Beyond the Sky and the Earth_ A Journey Into Bhutan - Jamie Zeppa [44]
“I’ll help them,” I tell him. “Then it will get done faster.”
This does not go over well with Mr. Sharma. “It sets a bad example,” he says.
“Really? I think it demonstrates the dignity of labor.”
This offends Mr. Sharma, who says that he is a Brahmin, and this is not his work.
Elsewhere, the straggly flower garden in front of the school is being weeded and lined with stones and the stones themselves are being whitewashed. Some teachers are putting together a wall magazine of students’ essays and drawings. Classrooms and hostels are swept out, water is poured over steps, branches are lopped off trees. The tip-top poet is nowhere to be seen.
Jane appears with a group of selected teachers and students from the other villages of the district for the royal visit. We go to the tea stall for momos and sit there all evening, talking quietly in the candlelight. Jane explains protocol to me: the entire village will line up along the road, and when the royal convoy passes, everyone will bow. The Bhutanese are not supposed to look directly at the King, and will keep their eyes lowered in deference. “Can we look at him?” I ask. I have seen pictures: every shop and house has one, draped with a white scarf. He is a handsome man. Jane thinks it is okay to sneak in a few looks.
We order a “peg” each of Bhutanese whiskey and orange squash, a sickeningly sweet syrup, and the combination turns out to be so awful that we have to dilute it with water from the plastic jug on the table.
“Let’s just hope the whiskey will kill whatever else is in the water,” Jane says. I stare down at my cup: for once, I hadn’t thought about germs.
Several drinks later, we hear thunder rumble in the next valley. Jane tells me that Bhutan is called Land of the Thunder Dragon after the Drukpa Kargyue branch of Buddhism practiced here. When the religion was established in the twelfth century, the founder heard the thunder dragon roar, and named his school Druk—dragon. We listen to the dragon approach. It climbs a ridge in the south, the thunder becoming sharper as it gets closer. Suddenly the storm is above us, breaking open, pouring down. Neither of us has an umbrella or a flashlight. “Let’s wait it out,” I suggest. “The storms here are always over so quickly.” We wait and wait and wait, but the dragon stays right here, thunder cracking over our heads, rain roaring on the tin roof. Karma, the woman behind the counter, is falling asleep. We decide to go. Outside, we are soaked instantly. Jane says she is just waiting to step off the mountain and go sliding down to Gypsum. I say I am just waiting for lightning to strike us both dead. We slip in the mud and cling to each other, laughing hysterically. Jane says she is just waiting to see me open that Canadian combination lock in the dark. Somehow I do and we fall into the apartment, shivering, hiccuping, laughing still, and drink hot, weak tea. My skin feels cool and clean when I crawl into bed, and I fall asleep listening to the storm fade into the next valley.
I wake up with nausea and a bloated stomach. A hangover, I think, but when I sit up, I belch and taste rotten eggs. “Jane, are you sick?” I call out.
“What, you mean a hangover?” she calls back.
“No...”
She opens the bedroom door. “You look awful. Does it taste like eggs gone bad?”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s giardia. Do you feel well enough to get up?”
I do not, but I am not going to miss the King’s visit.
I wear a kira purchased from a woman who came to my door last week, a series of brilliantly colored stripes worked in wool on a cotton background. Jane reminds me to bring my raichu, the narrow, red ceremonial scarf that women wear over their left shoulders when meeting a high-ranking