Water pipes

January 20, 2011Posted inTowns1 Comment
Thank you for taking part in “Big picture – 10”. Your responses were varied, and many of them were deliberately funny. Answers ranged from electrical, telephone and TV cables; to branches, roots and stems; to serpents, TMT bars and organizational charts! But most of you knew the answer – yes, the picture showed water pipes, and yes such pipes, carrying water to individual houses, can be seen all over Thimphu. “namgay”, “Tshewang” and “dodo” guessed that the picture of the water pipes was taken in Hejo, Langjuphakha and Taba respectively. The picture was actually taken above the “RICB Colony”.…

Our health is in our hands

October 15, 2010Posted inHealth
It’s the tourist season. And at mealtimes, tourists across our country – in restaurants and in dining tents – will regard, with some amusement, their guides roll and set aside small balls of rice. “Bhutanese way of washing hand!” our guides will declare referring to their pre-meal rituals. Some of the tourists will, as always, give it a try, and end up, as always, with streaks of black starch on their hands. The other tourists will laugh. And the guides will attempt to explain how we, Bhutanese, “dry clean” our hands. This traditional way of “washing” our hands may…

Water solution

March 15, 2009Posted inNature, Villages
In “Weather dependent” I’d celebrated the snowfall, without which our farmers wouldn’t be able to plant potatoes. But I’d also agonized that too much snow could be bad for potato cultivation.These mixed emotions prompted one Anonymous to comment: “You complain when there is no snow and complain again when there is snow. Nothing new – that is the way Bhutanese are and you are a true champion.”Precisely.And I’ll keep complaining: it snowed here, but I learnt that other parts of Bhutan, Gakiling and Sombaykha gewogs for example, got hardly any precipitation. There I saw many farmers look helplessly on…

Weather dependent

March 1, 2009Posted inNature, Villages
Yes! It snowed in Haa. And the land is now moist. So our farmers are working their fields in earnest, preparing them to plant potatoes. Before the recent snow and rain, our farmers could not plough their fields – the earth was too hard, and much of the dry top soil would have been lost in the wind anyway. If the dry weather had continued, our farmers would have virtually lost the potato season.So our farmers are happy. But their concerns are not over. It’s threatening to snow again. And if it does snow, and snows heavily, potato planting…