Kuenza's Diary

I feel so reassured to know that there are generous and kind people in the world. Because of the difficult people I have met, I have been beginning to think that maybe the world has come to be a sad place where people forgot to treat each other kindly, the way we would want others to treat us. My family and I visited Adelaide over a long weekend (Friday to Sunday) at the invitation of a friend who lives there. She was in Bhutan before to help Bhutanese by conducting training on hand therapy. She has donated equipment too at the hospital and she is visiting again for the same purpose. She works hard to help people and believes that she can make a world a better place. It is nice to know that there are people who care about our country and want to genuinely help. I am blessed to have crossed path with her (thanks to my husband) and I feel so happy knowing that there are such great people. Now I am not saying this because she treated us so well. I know she will treat anyone she come...

I am a person who continuously dreams – this time, I don’t mean daydreaming or having a plan, or having a vision of sort that I want to achieve. This time I mean, I see continuous dreams in my sleep and they don’t spare me to sleep all that well. As I write this article, I just woke up from one such dream. I have always had the habit of narrating my dream as soon as I woke up and my mother always told me not to because she said that I never dream any good dreams. I worry a lot about her. Why wouldn’t I? I am her daughter. I love her. And because of this love for her, I have kind of pledged to make sure that she isn’t unhappy. But because life is a suffering itself, I am sure there are many unkind circumstances that makes her sad. For all those kind of circumstances that might have caused her to be unhappy, for all the situations I might have made her feel uncared for, and if there were any moments that I must have appeared unworthy of being a daughter, I apologize to her. Because I...

My first semester for the master course is coming to an end. The exam started today. I am making time to study in between the demands I have to meet as a mother. Despite the complaints, it is relieving to feel that it isn’t as hard as the student time back then was when subjects were many and syllabuses were huge. It is surprising that we do manage to learn all the concepts we are presented with and we do master enough courage to test ourselves. I have told my baby, ‘Darling, you have to be a good girl. Ama has to study for her exam.’ She has become clingy after she fell sick last week. But she plays a lot too and we just have to check that she isn’t crawling around and standing from structures that could fall on her. By her active nature, it seems like she will not be a lethargic woman like me. She must take much after her father who says, ‘I don’t like laziness.’ I must thank them here too for the sacrifices they made in choosing to be with me. I am ever indebted to them for that. I...

My baby and I have the habit of putting everything in a song. We sing together every small bits and pieces of words we can put together. Now when she claps, it makes sound and she gets so excited and happy about it. She claps her hands and looks at me, her eyes twinkling. We sing, 'Clap your hands, clap you hands, listen to the music and clap your hands.' The first time she learned clapping was when I sang the song, 'If you are happy and you know, clap your hands.' Whenever I sang this song, she put her hands together. That was more than one month back and that time, it did not produce any clapping sound. I realize that there can be nothing more joyful than to see your baby grow up in front of you, intricately sharing the moments of her growth. It is so fulfilling. It even feels like your purpose in the world has been accomplished.  Last night, when we were going to bed, we sang a goodnight song, which I am putting here. It was actually built impromptu -- the words wov...

My dear,  A few days back, you could sit only with support. We would put a blanket around you and you would play with your toys for hours. Now, you can sit without support. You roll around and respond to our smile. How my heart melts to see your eyes twinkle with that sweet innocent smile! You have also started watching nursery rhyme videos.  I can’t believe that it has been seven months already. I look back and find that times have passed very fast. It is like only yesterday that I held you on my bosom as an infant. I now realize that even when you have grown up, you will remain a child to me and this is how all mothers must feel. I have seen cases where parents love their children and are over-protective of them. This I now know is not because of any ill intention of not wanting to give freedom to their children. Their children, no matter how old remain children to them and they are afraid that they will be hurt, and they think they should be there to protect them. Pare...

I’m a mother of a 7 month old daughter and a student. I could have put my studies for later, taking priority to raise my baby first but I thought since I’m not growing any younger, I could as well take up both together, no matter how challenging that is. Also, I am not the first one to do that. I have heard of many mothers who pursued their career, even when it took them away from their children. And so I hopped onto that boat and here I am. In the beginning, I returned home to find that my baby had cried looking for me, wanting nothing but mother’s milk. I realize that to babies, there is nothing more soothing and comfortable than being on the mother’s bosom, sucking milk. She isn’t crying as much as she used to but it is going to get worse – because soon, she will recognize me and she probably won’t even want to stay with her father. Children and their mothers are so emotionally attached that no words can explain. I wonder if fathers feel for their children as much as mothers do. Th...

I am inwardly wailing at this problem. It has been going on for so long. I have been contemplating on calling my house owner to ask her if she knows about it and whether she is trying to solve it. But for so many times, I argued over it in my mind and did not call her. I think she knows. And even if she knows, I think she doesn’t care enough to the extent of seeing her tenants’ welfare. We know that the water supply is included in the essential service, don’t we? It means under no excuse should it be deprived.  I have had no running water in my kitchen for more than a month. I get water for a limited time in the morning and evening in the bathroom. My family and I have to be ready to collect water in the buckets at that time or we have to risk staying unhygienic to the extent you can imagine. Imagine an un-flushed toilet – this will be able to give us a picture of how essential water is. Or imagine eating on a plate that has not been washed or not washed properly. We would not ...

I think 20 years is a long time. Yes, 20 years back, there were more happy times than unhappy times. Our parents must have worried for all of us; maybe sometime the worry was too much to carry. But us, children did not know much. Or I think my elder siblings did know more about life and the hardship of a farmer. But me? I was not totally pampered but I saw less hardship than all of them. One winter when my brother was helping my father in the woods, the axe accidentally fell on his foot, leaving him in bed for many weeks. Despite the pain he was going through, we would have happy times. I remember being by his side all the time. We would always write something. And what I still remember to the last is the katsom that we composed. It is in Sharchop, a dialect spoken by the people from the east. I don’t know how much input I gave. Maybe I was only a mere spectator. My friend Lhadon (who is now in the village and a mother of 3 children) and I would sing it at the tshechus. For a few we...

Baby is crying so much that I think her pain is unbearable. We are alone. I think we would feel better if we were not, but I tell myself that even if anyone was present, pain would not lessen. Not knowing what to do, her cry splitting my heart, I cry with her. At that moment I think of all the mothers in the world, about their pain, their sacrifices, and their loneliness. This also makes me think of how not so useful fathers are. Their role ends more or less with a kiss, or a how-are-things-going queries. They don’t know that it is beyond money. They never see the painful cry, the heart wrenching pleads, nor do they see the sweet addictive malice-less smiles. The 24 hours time I dedicate to my baby is filled with miracles. Every time I tend to do some of my work, I tell myself that I’m home right now for her; the government has given me three months maternity leave so that I can be with her day and night, every second of the time to fend for her,...