It’s after dark when we reach the farmhouse where we’ll spend the next two nights.
An opportunity to ‘immerse’ myself in Bhutanese culture, it is an experience I’ve been looking forward to in the same way I might a community service project on a Saturday. I know it will be good for me – worthwhile and memorable – but not necessarily comfortable. Certainly not luxurious. Which is fine, after all: nobody comes home from a stay at the Four Seasons with anything terribly interesting to say. Even still, my mind is working overtime to maintain a state of ‘open.’
We’re ushered across a dark yard, up a ladder and into the warmth of the kitchen, an 8×10 room that, as the only heated space in the house, serves also as the living and dining room. An older couple with salt and pepper hair and a young woman are there, smiling at me while I stand dumbly in the doorway. I’ve entered hundreds of homes in my lifetime but none like this one and I’m not exactly sure how to greet my hosts. A hug is out of the question. A handshake would seem logical except nobody seems prepared to play along.
Dhana, our guide, tells me to sit on the floor and so I do. The room is absent of even an attempt at embelishment. It is a practical space. In the center of the room a wood-burning stove hisses while kettles of water boil rambunctiously on top. On one wall a shelf props up giant metal pots and pans that reflect the light of a single florescent bulb dangling above the stove. Behind me an open window invites a steady gust of frigid air so that my face is melting from the fire while the back of my head freezes. I feel as if I’ve stepped into an episode of Little House on the Praire, except even the Ingalls’ place was ‘nicer’, in the conventional sense. Or at least furnished.
Dhana introduces our hosts: two grandparents, their son, daughter in-law and grandson: a baby of that tender age where nothing holds his attention for more than 2.3 seconds. From his grandfather’s lap he shoots me a skeptical look.
We nod and smile at them and they nod and smile at us. With no common language, it’s all any of us can do. I try to reach for something nice to say about their home finally settling on “It’s nice and warm in here.” Dhana translates and everyone nods in agreement. I should feel more awkward except the language barrier seems to dissolve any of that and I’m grateful.
Suddenly, as if released by some unheard bell, they scatter. The son goes to bring in the cows and the grandmother to gather wood and the daughter-in-law stokes the fire. The only one remaining is the grandfather, to whom the baby clings with uncanny devotion. Dhana explains that the he is the primary caretaker during the day while the boy’s parent’s work in the field or around the house. I admire their connection and say as much. I want him to know he’s the envy of grandparents across America who see their grandchildren only a few times a year, but I think the sentiment is lost.
Cooking commences and I ask to help.
I’m handed a knife as big and heavy as a hatchet.
“Very sharp,” says Pimba, our driver and head chef for the evening. He’s not kidding – the knife cuts through tomatoes more efficiently than any of the fancy blades I have in my kitchen at home. While I make careful incisions, he leans over and repeatedly asks that I “be careful.” It occurs to me that the backwoods of Bhutan might not be the best place to receive a set of stitches. I am very, very careful.
With the vegetables sliced I reclaim my place on the floor, feeling satisfied to have contributed to the evenings’ efforts. But this is short-lived. With quick, confident, motions Pimba dices my evenly sliced vegetables into a salsa-like hash. Apparently I was not helping; I was being humored.
This is a new for me. The kitchen is where I excel! Give me a task and I’ll execute on it flawlessly. Mince the garlic? Seed the bell pepper? Dress the salad? But in Bhutan, with its cramped counter-space and unnecessarily sharp knives, I am of little help. Put more frankly: I am useless.
While dinner cooks, the grandfather offers us homemade rice wine.
I’d been prepped for this offering. Dhana had discussed wine more than once, always linking it to a lesson on how to say ‘no thank you,’ which was exactly what I’d planned to say. But at the last moment I decide to take a page from David’s book, which reads (and I quote) “Try anything once.”
So I do.
The wine is served in tiny bowls and I am instantly alarmed to see it not only steaming but also swimming with milky white globs. In a vain attempt to reassure us, Dhana explains that it is customary for the Bhutanese to serve rice wine with egg. I want to point out that he’d omitted that detail in earlier wine-related conversation but know it is not the time and so dutifully lift the bowl to my lips.
Homemade rice wine, in case you’re wondering, tastes like the worst sake you’ve ever had. And I can’t even stomach particularly good sake.
I nod my thanks to the grandfather who has not taken his eyes off of me; he smiles in a break-your-heart sort of way because this wine is his pride and joy – his own special recipe. Knowing I can’t leave anything unfinished without seeming rude, I set the bowl behind me and promise myself I’ll deal with it later.
Dinner is, more or less, what we’ve been eating all week: rice and vegetables sided with cooked red chili peppers. David and I eat with large serving spoons (ostensibly the only utensils in the house) while the family masterfully scoops rice with their fingers. The baby passes between grandfather and daughter-in-law, and I try not to stare while she nurses him for a minute or two, then stuffs small bites of rice into his mouth by chewing it first and feeding him like a mother bird. I’m not sure what to find more interesting: the manner of feeding or that she is doing it with her breast still hanging out of her shirt.
We make smalltalk, my head a swivel between Dhana (the person I’m talking to) and the grandfather (the person for whom my words are meant). I ask polite questions about the farm, the village, the weather. But the person I really want to speak with is the daughter-in-law, who sits shyly in the corner. I want to ask her all kinds of inappropriate questions. Things like, “Does it drive you crazy, living with your in-laws?” And, “is this the life you imagined for yourself? Or did you actually want to move to town and become educated?”
Instead I ask her how old her son is. I tell her he is beautiful.
They offer us buttermilk. I politely decline, still staring down my bowl of rice wine, fantasizing about its spontaneous combustion. But the buttermilk raises an important question.
“Is there something here that I can milk?”
After some back and forth Dhana tells me that yes, I can milk a cow the next morning. My visible excitement needs no translation.
Having choked down his own, David reaches for my rice wine and my heart soars. I have never loved him more than I do in this moment.
As the guests of honor, we sleep in the altar room, an empty space twice as large as the kitchen/living room and about thirty degrees colder. Maybe forty.
I stand there and make arm motions like I’m about to help while the women top a pair of thin foam mattresses with a mountain of fuzzy blankets. It is a far cry from a white duvet cover or even clean sheets but it’s cold enough that I don’t care. I’m grateful for the promise of a warm night’s sleep. In the corner of the room is a colorful altar, a smaller version of what I’ve seen in the temples. In the center sits a small gold-colored statue of Buddha and around him are tacky bouquets of plastic flowers and tin dishes of rice wine (sans egg, I am careful to note).
Despite my burgeoning interest in Buddhism, it has not ever been a fantasy to spend the night with Buddha, and now that I see it’s exactly what I’m in for I feel uneasy.
“Do you think it’s okay for us to change our clothes in here?” I ask David once we’re alone.
I will later learn that each morning they purify the room with a bowl of smoldering ashes, smoking up the place to such an extent that my backpack holds onto the stench for days. Whether this is because of us and our various states of nakedness, I’m not actually sure.
After we climb into bed I hear Dhana and Pimba carrying on an animated conversation with the family and for the first time I recognize what a wet blanket we, with our silly english language, are. Without us to show politeness toward, they are free to talk about the things that they actually want to talk about (the procedure of cow-milking probably not a topic).
I feel I have finally done something useful. What a boon it must be for them to have guests bearing fresh stories and news from beyond the slopes of their isolated valley. I might be of no help in the kitchen, but my visit is a package deal that includes Dhana and Pimba, too. I hope it counts for something.
The next morning dawns early. Very early. Cow-milking, rooster-crowing early.
After helping myself to the outhouse (genuinely a roof over a rectangular hole in the ground), I stand in the yard beside a frozen pile of turnips and watch the people on neighboring front porches wash faces and brush hair. A pair of little boys run into their yard, barefoot and in only t-shirts and shorts while my breath clouds and I note the frost that glazes the grass. Everybody smiles and waves at me. I’m a minor celebrity in these parts.
Like a well-oiled machine, the family is moving from one chore to another. In the shed the son defrosts turnips to feed to the cows. The grandmother flings open the door to the chicken coop and inspects it for eggs. The daughter-in-law carries an arm-load of dishes down the ladder and sets them near the outdoor spiggot. The grandmother begins washing. Upstairs, the grandfather sharpens the knife I used on the vegetables.
Already having accepted my uselessness, I wander around the yard and snap pictures of it all but they don’t do the morning any justice. A picture cannot also capture the crispness of the air. The silence. And the way the sun rises over the hill and slices through the chill like a hot knife, instantly melting the frost on the tin rooftop into a brief monsoon.
Beyond the farm a green valley swings out in either direction like a cozy hammock. On the other hillside is a cluster of farmhouses just like ours: two stories with blue tin roofs and elevated porches – a ‘balcony,’ you might say. I am overcome by the uniformity. Nothing in the vicinity can be called a ‘McMansion.’ Later, David and I will discuss this at length: is it easier to be content when everyone around you has no more or less than you?
I think it must be.
Then finally, the moment I’ve been waiting for. The only reason, really, that I’m awake. The grandmother nods me toward the shed-like building where the cows munch on their cooked turnips. Side by side we squat next to the cow and with a few fluid motions she demonstrates the milking.
It looks easy enough.
But when I get my hand on the nipple, which is no larger than my own finger, nothing comes out. I try a few more strokes with little luck. Thinking maybe that nipple is done-in for the morning (as if I would know), I want to try another but the grandmother reaches for it and again great splurts of milk gush into the bucket. I can’t believe how easy she makes it seem.
Eventually I see some results (most of it somehow ending up on me, not in the bucket), but with nowhere near the grandmother’s elegant efficiency. I finally wave my hands in surrender and step back, letting her take over – my unreasonable dream of filling the bucket to the brim, dashed. She makes quick work of the rest of it before inviting the calf in for its share. Together we laugh, though probably for different reasons.
In the yard, the grandfather sits on a straw mat cutting fresh meet off of a cow leg. Dhana translates for him as he explaines it came from the neighbor’s cow who died the day before. He’d choked on a turnip.
David hides a laugh while I cast him a scowl. This was sort of a tragedy. Later he shares with me that he’d coined a newspaper headline about the situation.
“Errant Turnip Gives Local Family a Leg Up.”
And then, yes, I laugh too.
Late in the afternoon, a game of darts commences.
Archery is Bhutan’s national sport, but darts is a close second. Not your dive-bar variety of darts, mind you. The targets are on shortened two by fours driven into the ground and separated by about 30 yards so that the game more closely resembles horseshoes.
A few days earlier we’d sat, across from a bleacher of monks and watched a boisterous match between two groups of men. Their expert sportsmanship had inflated my understanding of the game’s feasibility and I can’t wait to give it a try.
I begin by lobbing the darts past the targets by a good few feet, gaining accuracy (sort of). Of the two of us, I am the only one who hits the target, and if I hadn’t I’m sure my interest in the game would have been lost much sooner. The grandfather, wearing his ever-present smile, his top tooth poking out at an uncomfortable looking angle, holds his squirming grandson and observes our repeated misses with amusement. It strikes me that he might actually think me a total idiot. First my excitement over milking the cow, now this?
Rice wine is again offered to us that evening.
I say “no thank you,” twisting my face into an expression I hope will communicate the opposite of the truth: “The wine is delicious, I just don’t feel like drinking tonight.”
Shortly after dinner and a few hands of cards with Dhana, we head to bed. I tuck myself into the altar room, feeling glad to know that the next morning we’ll be back on the road heading toward a hotel. As I’d hoped, the farmhouse experience was genuine. Special. And something I know I’ll always think fondly of. But it has not been without some degree of discomfort. I crave a good shower and some privacy.
The next morning we say our farewells, which is a noticeably brief occasion. With a language barrier as steep as ours, we can do little more than say “thank you” and smile and nod and then smile and nod some more. It feels unsatisfying. These people invited us into their home, bedded us in their altar room and let me milk their cow, yet all I can do is that. But maybe it is enough.
In any case, it is the same way that they say goodbye to me.
(Click here for more photos from Bhutan.)
Somewhere Seeking 