Reaching Higher Than Jumolhari Mountain!!!

A couple of daze ago, when I got to work / school I learnt that there was a boy from the high school next door missing. His school friends and the police were out looking for him.

Last year there was a similar disappearance.  A boy went missing and was eventually found ‘expired’. He had hung himself in a tree. It was the same tree that another boy had hung himself in the year before. So as you can imagine the whole community was concerned and perhaps thinking that there would be bad news by the end of the day.

All of these boys had been in their final years of high school. As we know, many teens around the world commit suicide when it comes time for their final exams. They feel pressure from their family, their teachers and competition from their peers. The stress of their studies can lead to depression which sometimes drives them to suicide.

In Bhutan there is a culture of expecting students to do exceedingly well. When you ask most students what they want to do when they grow up they say either a doctor or an engineer. This really gets under my skin as there is tough competition for engineering scholarships which means most want-to-be engineers will miss out. Most successful candidates for scholarships go to universities overseas in countries like Australia or America for instance. Not only is this a great opportunity for them to study abroad it is also a great opportunity for them to make money. Studying overseas on a student visa also allows you to work limited hours, for example 20 hours a week in Australia, or more if you find cash-in-hand work. This is great money if you compare the hourly wages to the Bhutanese local wages. (I will write about the countries obsession to earn money overseas another time.) So there is pressure from families not just to study hard, get good marks and go to uni; there is added pressure to earn hard cash while you are at it.

Recently I have been in meetings with teachers and students to see how we can assist students with Learning Difficulties and Disabilities to improve their marks, and prospects. One boy, who has repeated {up to} three times, demonstrates behaviour problems, lacks concentration and interrupts class and got less than15% in his monthly examinations. As a team we thought that he didn’t want to be at school. We thought he wanted to join the army. We were thinking we should plan with his family to transition him to another post school setting until I asked the question: “What do you want to do when you leave school?”. His answer: “A Doctor.”!

Now, clearly this boy lacks the attitude and brain power to be a doctor. He isn’t able to apply himself to his subjects and clearly doesn’t have the study skills to get himself past the line to receive the marks you need for a doctor. The thing is, this is all too common.  When I talk to these kids about having a second or third option they never have one. In their eyes it is a doctor or engineer or, well, there is not an “or”.  Sometimes when I ask the kids what an engineer does they really don’t know. Which brings me to the point: What happens when it all comes crashing down in the final year and they find they haven’t got the skills to be a doctor or engineer?

I have spoken to a neighbouring school’s principal about students’ higher than usual expectations on themselves.  He said it is a difficult situation. The schools are starting to introduce careers counselling but the teachers are mostly untrained to cope with giving this advice. He said there are huge issues with the children not realising what it takes to be a doctor or engineer. Most of the time they haven’t explored other pathways or careers. They are just going with the trends or what their parents want them to be.

In Bhutan people are reluctant to take up blue collar jobs such as building roads, apartments or houses. They view this as low skilled and low paid jobs. Indian workers are brought into the country for this. While some Bhutanese may be coordinating the construction the majority of the labour work force are Indian. The workers are looked down upon, and are not assimilated into the Bhutanese community. The Indian workers, who have been building the road to my community for years, live in a shanti-like town several kilometres out of the village.

My father was a mechanic and my mother was a book-keeper. We were a typical middle class family. We lived in the suburbs, had two cars and a nice house. We had enough money to go on family holidays locally and overseas at least once a year and I even had the opportunity to go to a private school for a few years. After school I took the path to become a teacher as I knew teaching was a part of me and I would end up with a secure job that would take me overseas to see the world. I see nothing wrong with any of my family’s career paths, but a lot of Bhutanese see these jobs (mechanic, teacher) as low-grade jobs.

A shop keeper near me who has three sons was disgusted when I suggested a career like a mechanic for her son, she would much prefer him to be an engineer! Teachers are not well paid and most start their career in isolated villages. So people would prefer to find a better, or more glamorous job, than a boring teacher. Thankfully there are still people taking up the teaching path, but still not enough, as some teachers are recruited from India, especially maths and science teachers.

So it appears there is a lack of expertise in some fields such as teaching and labour jobs, yet Bhutan has an extraordinarily high unemployment rate – depending on what figures you watch or how you calculate it. The general unemployment rate is around 4% but the youth unemployment is up to 12%. Even the number of farmers is declining. There are many people leaving their farm lands to come to make it rich in the city (like most countries in the world) which means food is imported from India. Many people who head to the cities end up, you guessed it: unemployed. This always makes me wonder – why are they bringing in the labour force and goods from India? Has the Bhutanese attitude of reaching for high paying, highly skilled careers gone too far?

Along with a high youth unemployment rate, Bhutan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. It is currently ranked number 5 in the Asia region and around 20th in the world. This is linked to high unemployment, mental illness and lack of family ties. I can’t help but wonder if it is also due to the exceedingly high expectations that youth feel to gain good marks to become that doctor or engineer? The two suicides in my community in the past two years tend to tell me it may be.

Thankfully, this time around, the community didn’t come face to face with another youth suicide before exam time. Instead this young man had taken himself off to the temple for the day. Thank Buddha or God or the Universe that he went to find solitude there, instead of hanging in a tree.

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Post note: I know that this post could be seen as quite controversial so I do appreciate constructive comments, insights on the Bhutanese culture and suggestions. I also welcome solutions to the problems that I have presented if you feel you know any.

Cheers x

Dog Daze

I named the little grey one Smokey, My neighbour and I were going to get him to live at our apartments but someone beat us to him!

Like many Buddhist Asian countries Bhutan has an over abundance of dogs. There are small dogs, tan dogs, dingo dogs, three legged dogs, mamma (Ama) dogs, daddy (Apa) dogs and baby dogs. There are street dogs, domesticated dogs, long haired and short haired dogs, dreaded dogs, toy dogs and fierce guard dogs.

They are just everywhere. The sounds of my first night in Thimphu, the capital, were a familiar sensory entanglement of the world of what I call “Dog Hour(s)”. That time in the early mornings when the street dogs seem to be infected with evil spirits and bark and fight like the world is ending. I first encounter this phenomenon in India years ago. It didn’t matter where in India I was, there was always that early am calling of dog hour. At times it seems like the dogs are killing each other. There is barking, followed by yelping, followed by barking followed…

A few of us volunteers went for a short walk around the centre of the capital when we first arrived to explore. To be honest my body was not use to the altitude and a short walk around a few blocks was the only distance I could go at that point. I was finding that a hundred metres had me puffed and the climb up the four flights of stairs to my hotel room left me puffed beyond belief. Anyway, on this walk I saw around 9 dogs sitting or sleeping in the middle of one of the busiest roads in Thimphu. Human logic tells me this is one of the stupidest ideas in the universe, but for these dogs it was the ideal place. There was a meat shop on one of the sides of the street. If they were to sit out the front of the shop, they would surely get shooed away. The median strip is the closest vantage point in-case some of that meat gets thrown away, or in-case the butcher just happens to accidentally drop some of that precious tasty flesh!

Two dogs at the base of the Drukgyel Dzong.

The dogs lay all over the place here. In rubbish piles, in temples, Dzongs, car parks, markets,  school yards and by the side of the road. It is hard to go anywhere without crossing paths with a dog every minute. The dogs in Bhutan, like all dogs, are territorial. They appear to have the places where they live. My apartment has three dogs, all are quite elderly and don’t particularly belong to anyone, but they do live with us. There are around 20-30 mutts who live around the school where I teach. All of these dogs have their food sources. The dogs at my apartment building wait for any of us to bring out scraps or food that is no longer fit for human consumption. The dogs at school wait for the kids to drop their rubbish or hand them their left overs.

In the west we spend hundreds if not thousands of dollars on out animals. They are desexed and vaccinated and have regular checkups, sometimes more regular checkups than us human folk. Some western dogs are groomed and pimped. I am sure some domesticated dogs here are too. But most of these dogs are squirming with disease. It is not uncommon to see a dog so infested with scabies that it is bleeding. There was one in part of the school when I first arrived, it isn’t around anymore and has most probably “expired”. The life and death cycle is something that happens in all of our worlds. It would appear that in a Buddhist country it happens more easily. Although compassion is a big part of Buddhism, the ideas and acceptance of death and suffering appear to more common (I am sure I will write about this more at another point in time when I have a clearer understanding).

Personally, I am a cat person, but I also love dogs. I have left my cat Pixie-Poo Rilliteri (yep she has a first and last name, which was a joke turned into reality) with my parents. I love my cat, she is my surrogate child. She even has a facebook page that my ex made for her when he needed more friends when he was playing Farmville. Pixie she now has 36 friends, I am sure you can friend request her, she won’t mind https://www.facebook.com/pixiepoopa. Anyway, my boss here in Bhutan learnt about my love of cats early on in my stay and made it his mission to get me a kitten. Most local folk think I am lonely and need help seems I am living alone, my boss understood that a cat would fill my life with joy cause I am an independent womyn and don’t need people around me all the time (even though I am a social bunny). Anyway, he quickly found me a kitten; he had it at his house for a few days so his daughters could play with it. Apparently it was a sweet thing… it’s just a shame it went outside and the dogs thought they would ‘play with it’. As you can guess, those dogs had such a good time that that wee soul is now buried in the school yard somewhere.

He needs some help, he has a cord embedded in his neck. A little desexxing wouldn’t go astray either.

So another little soul has captured my heart. It is a wee boy mutt in the school yard. He has had a bit of bad luck unfortunately. He has a wire or cord embedded in his neck; I call this his blood collar. At first I thought that it was a piece of cord that someone may have put around his neck when he was a puppy, but he has since lost his owner and it has become embedded as he grew. I have since found out it is from a trap that the local farmers use to catch feral pigs. Unfortunately some farmer’s trap got the wrong animal. I have started to give him snacks to win his heart and gain his trust. He at times will come to me when I give a short whistle. His tail wags and he will even sit if I have food in my hand. For the past week I have been deeply concerned about this mutt.

Unlike in the west there isn’t a vet in every village. The nearest one to me in is Paro, 12 kms away. I was lucky enough that one of my fellow volunteers who works in the ministry of agriculture got in contact with a local vet who got in touch with a humane dog rescue group who came out to the school… But of course when they arrived mutt couldn’t be found. He turned up the next day of course, but they weren’t able to come back. I have been asked to take him to the vet myself, but that is pretty impossible. So like everything in Bhutan things are not as easy as they seem.  Like I said, this guy has captured my heart, so I will keep trying and of course will update the blog with any news.

Vicious dog enclosed.

Two of my fellow volunteers have had terrible incidents with dogs. One was chased and now carries around a sonic dog button, which lets out a high pitched sound that instantly repels the dogs. The other colleague was unfortunately attacked. She had to go home to have treatment for the gash in her leg. Both womyn are understandably shaken by their ordeals. Incidents like this remind us that not all the dogs here are friendly. Even though they may seem tame in a way, most of them are stray. Some of them are even trained to attack.

The dogs here are a part of the country and the landscape. They doze all day and bark most of the night. They lay in dirty corners and can be loyal friends as long as you treat them kindly and give them something to eat. They are the rubbish collectors, the companions and the guards. It is important to keep an eye out for them and to read their movements carefully. Sometimes it is handy to have a few rocks to throw near them if you think their intentions are unkind. But all in all, they are living creatures like us humans. And like humans, there are good souls and bad.

This guy was so friendly. He sat next to me and just put his ears in my hand for a scratch. So sweet1