Life around Thimphu was fun, chaotic and full of wonder. Beautiful babies in colorful blankets tied to their parents backs in patterned tapestries. Businessmen and women headed home from work in traditional clothing. Dog packs that roam the streets. Markets full of local products and those from India. It was dirty, and safe and always full of stimulation.
Many of the days around Thimphu I was at work while Traverse and the kids explored. What quickly happened however, was the kids created their own routine and Traverse his. The kids jumped into life in Thimphu. The had the privilege of working at a cafe, taking orders, serving customers, and on down time petting the cat and having lengthy philosophical conversations with the owner's 10 year old boy about music likes and school routines. They volunteered at an animal shelter, took art & dancing classes and became expert bakers in our toaster oven.
The highlight for them however was their fast friendship with three amazing girls. Originally from the US they have been in Bhutan almost 10 years, being homeschooled by their physician mom while their physician dad works at health care reform in the county. They went from awkward small talk to endless sleepovers. It became a joke that if Lily was still in their house after our plane left, they would think she was staying for good. Their friendship was the easy kind of kindred souls who could get along for days on end with little to no tension, who could challenge each other on their budding philosophies about how the world works and their role in it all.
There is no way in words to summarize all we did and saw for the six weeks around town, so here is a collection of pictures, of the few brief moments we would get out the phone and capture the reality of our home.
A local trail overlooking Thimphu and Isabelle taking it all in.
I love this picture Traverse took of a new park in Thimphu. There was never really anything that was rushed while we were here, always moving slowly, “oh la”, always with respect and reflection.
Lily helped capture this photo, as this was her happy place.
These dogs live by our apartment. The one to the far right is named Scuffles. The one next closest to Scuffles, is Ranger, Ranger always wants to come in the house, but we never let him. The black dog casting a shadow next to Ranger, is Luka. Luka is very shy and is very skinny. The dog behind Luka, who is black and white, that dogs name is Missy. (We named it Missy because it looks like our neighbors dog who’s name is Missy.) Missy always comes up to you to get attention, but she has hair loss so we never want to pet her. The gold dog next to Missy is named Charlie. Charlie is nice, but never eats the food you give him. The fluffy back and orange dog in the back is named Peter. Peter is lazy, and never wants to get up from where is laying, so when you walk up to him all he does is lift up his leg and waits for you to scratch his belly. Last but not least, the dog laying down on the box, who is brown and white, is Max. The reason its Max is because we thought she was a boy, but when we found out it was a girl, the name had stuck. Max is also the dog we let in the house at night. I try to give him dog food but she is to picky, she only drinks milk and eats dog food with warm grease on it.
Lily in her happy place.
Volunteering at the Animal Shelter as the girls could not get enough of the dog and there were always more than you could imagine.
Volunteering with friends at the animal shelter
More puppy time with friends.
I love this picture, they asked this women if she wanted to hold a puppy and she picked up this big dog.
Making dog food.
The Buddha above town where many hikes start.
Overlooking Thimphu.
Headed up the hill under more prayer flags.
Getting out and about.
Was the trail up here? Over there?
Big smiles and big hikes.
Love what these two bring to every adventure.
Off in their own world, talking about who knows what, always making me smile.
Trying to fit in, by wearing our Kira’s and tagos.
Dzong in Thimphu.
Local Market and shopping with the locals.
Ancient prayer wheels
Payer built in everywhere we look.
Not sure what this all means, but I kept thinking it was ancient emojis.
Layers of history.
Traditional arrows.
Getting produce from the local market.
People drying meet outside our house.
Yak cheese!!
This is the cat kali that lives in ambient cafe.
At ambaint cafe talking over life with the owner’s son and good friend by the time we left.
The girls did hip hop dance lessons.
Washing our laundry like the locals.
From Lily - “Look at this picture, look at it again. Do you see how many layers we have on in our bed!!’ This was our average clothing in the apartment most evenings.
A beautiful 5 mile run from the house: to the Buddha and home. Too bad it didn’t happen more often.
Local chorten where people walked daily in clockwise playful circles.
I saw my mom looking down from the gym at us as she finished off running on New Years eve - 2018 miles in 2018 with her friend back home. Yah!
A jungle of wires!! This is what living in Bhutan felt like, it worked, it was just not your conventional way of doing things and sometime sparked.
We did a cafe with our friends.
We put out a tip jar, and it looked like quite a lot, but when we counted it out it was only 56 cents each.