Beyond the Sky and the Earth_ A Journey Into Bhutan - Jamie Zeppa [71]
The vice-principal invites me to dinner and leaves me to unpack. I wander through the rooms again, running my hand along the fireplace mantels, turning the lights on and off. I arrange my books on the shelves, and then sit on one of the divans, overwhelmed. It is all so neat and orderly, I don’t know how I will ever adjust. Even my thoughts seem sloppy and unruly, and I struggle to impose some order on my perceptions. I’ve only been here for an hour and already I want to go back. I want my rough unpainted flat in Pema Gatshel and my barefoot, grimy students. From the open window, the smell of flowers drifts in.
At dawn the next morning, I sit on the front steps, watching the sun set fire to the clouds above a dark ridge. The staff quarters are set on an incline, over the campus which looks like a cross between a community college and a summer camp. From my steps, I can look across the valley to the temple of Dremitse on a hilltop, or north to the sharp toothy peaks along the border. The strip of garden all around my house is ablaze with crimson poppies, orange gladioli, yellow dahlias, and several varieties of roses. A flowering shrub climbs up the door frame and drops tiny pink petals on my lap. Huge crows swoop and circle overhead, and a bird I cannot see sings sweetly from the gracious arms of a cherry tree. I sip milky coffee, missing the sound of one of my kids climbing up the stairs to present me with an armful of potatoes or infected flea bites.
Later, I put on a kira and walk across campus to the main academic buildings. “Good morning, ma‘am,” students say, bowing politely as I pass. I wonder why I have gone from “miss” to “ma’am,” and notice again how neatly everyone here is dressed. I am conscious of my bare feet in rubber flip-flops and my wild hair. My kira is faded, and I am wearing it too short, hoisted up over my ankles (for walking through mud, of course, but there is no mud here, only smooth rolling lawns and neat paved pathways). I may have to buy a new kira, and I will definitely have to find my shoes. I haven’t worn them since March, when the first rains rolled into Pema Gatshel.
I study the framed pictures of English poets on the walls of the vice-principal’s office as he explains the history and functioning of the college. He is extremely precise and formal, but his smile is warm and his whole face lights up when he talks about teaching. Over dinner last night, he spoke primarily of the students, and the difficulties and unexpected insights he had gained teaching another culture’s literature in Bhutan. “But, of course, there are universal stories,” he said. “How else would we ever be able to connect?”
Sherubtse, which means “peak of higher learning,” started out as a public school, the vice-principal says, and is now affiliated with the University of New Delhi, which fixes the curriculum, sets and marks the final exams, and issues the degrees. Most of the lecturers are from Delhi, although the number of Bhutanese lecturers is slowly growing. Canadians have been involved at Sherubtse since Father Mackey founded it in the late ’60s, the vice-principal explains. Mr. Rob, the WUSC lecturer who I am replacing, taught here for five years. The students are divided into two groups: the pre-university students (called, most unpoetically, PU) who are completing classes XI and XII, and the college students who are majoring in arts, commerce or science. “You’ll be teaching all levels,” the vice-principal says as a typist enters with my timetable. “Do you have any questions at all?”
What I really want to know is how old the students are, and are they all as sophisticated as the ones I met last night, and is it too late to change my mind.
“I couldn’t help noticing the phone on your desk,” I say instead. “Is the college connected by phone to—?”
“To Tashigang and Samdrup Jongkhar,” he says. “Do you want to make a call?”
“No, no.” I smile down my disappointment. For a brief moment, I had imagined calling Robert.
I walk up the road into the