These days melt like lamps
and snow that chilled the pines, now
grays yield to green
It is a rainy, rainy spring in Rukubji! I have always wondered what it would be like to touch a cloud, and I’ve come close when I’ve hiked in the West coast of the US. But here, I can see the bellies of the clouds rubbing against the pines on the hills, and I realize: I am in the clouds. I am touching them. They are not solid, or icy, as I have imagined staring out airplane windows, but amorphous and damp. And, like any child knows, they are where the rain comes from. These slow rolling, vaporous beings drip showers throughout the day, punctuated by bright breaks of sun and high-mountain blue, or thunderous drumming. Strange that the first time I heard thunder here, I thought it was a truck or an airplane. But airplanes are very rare (though trucks are not, since I am a 10 min. walk from the main lateral road of Bhutan). Thunder is far louder and closer in the mountains than in the plains of Minnesota with the din of a city.
Spring is also a time of blessings. Our school held its annual Rimdro last Friday. Rimdro, as I pieced together from various explanations, is a sort of blessing ceremony that rids the school of sickness and bad spirits (Bhutanese readers: please correct me if this is wrong, but this is how it has been explained to me). I had attended a ‘Puja’ at Tshering and Kinley’s house a week before, where there were monks praying all day and lots of food and offerings. Rimdro was very similar to this, but on a larger scale.
The day before Rimdro, we all pitched in to get ready. The kids helped set up the altar and helped prepare the school grounds. I got to help make fried cookies that would become an offering on the altar, then given out to eat after they had been blessed (these offerings that are later eaten are called “tso”). Since Easter Sunday was this weekend, it felt a lot like Easter preparations at the Mefleh house, making cookies with Carmen or grandma.
The next day, I was instructed to show up to school at 7 am, wearing something nice. I had been warned about the “wear something nice”, and had bought a hand-woven kira from Dema (her aunt wove it), and a matching tego (jacket) and wanju (blouse) in Bajo. I was shocked at how many compliments I got during the day, yet the only thing I changed in my appearance was the clothing—which I admit was stunning. All credit goes to the handiwork of Dema’s aunt.
When I showed up at Dema and Principal’s house, we got busy making popcorn for “tso”. After, we headed to the outdoor kitchen to eat “tukpa”, which is a spicy and savory rice porridge. During Rimdro, the school provides food for the monks, as well as the teachers, students, and villagers throughout the day. After breakfast, we went and saw the altar, prostrating to the chanting monks, then to the altar, making a small offering.
The rest of the day was filled with busy moments of helping get food prepared, setting more things on the altar, lighting butter lamps, listening to the monks, drinking lots of tea, eating (all 3 meals, and then lots of “tso”), and playing games with the students. I also got to serve the monks lunch with Chimi and Lopen Namgayla, rid myself of sickness using balls of molded flour (but I got sick the next day with a fever), hold a flag during a part of the ceremony, throw grains at a flour statue and yell at it with the rest of the crowd, then watch the statue get taken outside followed by torches.
It was quite an incredible experience that I’d have trouble unraveling and recreating, mostly due to my lack of knowledge as to the purpose of each part of the ceremony (which everyone else seemed to know very well—though I suppose a Bhutanese Buddhist would be just as lost in and Easter service). Chilled from a rainy day spent between an unheated dining hall and an outdoor kitchen, I got home around 6, started my fire, and slept as soon as I could.
Spring is full of celebration everywhere it seems. Though I missed out on Easter, I felt the spirit of renewal during Rimdro, bringing me close to my own traditions despite the distance. On Easter Sunday, I got up singing the Arabic Easter hymns I’ve heard since birth, my own way of welcoming in the blessed and new life of spring.
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