Beyond the Sky and the Earth_ A Journey Into Bhutan - Jamie Zeppa [78]
Outside the store, we step over a butchered pig and collect bread from the bakery window. At home, I eat several pieces with Bumthang honey, then fall asleep on the divan.
Canadian voices wake me up. “Hey, Medusa, open the door. We hear you have freshly sliced bread in there.” It is almost the entire Canadian contingent from eastern Bhutan, plus Mary, an Irish teacher posted in Samdrup Jongkhar.
“It’s not sliced,” I say, throwing open the door, “and I’ve eaten half of it.”
They traipse in, laying down jholas, bottles of Dragon Rum and lemon squash and Golden Eagle beer, a cassette player and tapes. “We were all in Tashigang and decided you needed a proper housewarming party,” Margaret from Radi says.
“Look at this bathroom!” Lorna shrieks from the hall. “It’s TILED.”
“Oh my god, two fireplaces! ”
I tell them they are in time for the cultural competition in the evening, but they are disappointed.
“Cultural competition! I could have that in Radi. I was promised sliced bread and a video,” Margaret complains.
“Closets!” Lorna says. She looks well, her long golden-brown hair full of sunny highlights and her face tanned the color of honey. “She has two closets. I have to keep all my clothes in the food safe.”
Leon and Tony look even thinner and blonder than the last time I saw them in Tashigang. Leon is handing out drinks made of Dragon Rum and lemon squash. Someone has plugged the cassette player in and the Traveling Wilburys are singing about last night. Margaret is in the kitchen making something out of sweetened condensed milk, cocoa, peanuts and dried “pig food.” Kevin and Tony are reading magazines, Lorna is dancing a jig with Leon, and Mary is knocking back Bhutan Mist and knitting. We are a motley crew, I think. What brings us together, aside from skin color and language? We would not all be such good buddies if we had met outside of eastern Bhutan. But I like being with them because I can slip back into my old Canadian self, I can speak a faster, sharper, more direct English. It is like going home to your family. Everyone understands the basic framework, you don’t have to explain yourself at every turn. It’s the same with these friends; no one asks me why I am not married yet or why my mother let me come all the way across the world to teach, was it because I couldn’t find a job in Canada? I don’t have to explain who Ed Grimly is, or why I am talking like him.
But there is a negative side, too. The stress of being fully immersed in our villages, of trying to live mindfully in another culture, makes us overanxious to be purely ourselves when we are together. We drink too much and talk too loudly, we shriek with laughter and fall over in little bars in Tashigang, not caring what impression we are making. We want to forget where we are, and yet we keep calling ourselves phillingpa and making comparisons to Canada; we keep reminding ourselves that we are here, and isn’t it amazing.
If many of these friendships are destined to fade after we leave Bhutan, we are bound now by the knowledge that we need each other here. Any mention in a letter of an ailment beyond the usual giardia will bring packets of instant soup in the mail or a visit, and in emergencies our nearest Canadian neighbor will become our next-of-kin.
We walk to Pala’s for a dinner of shabalay, deep-fried turnovers stuffed with minced meat. Students drift in and out, glance over at us but pretend not to, and I am relieved that we are not quite the spectacle we would be in Pema Gatshel. A well-built young man in a long black trench coat and a beautiful woman in a denim skirt and cashmere sweater float past. Leon shakes his head. “I don’t know how you teach here,” he says. “The students are all absolutely gorgeous.”
“It is a little unnerving,” I say.
“What would happen if you had an affair with one of your students, though?” Margaret asks.
“I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about it,” I lie. I find myself noticing