Sunday picnic

As a group we are settling into a routine, we’re getting to know each other, we are enjoying being pampered a bit with a place to sleep and three meals everyday. Soon enough we will be on our own for all of the above in locations which promise to be very different from our experience here in the capital city of Thimphu where shopping is easy and there are euro style coffee shops if one hankers for a fix of homelike environment.

This past Sunday we, as a group feeling rather like tourists, were bused to a trailhead where we set off to hike up to Cheri Goemba also known as Ghagri Dorjeden which is a monastery hung high on a very steep ridge above a narrow valley with a wintry rushing stream in the bottom. The roofs of the monastery look as though they are flying out over space. The buildings, centuries old, create a place that tells the history of Bhutan. The monastery was established in 1620 by Zhabdrung Ngawang Namgval, the founder of the Bhutanese state according to WikiP. On the drive up we passed a shrined carved and painted onto a rock face. All this was a wonderful taste of the country which we are all eager to explore in our own regions and to learn whatever we can.

Monday we began work in earnest as we looked at curriculum and lesson plans began to find out how we would be expected to work at our schools.