This is the final week of English summer school. Baby and Kunga worked very hard to finish their projects.
Baby finished her eight essays in English. Kunga did a book report on the novel “Heidi”, and made a model of the solar system.
Kunga finished his model of the solar system. He used paper mache over balloons, painted each planet and arranged them in their orbits – an excellent accomplishment!
Kunga wrote a lab report to describe how he made the solar system model.
This is one of many pages in Baby’s essay book. She wrote many many pages. This is her history paper about Mahatma Gandhi. In her private boarding school here in Bhutan, computers and cell phones are not allowed. They must be left at home. Yep. The students must hand-write many many pages. The school doesn’t allow packaged junk food either. How about that?
We take a walk every day, and enjoy a stunning view down the hill from our house.
We went wading in the forest stream!
With Kunga in the stream.
We’re making banana smoothies with yogurt, which is called “curd”.
VERY VERY yummy banana smoothies.
This is my sister PemLam. She is married to Lama D’s brother Beyla. PemLam is a very capable school teacher. This month she’s on summer break, and goes back to her home village to help her family plant rice. It’s hard work and all the farmers help each other to share the work.
My sister PamLam milks the family cow. Soon she’ll make butter and cheese. Her parents are getting older, and she says she has to do everything!
My sister Tuji Zam just had a beautiful baby boy. The baby doesn’t exactly have a name yet. They didn’t like the name given by the monks. So for now they call him “Boy Boy”. His sister calls him “George”.
The children jumped at an opportunity to have cake at a local bakery in Paro. But when dinnertime came, they weren’t hungry. So they had no dinner. I allow them to eat all kinds of ridiculous empty foods, in the hopes that they will begin to see a connection between food and how they feel in their bodies. But I’m not sure this method is working.
My books are coming along. This is the new cover of the channeled book of the Buddha. All 36 chapters are finished! Hooray!
These are the Bhutan greeting cards, created from enhanced photos. Inside they have authentic Buddha quotes from the sacred Bhutanese scriptures, called the Kangyur.
English translations from the Kangyur are hard to find, but I FOUND them!
This is an enhanced photo of a festival event, with an authentic Buddha quote from the Tibetan Kangyur.
A finished card with Buddha quote from the Tibetan Kangyur.
This is a revised title and cover of my book on past lives.
It’s almost finished, just 6 chapters to write.
We had buckwheat banana pancakes this morning for breakfast. Gluten-free, grain-free, and Paleo-licious!
Yep. Buckwheat banana pancakes with local curd and mango puree.
This morning’s walk and meditation on the rock.
Tomorrow the children are leaving to go back to their home four hours east in the Wangdue Phodrang district. My role as English teacher is coming to an end as their projects are finished. I’m happy they’ll have a few weeks left to play and enjoy the summer. I think they also secretly miss their grandmother’s cooking. They’re off to boarding school starting July 27th. Whew!
Baby wrote an excellent history paper about the famous Rinpoche that unified Bhutan. So I put it up on the blog. Click here to read her article: Who is Zhabdrung, the Father of Bhutan?