Kuzu zangpo la, y’all!
I went out for a walk around 6:00pm, as I do at the end of most workdays to soak in the beauty of this mountain habitat.
My Evening Walk friends had gone to Thimphu today for a major talk by a visiting legal expert. I begged off to attend to research deadlines.
I passed a group of farmers who’d just finished hauling dozens of bins of apples to the road, ready for market.
They insisted I take a softball-sized deep red apple. I wanted to purchase some apples but wasn’t carrying money.
Take it, they insisted. “The Land of Happiness,” they said.
Setting sun reflected on Paro valley clouds
As the days grow shorter, the post-work walk window is closing. Closer to the equator here, darkness falls abruptly.
When I first arrived in Paro, daylight lasted until 7:30 or so; now the sun sets behind the mountains around 6:20, allowing another half hour or so of dusk in which to hurry home and avoid wildlife.
Himalayan black bears
Of particular concern is bears. The Himalayan black bear (Ursus thibetanus) is a globally threatened species, which, from the villagers’ stories, seems abundant in Bhutan. At this time of year, the bears, or dōm, will be gorging on fruit, perhaps including the ripe apples of the many nearby orchards, before their winter slumber. Last year, at least one bear was seen at the curve in the road as it enters the village, so they are assumed to be nearby.
Black bears’ depredations of crops cause human-wildlife conflict and sometimes injuries. The villagers we’ve met on our evening walks all seem to have stories about a friend or relative – often in a distant village – who engaged in hand-to-hand combat with a bear, in one case, losing an eye; in another, losing a hand.
I once saw a bear cross the path in front of me and continue on its way, on a trail above Thimphu en route to Phajoding, a monastery on the valley rim. When I related the story to friends in town, they insisted it could not have been a bear, but perhaps a yak. The potential proximate threat seemed to unnerve them.
This consternation about bears contrasts with the causal attitude of many Californians about the Sierra Nevada black bears who, unless humans appear to threaten young cubs, tend to flee (though they’re happy to peel open a car door like a tin can to reach food inside). I’ve seen numerous black bears in the Sierras and only once – when I foolishly approached a mama with two cubs – felt endangered.
Three story village farmhouse in Pangbisa. The lowest level would serve (or did in the past) as a livestock barn in the winter, allowing animals’ body heat, as well as the heat of composting manure, to permeate upward and warm the house which, in the past, would have had a stove only in the kitchen. Sanitation and hygiene concerns, as well as rural electrification and electric heaters, are changing this locally adaptive and energy-efficient practice.
Traditional carving outlines the small wooden windows, which in the past would have had wooden shutters inside. The open upper attic allows for storage, and drying hay or chilis out of the rain.
A new friend
Seeing me walking solo in the leaden dusk, a local farmer called me over, clambering down the carved log that formed a ladder to her upper porch, and handed me three plump shiny apples.
“Wash and eat,” she said.
Her short black hair emphasized concerned eyes. She had seen me pass her house earlier, headed away from the village. She watched for my return, she told me, because she was worried about the bears.
She invited me in for tea. Cognizant of the falling darkness, I declined to return home for dinner.
Did I have Messenger? No, I use WhatsApp. Difficult for her. We agreed to chat when we meet in person on the road.
Village farmhouse. Note the logs carved into steps to give access to the porch.
The Middle Path
This kind attentiveness – watching for and worrying about a visiting stranger, and then gifting me with the bounty of her orchard – was a momentary but colossal balancing of the casual cruelty I’ve been watching unfold in the US.
There was no need, no direct benefit, to the farmers’ sharing of apples.
In the mountains, people must look out for one another, as one never knows when help may be needed.
A Nepali man once told me “You can’t hate the man who sleeps with your wife today because he might save your life tomorrow.” This measured avoidance of all-or-nothing, absolutist thinking seems to contribute to equanimity and ease of mind.
Similarly, Buddhism calls for pursuing the “middle path” between, for example, gluttony and asceticism, or over-consumption and poverty, or expedience and slothfulness.
Mountain communities can be suspicious of strangers, who sometimes cause offense to local deities and bring inclement weather. Once a guest is accepted, however, they are lavished with kindness and generosity. As a local friend told me, “Not to brag, but once you’ve got one of us, you’re totally set.” Likewise, in Nepal, “the guest is king.”
Certainly, the slower pace of life here contributes to the ease with which people share and extend themselves. There’s also fundamental cultural difference that prizes collective well-being, sharing, and generosity, a Buddhist virtue, over staunch independence.
Yes, the farmer may hope that I’ll purchase her apples in the future.
But for now, her sweet gift, and sweeter concern, were balm for a soul rubbed too raw by the downfall of the (other) country I love.
Looking west over Paro valley at the ever-changing cloudscape.Mount Jhomolhari should be somewhere behind those clouds.
May you experience and extend unexpected kindnesses, until next time -
Tashi delek!