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Friends working in Thimphu write to tell me that the political situation, or the “southern problem” as it is now called, continues along the same course it started out on, two sides, two stories, parallel lines. There is no resolution in sight.

The baby is born on the ninth day of the tenth month of the Water Monkey Year, December 3, 1992, a boy with curly brown hair, dark eyes, golden-brown skin, and a bluish mark at the base of his spine which the doctor calls a Mongolian Blue Spot. I have to wait for Tshewang to get a name for the baby from a lama. He will phone me from Thimphu with the name, and then he will come to Canada for six weeks. In the meantime, I call the baby Dorji, and the baby does not complain. Tshewang finally calls from Thimphu—he has been to Taktsang, he announces excitedly, the baby has a name, and it is Sangha Chhophel.

“Sangha?”

“Sangha,” he corrects me.

“Sangha.”

“No, not Sang-ha,” he says. “Sang-ngha. Can you hear the difference?”

“Yes,” I lie. “But listen, Tshewang, maybe we should call him something easier for Canadians to pronounce. Is that allowed?” I do not tell him that no one in my family can pronounce “Tshewang.” My brother refers to him as Say-Wrong, and my mother’s mother calls him Sam. I don’t know what they’ll do to Sangha.

“It’s allowed, I think. How about Pema? Pema Khandu?”

I like Pema, but in Canada, Khandu would inevitably be pronounced Candu. I explain the nuclear associations, and suggest Dorji. Pema means lotus, a symbol of enlightenment because the white flowers bloom out of mire, the same way the mind blossoms out of samsara into enlightenment. Dorji means thunderbolt, a symbol of enduring truth.

My grandfather calls, wanting to know do I need any money, am I sure I don’t need any, well okay then, he just wanted to make sure ... and how is the baby? And when is he going to arrive, the baby’s father? “Soon, Grandpa,” I say. “We’ll be coming up to see you after Christmas.”

“Well,” my grandfather says, “have you done anything about winter clothes for him?”

“No.” I haven’t even thought about winter clothes for Tshewang.

“Well, I don’t suppose you saw—they had a special on boots at the Kmart,” my grandfather says. “I picked him up a size eight.”

Revenue Stamps

Tshewang and I were married at the Thimphu District Court in September 1993. We wore matching clothes, a gho and kira cut from one piece of red-and-gold cloth woven by his mother. Pema Dorji, nine months old, wore a Blue Jays outfit. At the courthouse, we waited around for most of the morning before a clerk informed us that Bhutanese needed permission from the Home Ministry to marry foreigners. Across town we went to the Home Ministry, where we waited around a few more hours for our letter of permission. Back to the court with the letter. More waiting. The clerk emerged again from the judge’s chamber and said, “You do have revenue stamps, don’t you? For the marriage certificate?” We didn’t bother asking what a revenue stamp was, or why we needed them to get married; we just went off to the revenue-stamp office to buy some. By the time we got back, it was almost five o’clock, and the clerk informed us that the judge was going home. One of our witnesses whispered something, and the clerk looked us up and down, nodded sympathetically and went back into the judge’s chamber. “What did you tell him?” we asked our friend.

“I told him you were wearing borrowed clothes and had to return them tonight,” he said. I began to straighten my kira in anticipation of the actual event. How would the Bhutanese ceremony go? What would the judge say exactly? I checked my camera: film, flash, batteries. The clerk came out and said the judge had agreed to marry us. In fact, he had already married us. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“You’re married,” said the clerk. “You just have to sign the certificate.”

“But we weren’t even in the room!” I wailed.

The clerk shrugged. “Do you have the stamps?”

We signed the certificate, giggling,