A Baby in a Backpack to Bhutan: An Australian Family in the Land of the Thunder Dragon
Page 23
As we eat there are different conversations going on in Sharchop and English, and the children play happily around us. The mood is relaxed and easy. We feel so much a part of this family. I don’t feel sad to be leaving, just extraordinarily privileged to have become part of their extended family. I’ve gained so much from seeing how they live and raise their children, and the unique, gentle approach to life that all the Bhutanese seem to share.
We will keep in touch by email and I know we will see them all again. Maybe Rinpoche will make another movie here or maybe Mal will need to work on his home and retreat centre in Paro. I’m not sure when or how, but I am sure that somehow we will be back. Didn’t the shaman say that Kathryn would return again and again? Well, when she does, I’m coming too.
Mal takes a photo of the three mothers with the three girls on their laps. Then everyone piles in and the waiter takes one of us all.
Phuntsho Wangmo says that she is winding up her work at the hardware store. It is ready now for a manager to take over. And after she finishes tying up loose ends on the film, she and Renee will go to Phuntsoling to be with Tenzin. ‘Tenzin is happy with the arrangement and I am looking forward to living together with my husband for good,’ she tells me with asmile.
Wesel Wangmo has a ticket for the bus to India tomorrow afternoon and says she will definitely be on it. The time really has come for all of us to say goodbye.
We will go back to Sydney and our life there, though for how long is anyone’s guess. Mal has film festivals to attend as Travellers & Magicians goes out into the world. Then he will be needed in India for the next stage of building in Bir. Kathryn and I will go with him when we can.
The girls fall asleep on the short drive home to Taba and we carry them to their beds. We have an early start. Karma Loday will be picking us up before dawn for the two-hour drive to Paro Airport.
Phuntsho Wangmo comes into our room as we pack and gives us some delicately woven place mats. Karma Yangki follows her with a new cotton kira for Kathryn, apologising that it isn’t much. It is, of course, beautiful. She says she has more plans for changes to the house. It’s not finished yet.
‘I hope when you come back, my home is perfect,’ she says shyly.
I tell her it already is.
Further reading
Babies
Robin Barker, Baby Love, revised edition, Pan Macmillan, Sydney, 2001.
Buddhism
Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, revised edition, HarperSanFrancisco, San Francisco, 1992.
Bhutan
Stan Armington, Lonely Planet Bhutan, 2nd edition, Lonely Planet, Melbourne, 2000.
Barbara Crossette, So Close to Heaven: The Vanishing Buddhist Kingdoms of the Himalayas, Vintage Books, New York, 1995.
Websites
www.buntyavieson.com
www.travellersandmagicians.com
www.kuenselonline.com
www.siddharthasintent.org
www.rigpa.com.au
www.panmacmillan.com.au