signs documents, and sends you off with paper work to x-ray and lab. 

 

Chest x-ray: Collect up x-ray and hand-written report. Done

 

Lab: Blood draw to test for various diseases, including HIV. Results back at 2:00 on Day 4. Collect specimen cup to bring in urine sample between 9 and 12 the next morning. (go away and bring your pee back? whose pee is in that cup anyway??)

 

Day 2:  

Drop off urine sample. Results back by 8:30am on Day 3.

 

Day 3:

Don’t bother.

 

Day 4: 

Pick up results of blood test and UA by 2:00. Wait to see doctor at 4:30 to get immigration form signed off.

 

Day 5: 

           Go to immigration office, turn in paperwork, and hopefully walk away with prize in hand.

 

This past week we spent two days in Thimphu accomplishing getting our testing done. Luckily we had connection to someone who works at the hospital, who picked up our test results in our stead and got the doc to sign off on our paperwork, so we are now heading back to Thimphu tomorrow morning to go to the immigration office. Fingers crossed.

 

Spending time taking care of all this means days not spent doing what we came here for. Jay is barely ahead of his students with his class prep, so he is feeling a little stressed about that. Me, I have a long list of things that I am hoping to do to provide support and services for the students, some of which I have begun to put into motion. I am most looking forward to holding a drop-in learning center in the library where students can bring me their assignments, papers, study skills questions, etc. and I can get some one-on-one time with students and learn more about what they are doing in their classes, how they are handling things, and how I can be of help to them. That’s why I am here.

 

I had intended to start that this coming week, but this week has another overlay to it. About 10 days ago, a young woman who had just started a new job as a faculty assistant was found dead in her room at the hostel (dorm) where numerous staff live. It was a shock to everyone at the school, and precipitated a series of gatherings and rituals in accordance with Buddhist rites, as well as the determination by the death astrologer consulted by her family as to the most auspicious timing for moving the body, and holding further rituals. So this Tuesday the campus will hold a day-long rimdro, a series of rituals, prayers, chants, and actions intended to help the young woman’s spirit continue on its journey. There is a lot of preparation happening for that, and no classes will be held, while most everyone will join in the rimdro. 

 

That is the journey we are on here. Maybe we accomplish our work, or maybe other things happen instead. It is all part of the discovery.