Update: Day 24

At the uncomfortably early hour of 5:00am, we rolled out of bed and scrambled to finish packing our belongings for the road home. With barely any breakfast, we left for Tenzin Higher Secondary School in Paro at around 6:00am. We will be spending the remainder of our trip in Paro, going to classes in Tenzin on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday and hiking up to Bhutan's famous Tiger's Nest on Sunday. So as we drove by the gate to Thimphu one more time, we looked back into the city, thinking of all the incredible experiences and people that we were leaving behind. Needless to say, it was a quiet car ride to Paro. Some of us slept while others simply stared out the window as we swerved around mountain after mountain during this early morning drive. We arrived at Tenzin in time for morning prayer and were greeted by the principle, vice Principle, and many former students of Tashidingkha (many students from Tashidingkha come to Tenzin after they graduate) that Julian had met in the previous year. The facilities were well kept and nicely designed, with traditional Bhutanese orange and red colors. As the students lined up single file for prayer, we were greeted by possibly the warmest reception we have received from any school on this trip. We shook hands with smiling teachers and students alike and discussed the future plans for the Gross National Happiness Exchange Program. Even the morning assembly was given a twist upon our arrival. Instead of a simple prayer to the god of wisdom, the students sang a special school song to greet us, which went on for over ten minutes. The remainder of the morning assembly went as it had in all other schools. The students prayed for a few minutes, the principle gave a quick speech announcing our arrival, and Julian gave a brief talk to the students, introducing our team and discussing the exchange program. Immediately the assembly, we were taken on a tour of the school campus. We were impressed to see that the school was home to numerous cafes (where we sat down to have tea) and a swimming pool and weight room (something no other school had). Although the school certainly felt rural, it seemed like a much more updated and expensive version of Tashidingkha with many more resources (including internet) at its disposal. We sat down for a lunch with the the Tenzin staff and celebrated Indian Independence Day with the large number of Indian teachers at the school. After a few cheers and a couple cups of mango juice, we left the staff lounge to finally go sit in on classes. Each of us were asked to go to a separate class and give a half hour lecture about American culture and how are experience in Bhutan has been thus far. We asked questions to each class about Bhutanese culture, Gross National Happiness, and their time in Tenzin. We found students in Tenzin to be much more responsive than the ones in Tashidingkha as they were far more responsive and eager to interact and participate in classroom discussions. When our lecture time had ended, we were given the opportunity to freely sit in on various classes of our choice, which ranged from English to physics to Buddhist culture. Typically, we would sit in on classes that we were more familiar with and act as a teacher's assistant to help students understand some of the material that they found challenging. For example, in an 11th grade English class (taught by a woman from Mumbai) Julian would often be asked to stand up and explain/re-read a part of a short story to help the students understand it in greater detail. After the school day had ended, we were invited to a school music competition titled the "Tenzin Idol". In the school's gym size auditorium, students would stand on stage and dance/sing to a certain song. The music choices ranged from traditional Bhutanese songs to modern Western hits... or even a combination of the two. We thoroughly enjoyed watching the performances and after all the participants had completed their act, Nathan and Kuba were called upon from the audience to sing a somewhat comical interpretation of "Piano Man" by Billy Joel. Without music (or much vocal training), Kuba and Nathan still managed to gain the roaring applause from their audience and when the winners of the competition were finally announced, we too enjoyed joining the students in their applause. At none of the other schools that we visited did we feel as immersed and part of a community as we did in Tenzin.