Married to Bhutan by Linda Leaming

Author:Linda Leaming
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Hay House, Inc.
Published: 2011-01-27T05:00:00+00:00

Soon after our trip, we got a television. It was an enormous 25-inch model that Namgay bought from a woman who worked at the UN office in Thimphu. She had finished her contract and was leaving the country and selling some of her stuff.

For a while, it was enough just to “have” a television, and it sat in the corner of the bedroom for almost a year before we bothered to plug it in and sign up for cable.

A few months later, we moved to a small house on a farm just outside of Thimphu. It had running water inside and the Thimphu River flowing next to it, screens on the windows, and toilets that flushed most of the time. In short, it was heaven on earth.

Insulation is a new concept in Bhutan, and there’s no central heating, so most of the houses are cold in winter. Our house was not an exception. But the rest of the year the house was great. In summer, we opened all the windows and lived with the river noise, which is excellent for sleeping.

Namgay was not that enthusiastic about the place at first, because it was outside the town. He was afraid we would spend too much money on gas for the trip to and from Thimphu. We wanted to paint the house, and it needed a few repairs. But when we moved in, he really took to it. We had fun picking out Tibetan rugs at the weekend market, from smugglers who brought them into the country from China. We bought a few dishes that came from Bangladesh and several other things that the limited Thimphu market offered. Shopping was a new activity for Namgay. But his skills had been honed on our U.S. trip. He likes to shop; I enjoy watching him.

When he was young, nobody “shopped” in Bhutan. For one thing, there was nothing to buy. For another, nobody had any money.

“Where did you get your shoes?” I asked him one day.

“My father made them.”

“From what?”

“He stitched deerskin.”

His whole family wore moccasins made by his dad, and his mother wove their clothes. Sometimes I feel like I married the Last of the Mohicans. When he was a teenager, he helped his Uncle Lama with ceremonies, and occasionally people paid him in coins from India. His uncle saved the money for him until he had enough to buy some shoes when they went to Thimphu. That was in the late 1970s. He paid the equivalent of 60 cents for shoes from India.

Now Thimphu has many more items available for consumers than there were even a few years ago, and every year new ones are added. But there are no Targets, Walmarts, Home Depots, Costcos, or any large department stores in Bhutan. There are only tiny shops selling a limited selection of household items such as sheets, towels, and dishes. Everything has to be trucked in or flown in on Druk Air. The planes are tiny. Gas is expensive. What gets into Bhutan is self-limiting.

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