Remembering NS

Sonam Ongmo's post on National Service Experience reminded me of my own national service experience. It was in the mid-1980's and with another four ladies. Three other ladies had dropped out from fear of their own imagined terror and misery in rural areas.

The experience was truly awesome. Nine months! We relished the sweet innocence of the rural people. We were honoured with special treatment by every single community. We were all ladies and were treated like the most beautiful looking girls the rural men had ever set their eyes on. Not kidding!

We visited countless number of rural and remote communities in all the districts (18 at that time) of the country, checking smokeless stoves and health and hygiene for the National Women’s Association of Bhutan (NWAB). We wrote a report at every district and sent it to the NWAB Office in Thimphu. We loved the part when we would identify village people with serious health problems in need of immediate medical attention and send the details to NWAB.

We had moments in the eastern region when we longed for tea. We would most times be greeted with plenty of the locally brewed wine. We would at times get drunk and not be able to walk properly back to our destination. One of us had such a terrible fall in Trashiyangtse once that she had to be led down steep rocky cliffs from Jamkhar to Chazam (bridge). One can imagine how long that might have taken with a sprained ankle to take care of. At other times, the right amount of wine would help us forget the pain and exhaustion from walking for hours. It made us wonder if people there relished the local wine for the relief it brought to them after a hard day’s labour.

We also had moments in the southern region when we would lie down flat on a bench outside a rural house after trying out a few puffs from extremely intoxicating tobacco wrapped in maize cover. It wasn’t surprising that we witnessed at least one elderly person in almost every house coughing badly. The best of all was that we would be greeted with a steel glass of lovely homemade curd – very refreshing when thirsty in the almost unbearable heat of the southern region. The most admirable was their spic and span oven area - a result of applying fresh layers of mud after use every day. I would sometimes feel I might have a vision of some Goddess guarding the kitchen.

Further, we had moments in the western region when we would long for some wine and there would be no trace of it. We were greeted with flasks of milk tea and butter tea each time we managed to get into a house. We would desperately ask, “Do you have some wine that we can buy?” “No!” The toughness and surefootedness of the people in this region was admirable. I interact with vegetable women sellers from Paro at the Thimphu vegetable market today and recognize these qualities in them even today. I silently wish I were as capable as these women in business.

In essence, the national service made us experience a variety of traditions first hand in different regions of the country, besides the hardship of rural life. We saw that our country was heterogeneous in its societal design and culture, each region as warm and hospitable with us irrespective of our origin and poor conditions in the villages. Mingling with the people in whichever part of the country we went to was surely the easiest thing to do. I remember our every moment being made a happy moment by people who actually underwent a lot of hardship on the farms. I think that’s what constitutes the uniqueness of our country – happiness in giving and showing compassion, despite limitations.