Kuenza's Diary

I am currently in Lobesa with a group of guests from School of Wellbeing Studies and Research from Thailand. Their main interest is organic farming and they take Bhutan as an example where organic farming is widely practiced and believes that Bhutan’s aim of making the country a 100% organic country is possible. So in this connection, we visited a farm in Kabisa, a village on the way to Gasa. Our host and interviewee was a 74-year-old man named Kencho Tshering. He practices integrated farming where he grows different types of fruits and vegetables. He also has three cattle. Though integrated farming is common in Bhutan and it is what we have been practicing traditionally, for people from other countries, it is something strikingly interesting. From my interaction, I learned that organic farming is a farming with knowledge and when they see integrated farming in our farms, they see that our farmers have already been practicing a kind of technique that is encouraged in organic farmi...

I have been reading everything Passu ( www.passudiary.com ) writes, and knowing from his blog about the interesting initiatives that he took at his school (Bajo Higher Secondary School in Wangduephodrang), I have been eager to pay a visit. And today was the day! In the last minute, because of the manpower shortage, I was assigned by my office to take care of the guests from School of Wellbeing (based in Thailand). And it is because of this work that I got to go to Bajo school today. There are seven of them: one from Mynmar, one from France, and five from Thailand. I have been with them since 24 th of this month and I am increasingly feeling privileged to be with the group. I learn a lot, not just from them, but from the different people I am getting to meet, in coordinating their itinerary in Bhutan. For example, I got a chance to meet the Ex-prime Minister of Bhutan, about whom I have only heard what people were talking about and did not really know where he was after the electi...

My family and I attended the first day of Thimphu Tshechu, which fell on the 10 th day of the eight month of Bhutanese Calendar – which gave me the reason to plan to go on the first day. I felt, it would be more significant (can’t explain how) to go to a Tshechu on that date, which in my understanding explains the meaning of Tschechu. We left home at 9 a.m. and it wasn’t as crowded as I expected when we reached Tendrel Thang. So I thought, we went at the right time, but I was told that it is usually not crowded on the first day. I think it is true. On the second and the last day, I could see on TV, what a big crowd it was. My reason to go to Tshechu was purely to let my daughter witness the masked dances, the different colors of Tshechu and the mood people swing in. It gives us a feeling of bountiful joy and it is that rare time when we can really have a family gathering and forget all other worries, such as our work pressure. I also believe that it is important ...

I must admit on the onset that despite my effort to be the best mother, I had had incidents where my daughter fell down from the bed, from the stairs and so on. Yesterday, she ran out of the bath and slipped on the floor – and hurt her head so badly. It scared me. It scared her daddy more because he blamed me that I had not taken any precaution, knowing that the floor was slippery. She has this habit. For sheer mischief, she runs away when she has finished her bath and knows that I am going to wrap her in a towel. I cuddled her and stroked her hair, soothing her, consoling her that it will be okay. She stopped after a while. Children soothe much faster than adults. They forget hurt way quicker as well. This relieved me. There was no swelling, and she didn’t seem to hurt when I touched the area that was hit. My husband’s repeated reminder to me is that it is very risky for children to hit their head. It could lead to any undesirable long-term effect. I am aware of that too. And ...

I was 20. I had not delved in the thought of marriage, despite being in love. When you fall in love, you don’t question many things: you don’t ask whether the person is a doctor or an engineer; you don’t ask whether the person is from Tashigang or Paro; you don’t ask how much his parents’ earnings are. Moreover, despite the common saying that the face is the window to the soul, face doesn’t carry more than 40% weightage. That is to say, when you fall in love, you do without much knowledge of the person . (But at least in my case, the command a person has over his written language gives me a very strong pull). Now, some would call that fate (Abi namshi gi kay thawa as Sharchops say). Some might have a different theory altogether – such as how one subconsciously makes all the judgments based on his/her experience. I prefer to go by the popular saying that ‘love is blind’. In fact, I don’t see why we would need so many reasons as to why we love someone.   Our heart knows best wha...