Gasa – February 21, 2011

Gasa, February 21, 2011 will always be remembered.

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Gasa tsachu kidu recipients

Two Gasa tsachu shop keepers received kidu from the Gyalpoi Zimpon’s Office in Gasa yesterday. They received Nu.15,000 each.

Their shops and belongings were washed away during May 2009 floods.

I would like to offer my humble gratitude and kadrin-gaso on behalf of the kidu recipients and the people of Gasa to His Majesty. Long live His Majesty! Pelden Drukpa Gyalong!

Name of recipients: Gaki and Sonam Zam

Photographing a few (19)61ers from Gasa Government School

From left to right: Zeko Dem, Damchoe Mani, Damchoe, Passang Dorji, Gembo, Zeko Dorji

This unexpected gathering of classmates from 1961 for me was an overwhelming experience. It may have been just another meeting for them but for me they represent the past, the beginning and naturally, having a weak heart I felt a certain joy and sadness touch me in the deepest parts.

My last writing (if you can call it that) mentioned a few of the first students and two of them are in the picture. Starting from extreme right, former member of the cabinet as a Royal advisory councilor, Zeko Dorji after having worked in the food corporation of Bhutan for nearly 30 years was elected to the National Assembly in 2004 and retired in 2007. He was also part of the founding members of the original Bhutan Peoples United party (BPUP) and after formation of the Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT) stayed on as a party advisor.

Next is lopen Gembo a.k.a “gangto” continues to teach English at the Bjizhong middle secondary school in Damji; lower Gasa. He was in the 3^rd batch of the early national teachers in Bhutan. He’s the only other still in service and told me that students from Gasa were vulnerable because the environment did not encourage them to develop good comprehensive ability in English which rendered them less competitive.

Passang Dorji or “tsongba theumi” as he is the representative from the business community to the Bhutan Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BCCI) is serving his second consecutive term. After completing his 4^th grade he briefly joined the monk body before turning to business.

Damchoe has been a farmer for all his life after a brief enrolment at the school. He remembers a few things from his school days and expresses regrets for not having been able to continue his studies. His elder daughter however today is a Non Formal Education (NFE) instructor and her 10 students include her mother who was also among the first school goers. This he says gives him satisfaction to have been able to send his children to school.

Damchoe Mani after studying there went on to join the military and returned home a few years ago to help his family at home. A few years earlier he had a close call when a bear attacked him while he was collecting firewood. He is thankful for what life has offered him and is actively participates in community activities.

Zeko Dem, the only woman in the picture but by no means the only one in the first group has been a farmer after leaving school. She remembers she had spent a year at school and how her relatives had requested the administration to release her from school. I have often heard of stories where parents and relatives would approach officials at school with gifts and requests for releasing their children from school and a good number of stories in Gasa too.

I hope I can meet enough of the first school goers of Gasa and add them to my collection of memoirs of the Gasa Government School in 1961.

Update: I apologize to everyone for getting the year wrong. After tracing down many of the first students and having spoken to them, I have found the correct year to 1961 and have changed it in my mentions.

I also learnt that in the 1961 the school opened around October and therefore, the students enrolled that year were taught inside the Dzong for about two months without any grades. 1962 actually saw them begin their studies in “infant classes” broken into two years and then class 1. I remember my early school days starting “LKG” and “UKG” (Lower Kinder-Garden & Upper Kinder-Garden) and then the last change was to “PP”

Intonations and the Bhutanese

I am no expert at language and my attempt at expressing and relating intonations to our society is one out of pure layman’s interest and curiosity.

Bhutanese story tellers have our own way of beginning story telling. I remember even as a child listening to stories from elders; the opening lines of almost any story would be the same but it always sparked interest and furthered the case for curious ears.

“Dangphu duephu” is a common locution in the art of Bhutan story telling however, it is not the words, where lies the case of my interest and curiosity. Stories from other cultures start with similar opening lines to take listeners back in time. English stories would begin with sentences like “once upon a time”. In our own context it is intonations that makes it different. The reason I say intonation is because no longer do we express how deep back in time we travel by the words alone but in how we pronounce these words. “Dangphu duephu” then becomes “dang..phu…due..phu…” where the spaces with dots represent a stretched pronunciation of the words in an almost yawn-like breathing. I noticed a lot times this has influenced us in the usage of everyday words, how intonations play a role in how we of express the length, breadth and depth of anything and everything. This has influenced, I would think like in other cultures too, in shaping a Bhutanese english or Bhutlish with unique ways of pronouncing english words in expressing, like I said, the length, breadth and depth of anything and everything.

And so before I end my thought here on intonations and language, I want to wish everyone a “verryyy” happy new year and may 2011 bring for all of us so much more to cherish.

 

Gasa Government School since 1961

Gasa Government School started in 1961 with three teachers (2 english teachers and a dzongkha teacher) and a few motley group students with varying ages. After consecration by the Gasa Lam and rabdey, Gasap* Tsholi, who may be equated to present day Dzongda, made the opening speech and gifted students with a “mah-tam” each (coins-monetary units).

Gasa Government school has since then imparted education to many children from Gasa and it’s gewogs. Some of them never went beyond a few lessons, some a few grades and a very tiny number beyond to persue further studies down to Lekeythang Public School and beyond. The first among the tiny few who went to complete an undergraduate degree is Dawa Tenzin. After having served in the Royal Audit Authority for many years, he is today working as the director in the Election Commission of Bhutan. I remember him because I met him growing up and was always told he was the most educated from Gasa.

Growing up belonging to the smallest community in the country made even smaller by being away where my parents lived as a civil servant, never really occured to me what or how a school educated person was valued back home until quite late into my teens. Today I can understand just why it was so. I would still think that the establishment of the school albeit the small number of enrolled students and students who went onto further do further studies; the alumnus has contributed well and continues to do so. Whether it’s a Councillor in the parliament in Bhutan before 2008 or whether these are the incumbent gups of Khatoe, Khamed or Laya in democratic Bhutan or even current sitting MP in the National Assembly who was the first attorney general or the gynaecologist serving with peers in the JDWNR hospital in Thimphu or one of many harvesting cordyceps for auctions as farmer of a sort. A banker, an aeronautical engineer or the geologist going back to Lunana to mitigate GLOF risks or the chemical engineer who now works in Gelephu as regional director. Or that musician and singer at RAPA or a Zimpoen Wogma serving under the Drukgyalpo or a monk serving His Holiness the Je Khenpo. Even the two teachers (first batch) continuing to impart knowledge to children in schools in Gasa and Chukha. It seems like a long list and it surely would have been in any other place in Bhutan. But for the people of Gasa these names and faces are the easiest to remember because they are the motley few who went to Gasa Government school for education many many years ago. These are from a generation who talk of studying using lamps for lights and remember seeeing trucks and mistaking them for elephants. They continue to play their roles in modern Gasa.

On my last visit there I learnt that the main building of the school continues to be the first original structure. Sitting there among the students while their teacher spoke on ”olympics” for their english lesson, with a bucket as a landing for water droplets falling through a leaky roof, I felt grateful for the classroom and teachers, both in the past and now, for as little as we may be who have benefitted from the education system, there still remain plenty who will benefit from here on to change their lives forever as someone said education’s purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one.

(This is part of a longer write-up to be followed by another write-up)

Some pointers in the FSB 2010 at the National Council debate

The National Council initiated debate on the Financial Service Bill 2010 and will continue to discuss tomorrow.

A recommendation that the Economic Affairs Committee (lead committee on the bill) proposed under the ownership clauses to allow 100% by the Government, either directly or indirectly, in Financial Institutions. I had written about my view point and about divestment of the Bank of Bhutan earlier. I am satisfied with the proposal.

A proposal I however do not feel comfortable with are sections 23 and 36

section 23:

If the Authority has neither denied nor approved an application referred to in section 22 within six months of the date of application shall be deemed to be approved

This clause leaves a greater degree of room for manipulation and a lot of unanswered questions may stay in terms of proper processing of healthy and robust licensing procedure.

section 36:

No licensee, or controller of a licensee, shall appoint a person as a director or chief executive officer except in accordance with this Act and shall notify the Authority who shall have the right to annul any appointments not in accordance with this Act.

as opposed to proposal by the committee:

No licensee, or controller of a licensee, shall appoint a person as a director or chief executive officer except in accordance with prevailing laws and shall thereafter notify the Authority.

For good monitoring to flourish it becomes critically important that the monitoring agency has an authority and power, well within the means of law. It makes sense to allow RMA to annul such appointment violating provisions of law which is reasonable and very important given the crucial nature of their role in sustaining a healthy financial market.

In a new section preceding section 51 I had proposed that all new FIs to float 35% shares  to the public at the first IPO which received support and I hope the support will remain to be there during the last debate as well. Looking forward to tomorrow’s debate.

Gasa – repairing and reconstructing through pictures

Gasa Trashithongmen Dzong and Gasa Tsachu – repair works and re-construction works seen

 

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