My Big OE, and Volunteering in Bhutan

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Born at home in a mock-tudor house on a quarter-acre section in Mt Albert, Auckland before the Second World War, and spending most of my younger years close to Cheltenham Beach on the Auckland North Shore, I believe I had a fairly ideal Kiwi childhood. The beach and Rangitoto Channel fishing, Rangitoto Island to visit, rocks to explore and the ferry wharf at Devonport to fish from, a younger brother and two good parents..My mother was an inveterate reader and introduced me to books and always saw that she brought books back for me if I was sick in bed, and my father had by persusasion got us over to living at Cheltenham and took me out fishing for those young years. Even in later years he had the ability and determination and I guess love for me, that he built me a Frostbite sailing dinghy complete ready to sail. But I did not get to sail it for more than one season, as I joined the air force hoping to see the world. But it did not turn out that way. I left the air force after about 3 years and took on civil engineering. I worked for the Ministry of Works, county councils, a construction firm and a consultant over a bit more than four decades. And for a change of life I had a second-hand shop for six years, and these ways I did get to see a lot of New Zealand.

In 1983, as my 50th year approached, and I still had not stepped one foot out of Aotearoa, my stars were seen to be in conjunction or whatever they should be for a good omen, and It seemed that it had to be now or never. I sold up my shop and flew to England via Singapore, Bangkok, Kathmandu (Where I had a daughter living at the time), and Delhi. I worked in London for six years as a free lance civil engineer, in most of the counties around London (the so-called Home Counties.) As a free-lancer, I was able to arrange to take time off quite easily and I made a number of trips from London to Europe, Wales, Ireland and Scotland, and Greece, and trips back to Kathmandu and New Zealand, thus achieving some part of my wider dream of seeing as much of the world as possible. These tours gave me increasing confidence and skill in travelling in foreign lands. They were not without some incidences on the way.

About a week after my first arrival in England, and looking around for more or less permanent digs in London, having picked up the free-lance engineering job through a free Kiwi-Oz newspaper, I was peering at a street map of London while in the Soho area, and an elderly gentleman sidled up and in an non-British asked me where or what I was looking for. He solved that particular problem for me, we got to talking, and I happened to say I was looking for somewhere to live in London. After some further conversation, while I suspect he was assessing me and we were exchanging names, Peter offered me a room in his flat in St Johns Wood. I had mixed feelings about his offer, I needed accommodation but I did not want a relationship, certainly not a homosexual relationship. Well I reasoned there is no harm in going and having a look at the flat and checking out the vibes between us as well. The flat was in an enormous building, with many apartments within, right opposite from the EMI studios where the Abbey Road album of the Beatles was cut. I stayed there in a spare generous sized bedroom some floors up, with a Mary Poppins view through the window, of black roofs and chimneys and church spires. It was well furnished and handy to the St Johns Wood tube station, and Peter seemed OK for a trial so I gratefully accepted the room. One amusing incident in retrospect was when I came home one day to find him in a real state. He had started to run his bath and then proceeded to cook his lunch and forgot about the bath until the apartment janitor came up to tell him that he had flooded the flat below, as the bath had run over. Fortunately not much damage was done.

Some years into my stay in England, Peter and I made a week-long tour of France, Switzerland and Germany, in my Ford Lazer, which I had bought about a year after arriving in London, having purchased at a reasonable figures a semi-vintage Humber Super Snipe car before that, but which proved too expensive on fuel for my travelling to various work sites. We did the European tour over too short a time frame. We seemed to be travelling more than stationary and looking at streets and people. But it was an introduction to Europe, with its countries so close together. You could travel through three countries quite comfortably in one day. A new experience for a Kiwi who had lived in one country, isolated by thousands of miles of Pacific Ocean from other countries. It gave me an clearer perspective of the ease by whicn Germany had taken so little time to reach Paris in WW2. Peter, who had left Germany as a child with his mother before World War 2, was quite familiar with Europe having made trips back to Europe after the war. He had friends in various towns and knew all the towns and restaurants and routes between countries, which saved a lot of map study for me compared with if I had travelled solo. He could also speak German and French which also of course was a great help. He took me to a friend's leather factory in Freiburg in Switzerland, and over a wine, arranged a discount for me on a fine leather bum-length jacket which I still possess but do not wear very often in Auckland. The only other memento I have of Switzerland apart from some photos, is a beer drinking mug.

The right-hand side of the road rule gave me a couple of scares in Europe. Peter was a compulsive talker and was a definite distraction for this Kiwi driver on the continental roads and highways. Once when steaming along on a German motorway, a loud horn made me instinctively swing my wheels to the left as would be the safe reaction in NZ or England, but it instead brought another and longer blast on the horn, as a large Mercedes passed at over 100 km per hour very close on my left in the fast lane. Then the other occasion was after Peter and I had stayed overnight at some inn and early the next morning we piled sleepily into the car and proceeded slowly up the main street of the town, when again I got a blast from a horn and realised a car was coming straight for us. This time I was totally on the wrong side of the road. We had enough time, and slow enough speed of both vehicles, to avoid a crash. I had no further frights like that, but I did find it worrying at motorway junctions, getting my head 'straight' about which entry ramp to use and to move into the correct lane on entering the new highway.

In late 1989, a bit homesick and tiring of England and Europe, I was beginning to think of returning Home. From my mother's letters, I realised that her health was worsening, and this decided me to return to New Zealand. Mum already, some years earlier, had lost one breast due to cancer, and now at nearly 85 years of age she had recently been told by her doctor that she only had a few months to live. She died in April 1990 in the month of her birthday, but did not quite make her 85 th birthday. She died in North Shore hospital the same day she was taken there, late in the night.

I stayed in her flat until her estate was wound up. In this period I came upon an advertisement by VSA, Volunteer Service Abroad, an organisation that puts NZ citizens with special ised experience into third world countries to help their development. One of VSA's vacancies was for a civil engineering specialist to aid in the development of schools in Bhutan, a country almost surrounded by India, except for its northern border, which runs along the ridge of the Himalayan watershed, with Tibet-China. Bhutan government had told VSA that they wanted a civil engineer to work alongside a couple of their polytechnic graduates in building rural boarding schools.

The work and the location appealed to me and so I put in an application, was invited later to an interview in Wellington at VSA offices, passed the various interviews and the health examination, and eventually was packed off to Bhutan along with free flight tickets organised by VSA and House of Travel travel agency, a one month living allowance and instructions as to how I would be met in Bhutan by the local VSA director taken to living quarters and introduced to members of the Education Department of the Bhutanese Government and to members of the Department involved in the school construction development.

Everything went according to plan, and after a stop-over in Bangkok and transferring to Druk Air, Bhutan's own airline, I eventually found myself looking down from Druk Air's plane at hills as the plane appeared to glide between them at low level. It was coming in so low, if it had been in NZ, the sheep or cattle would have been scattering wildly every which way, at the planes approach. Druk Air operates two BAe146-100 series and two A319 planes that were chosen as most suitable for this particular route. Druk Air has destinations in Bangkok, Bodhgaya, Calcutta, Dacca, Delhi, Kathmandu, and its home in Paro, Bhutan.

In Paro, after the usual airport formalities, I was greeted by the VSA local director who took me in her jeep type vehicle to Thimpu, the capital of Bhutan. The road if I recall it correctly, as the Director was busy briefing me and answering questions as we drove along, was following a river valley and was windy and hilly, as would be expected in this country which is mountainous apart from a narrow strip along its southern Indian border.

Thimpu is in a relatively narrow valley beside the Thimpu River at an elevation of 2350m / 7710ft,which is higher than Kathmandu at 1,355 m (4,445.5 ft.). I was accommodated in a hotel for a about a week and then the Director found me more permanent digs in Thimpu on the third floor of an apartment building, that also had casual accommodation for other VSA volunteers passing through or visiting a government department regarding some aspect of their work. On the ground floor lived the building's owners who also had a boutique type shop. They also leased out a small restaurant premises, that was very popular, partly because of its proximity to the volunteer accommodation, but also because of its cuisine slanted towards foreigners and its clean reputation. Most volunteers popped in there while in Thimpu. I became quite acquainted with the building owners and their children, and was on occasion invited for a meal in their apartment. A specialty in Bhutan is a meal prepared from a local cheese and green chilli. I gradually over my time in Bhutan grew to be able to cope with this meal and to even enjoy it.

My initial professional time in Thimpu was spent at the design office, working alongside the Belgium consultant architect and draughting staff, preparing the plans for the first school under the scheme at a place called Yebilapcha which was a day and half of travel from Thimpu with a stop at a notable town called Tongsa or Trongsa which is the site of the birthplace of the first Bhutanese king, At Trongsa as with other strategic locations in Bhutan, there are buildings called zhongs that are fortress-monastries. The earlier history of Bhutan being rather alike to medieval England with the equivalent of powerul barons called penlopss, who lived in these zhongs with their warrior-monks and ruled over their districts with absolute power.

Before we made our trip to Yeblilapcha, in truth it was my first job trip in Bhutan, we were to make a trip more directly to the south from Thimpu. As I knew it was going to be a windy journey in the back seat of a Hilux, I went to the local pharmacy and bought some car-sickness pills and took them before the trip. I only get carsick in the rear seat of vehicles on winding roads, and I did not want to make a bore of myself on this first trip with my counterparts, having the vehicle stopped every so often to allow me to vomit, or me vomiting into a bag adjacent to someone, so I took a double dose. Well I became a greater bore because I was almost totally 'out of it' on the trip and was no company to the rest of the vehicle's occupants. Even on reaching our destination I had to be almost led up stairs to my sleeping room. A rather ignominious start to my work in Bhutan.

It was some weeks before plans had proceeded sufficiently and transport and my counterpart engineer graduates were all prepared and we were taken by 4-wheel drive Toyota Hilux driven by a government driver to Yebilapcha. We stayed at Trongsa overnight at the rather interesting Thimpu Hotel, run by a Tibetan family. The food was basically Tibetan, but the Tibetan lady who seemed to be mainly in control, prepared meals that suited foreign tongues and stomachs, and she was such a great hostess! Guests would sit around a table in the kitchen on forms while she prepared meals and she conversed in English wi th them, and everybody drank tea or alcoholic drink as they waited for the meal. The bedrooms were very basic, with raw timber walls with gaps between and hard timber floors without beds. I slept in my sleeping bag but the Bhutanese young men spread out their gohs, a woven woolen garment with sleeves but otherwise is a long robe, that during the day is hitched up to slightly below knee level with a woven belt. But at night the goh is removed and spread out, lay upon and then wrapped around its owner.

The next morning we presented ourselves at the Trongsa Dzong and were taken through to meet the Dzongda who these days is a local district official. The Trongsa Dzong is the largest in Bhutan and its size reflects the power of those pastime penlops or local barons. In 1907 the Trongsa Penlop becoming the first king of Bhutan. The current Trongsa Dzongda or local district administrator was like any person commanding such a post; he looked a man of decision and authority. and was wearing the national dress. Trongsa is in a particularly strategic position, being at the crossroads of the roads from the west, east, north and south. After our interview with the Dzongda, we then continued our journey, but now proceeded downwards and southwards to Yebilapcha, whidh is about halfway to the Indian border.

Yebilapcha is a very small village beside a fast-running river that at this point is set in a narrow gorge. On one bank there is an Indian Army road construction camp, and on the other bank the village of Yebilapcha. Over the period I was at Yebilapcha I became friends with a Sikh engineer stationed in the camp and we often played host to each other for meals. The site for the school complex was a kilometre further on to the south and was adjacent to a previous leprosy colony hospital. But as leprosy has been eradicated from Bhutan, the hospital which was run by a religious order was now offering offering services to the district. I was accommodated in a staff flat of the hospital while working there.

The school site on that first visit was just land overgrown with long grass, on moderately sloping ground, a little lower than the ground o which the hospital was situated. The before-mentioned river ran by, low in the gorge, at the site's back boundary. The school was designed to have separately sited dormitories for boys and girls, as well as kitchens, storerooms and dining rooms. Us three engineers got the site set-out, using theodolites, tapes and levels, in about a week and while we were doing the setting-out, contract labour was collecting stone from the river banks for the walls of the buildings. The Bhutanese Government had decreed that all architecture in Bhutan follows traditional Bhutanese architectural styles, and so the school buildings were all built of stone with slate roofs, and the window and door framing and other details were also strictly prescribed in size, shape colour and decoration.

Work progressed smoothly enough, and sometimes I had to make trips back to Thimpu to see the architect. One occasion was to bring back the motor-cycle made avaiable to us site staff. I had to wait in Thimpu for a week or so before it was finally available and it eventuated that as there was no transport expected to be going to Yebilapcha for some time I had the choice of leaving it for that transport to bring or riding it back myself, which I did. At the higher altitudes I was riding at, the petrol tank was rather cool between the thighs, but apart trom that and meeting buffaloes on the roads and some narrow sections where the road had slipped, the trip went without incident.

Another trip I made on the motorbike was to the south from Yebilapcha towards the Indian border. Ii involved a trip over a high pass and it was during a wet season. It was a very exhilirating trip, with lots of heavy rain, banana and other vegetation flying across the road, villagers holding banana leaves as umbrellas, and making stops at villages for meals and tea. It is fortunate that the main trunk roads in Bhutan are sealed, because it makes trips so much more comfortable and in some instances more safe.

I was involved in about five or six school sites throughout Bhutan, and that in itself was interesting, but so was seeing all the different areas of Bhutan and the different local cultures and languages in these areas. My whole Bhutan experience was so rewarding, because of the work, the unique nature of Bhutan and the length of time and the scope of the travel involved in my work. Also it was a pleasure working with the Education Department staff, especially my young counterpart Bhutanese engineers. I also made some great friendships while there. and I would like to return to Bhutan sometime and try and find some of these people.

That visit to Bhutan as a volunteer has been the main theme of this story, but my trip to England and trips through Europe were also something that has broadened my horizons and increased my understanding and empathy with people of foreign accent, language and culture. It all exists in you forever and you are often not aware of its existence except perhaps when you see some person without those experiences, attitudes, reactions or treatment of some foreigner. I was bred by 2nd and 4th generation Pakeha parents in a pakeha New Zealand where Chinese were accepted as greengrocer shops operators, and Maori labouring on the roads, and serving as maids in hotels, but not much anywhere else.. Although in later years I came to be able to realise the narrowness and racialism of my natural reactions to other races, I think it really needed the overseas experiences I had, to wholly overcome those reactions and prejudices built-in in my younger years.

Recently I have designed a website in which I compare three small countries I have known: Bhutan, New Zealand and Switzerland.

You can visit it at: : http://www.bhutannzswitzerland.orcon.net.nz/ I designed the website partly hoping through certain contacts to perhaps earn me another trip to Bhutan and partly because I am interested in computers, the internet and website design. It is my first website, and I enjoyed the creativity of making it but also in refreshing my memories of the travels mentioned in the story above.

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Donal Munro
September 2007

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