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“I don’t want to get married or have my own kids,” she said with such conviction that I wanted to fast-forward into the future to see what Lhaki did, in fact, do with her life. “Just take them in when they have no parents.”

Lhaki and her constant companion, TT, were the nightly hosts of SOL. TT was a gawky, sweet boy who’d collapsed his Bhutanese name, Tshewang Toshi, into the much hipper moniker. He and Lhaki made quite a duo. Without a hint of guile, together on the air they embodied a bizarre fusion of the sweet funniness of George Burns and Gracie Allen, the edgy familiarity of a PG-rated Howard Stern and Robin Quivers, and the goofy sarcasm of Beavis and Butt-Head.

“So,” I asked, “who is winning SOL at this point?” I hadn’t been paying very close attention to the competition. Usually by the time it started, I’d been at the station for a dozen hours and was leaving to have a beer or dinner with one of my other expat volunteer friends. People I’d met literally on the street, simply because we looked the same. We were thrown together by fate in the same strange land at the same time. These new friends gave me a sense of what was going on in the rest of Thimphu. We all faced similar challenges, and it helped to hear that Mark the physical therapist from Nebraska and his wife, Penny, an English tutor; Pam the nurse from Toronto; Ed the golf pro from Nova Scotia; and Mayumi the Web designer from Queensland, Australia, were experiencing their own workplace challenges. We also provided an excellent support system for one another regarding an equally important matter: where to find palatable, chili-free food, which we often consumed with one another. Mostly we talked about how we felt we were taking more from Bhutan than we could ever possibly give.

Lhaki was nonchalant as she ran through the front-runners in the Symphony of Love contest. “Well, there’s me, there’s TT, and there’s a little girl.”

“Wait,” I said. “Run that by me again?”

“TT got the most votes, I got second most, and a little girl from Motithang got the third most. So we go on tomorrow night to play again and see who the top two winners are. I’m taking TT out if I win, and if TT wins, he’s promised to take me. And if we win first and second prize, we’ve promised to take Thujee and Khandu along.”

I had to stop for a second to make sure I’d understood Lhaki correctly.

“So you and TT have actually been competing in SOL? While you’ve been hosting it every night?”

“Yes,” said Lhaki, strumming on her guitar, oblivious to my tone of voice. “Well, the other night Thujee hosted, but mostly it’s been me and TT. People seem to like the live guitar.”

“Does that seem right to you? That you’re hosting the show and can play the guitar while you sing? You’re on the air all through the evening …”

Lhaki looked up at me now, her eyes widening with confusion. It was clear she didn’t understand my inquisition. “Well, sure. We’ve worked hardest on the contest, so it is only fair that we get the hamburgers.”

This had the makings of a public-relations disaster. Sir Tenzin had convinced the newspapers to cover the overwhelming success of SOL, including the grand finale. When the reporters found out that the winner and runner-up of the contest actually worked at the station, the credibility Kuzoo was establishing would go down the tubes. Or maybe I was projecting. Maybe no one would notice or care. That possibility was even more distressing.

My already queasy stomach interrupted this stream of worried thoughts by announcing its distress with a loud burble. This had been a “bad food day.” What I needed right now was the comfort of my home bathroom, not the closet-size commode at Kuzoo with the toilet that rarely flushed.

Ngawang asked Kesang to give me a ride home in the Kuzoo van. As we drove, I frantically dialed Sir Tenzin’s mobile number with the cell phone she had scrounged up to lend me. No answer. There is no voice mail in Bhutan, so leaving a message wasn’t possible. Just moments after Kesang dropped me off, Sir Tenzin materialized