Who would have guessed… nearly a decade after my Nepal trek, I’d would come to neighbouring Druk Yul or Bhutan, the Land of the Thunder Dragon! Yep, I thought it’d be for Emelya and Sherab’s wedding!*Alas it was to conduct New Media Workshop to teachers and students in five schools under the Bhutan W.I.R.ED project and what an experience those two weeks in August was!

They say the sweetest memories are the experiences littered with challenges. And our workshop is one such example. Faizah (my colleague and fellow educator) and myself nearly couldn’t go on the scheduled dates. It was ‘term time’ they said and no training was be conducted then. Sigh. But all that preparation ... we argued. Somehow things worked out in the end and I’m sure the Ministry of Education Bhutan didn’t regret giving us that special permission judging from the positive response from the 105 participants.

Participant editing the footages for the video

Bhutan was a mystery, a romantic notion of beautiful mountains, untouched landscape, and very happy people (and no, it’s not because of the abundant marijuana plants growing along the roads). After all, the King said, ”Gross National Happiness is more important than Gross National Product."

This landlocked kingdom in South Asia limits tourism and it’s not easy to apply for visas. So Faizah and I were extremely excited about our trip. Despite our hectic work schedule, we found time to even prepare movie paraphernalia to motivate our participants to polish up the skills they had acquired at the workshop. And that added onto our already heavy luggage containing video cameras SIF donated to the schools!

Singapore Volunteers Overseas for the Bhutan W.I.R.ED project

New Media Workshop

The objectives of the workshop are to enable participants to understand how video can add pedagogic value to lessons and apply basic filming and editing techniques to produce a short video clip. During the compact two-day training, participants learnt basic video production skills (from storyboarding, scripting, shooting a video to editing). Each group comprised of two to three teachers and three students. A screening was held at the end of Day 2 and participants got to comment on each other’s videos for further refinements. Topics of the videos range from subject-based videos to videos about values, Bhutanese heritage and culture and local folklore.

Groups working on their story ideas

Due to the overwhelming demand, some schools had to select the teachers and students to participate. Although we’d prefer a longer training period for each school, we had to maximise the two-days-per-school time frame. We would leave for another village immediately after Day 2’s programme ended. Faizah and I felt like a rock band on tour, constantly moving from one place to another and having little time to get to know our friends and environs. Germaine, a Singaporean SIF volunteer who had been in Bhutan for a few months was our ‘Rock Band Manager’. Together we travelled all around western Bhutan, enduring the winding mountain roads and fatigue, and enjoying our Bhutanese experience.

Young monks peering from the windows of Paro Dzong

It was also Ramadan while we were there, and we fasted in Buddhist Bhutan. Our gracious hosts made up for our “lost lunches” with home cooked dinners in school halls and even asked the hotel folks to cook our early morning meal at 4 am.  Whilst we ate mainly vegetarian meals, we were ecstatic when we found out that the Bhutanese loved their ema (chilly) just as much as the Malays love our lada (chilly)! We were very much at home eating our kewa datshi (potatoes and cheese) and adding ema to our food! Although I am a tea drinker, my short stay didn’t allow me to acquire the taste for suja (traditional Bhutanese drink made from tea, butter, and salt). Ahh, the suja! The tea ‘drank’ by Germaine and Suzuki (a Japanese volunteer) on their mock date, much to the amusement of our participants in Chukka Higher Secondary School. We admired Germaine’s dedication to teaching in Bhutan that we constantly teased her to settle down in Bhutan so that we could visit her often. “King Jigme Wangchuck is still single…” I told the blushing Germaine.

Actors Tony Leung and Carina Lau adorning traditional Bhutanese wedding costumes
(Photo credit: China Daily)

So what else do I love about Bhutan?

-          Nice and polite people

-          Eager students who are ever so willing to learn

-          Breathtaking scenery and amazing dzongs (fortresses)

-          The calmness which surrounds the vast terrains

-          Women in their kira (somewhat similar to the Malay baju kurung) and men in their ‘sexy’ gho

Despite the horrible nausea, headaches and hallucinations I experienced from the Malaria pills taken for the Bhutan trip, yes, I would love to return to Bhutan again…

*We used to tease Emelya, my trekking buddy, about attending her wedding, where she marries the cute Bhutanese doctor who treated me in Namche Bazaar, Nepal.

Hidayah Amin | 08 October 2010