***I came through this article when i was trying to compile information about my village. It is worth to retrieve with so many things to be cherished growing in remote village.
Time Out: The royal entourage at a break during the arduous trek
We stood ready in
Zimzorong, carrying rucksacks filled with medicines, knee caps, dried food,
raincoats, pain relieving sprays, bottles of water, glucose and the like for
the 12-day walk with His Majesty through the remotest gewogs in Mongar and
Pemagatsel in eastern Bhutan.
Zimzorong is a footpath
junction on the Gyelpoizhing-Nganglam highway that is still under construction
and 14 km from Gyelpozhing town. It has four shops that sell everything from
clothes to liquor and serve villages in Khengkar gewog.
“It’s a difficult
journey and the villages on the way have nothing at all,†someone told us in
Gyelpozhing town when we began the walk three days ago.
From Zimzorong’ it is a
two-hour steep winding climb through the pine trees to Tongla village. Nothing
moved. The only sound we heard was our footsteps on the gravel path and heavy
panting. The dry hard earth emitted so much heat that afternoon we were bathed
in perspiration that dripped into the eyes.
The descent from the
chorten in Yudari village hurt our knees. The lights of Kengkhar school seemed
to move farther away as we jogged towards it. We slept in the classroom right
after dinner.
On the third day, still
hours away from our destination, Pam village, night began to set in. Even as we
rushed to get out of the woods, our feet felt heavier with each step up the
climb, the heavy Hitec boots forcing them to drag on the dusty path.
Our hands swelled as the
heavy backpack straps pressed hard on our shoulders. Minutes ago in Gorthongla,
a villager had said that it would take another hour and a half to get to Pam.
For us, non-regular walkers, it meant more than two hours.
The journey we had made
with such difficulty is usual activity for even children in the villages.
Primary school kids, villagers said, do dozen of trips during the vacation to
sell oranges and earn money for school expenses. In Kengkhar school, children
walk for two hours everyday to fetch water for the school mess.
Many a time, villagers tread
that path to Gyelpozhing just to buy a pair of slippers or a bag of imported
rice.
“We can’t buy from the
local shops because the prices are almost double,†said a villager in Jurmi.
Pam village does not even have a shop. The nearest one is a day’s walk.
The next two days took us
through the country’s poorest villages in Gongdu gewog. There were also
places and people with interesting names. The names of the villages end in ri
(Udari, Nanari..) which means river, but the villagers face acute shortage of
water. A man in the village is called Nga Da Gyalpo (His Majesty the King).
Most of the houses are
made of bamboo and use banana leaves as roofing material. They seem to be
clinging to steep rocky hillsides. Besides orange trees, there were patches of
clearing in the forests surrounding the houses indicating the practice of slash
and burn cultivation to grow maize.
Climbing and sliding down
the rocky hillside, we moved further down south from Kengkhar, where land
fragmentation has pressured farmers from 50 villages to take up slash and burn
cultivation in Weringla dungkhag.
The Weringla dungpa said
that, though the place has huge potential in horticulture, limited land,
coupled with lack of market, has been a problem.
Lengkhong, 65, a father of
10 children from Gongdu, admitted there is no future for his children in the
village. Not in the way he sees it. Thus, eight of his children are away.
“We’ve no road connection or electricity,†he said. But they have a drinking water
supply.
Women waited along the way
dressed in their best to welcome us. They offered ara (local brew) from huge
traditional bamboo flasks and fruits as part of their tradition.
Many of them are happily
married, but most were divorced. Tandin Wangmo’s first husband died when her
two sons were toddlers. She met another man from whom she has a daughter, but
his relatives disapproved of their marriage.
There are many like her.
Tandin’s eldest son, aged 14, used to work in the fields to help her raise
the family. Her three children are now amongst hundreds from the dzongkhag to
receive the education allowance kidu.
The high rate of divorce
has left many vulnerable children and destitute people in the villages. Its
number seemed to grow with every village we went through.
But most of these rural
villages have access to the cellular network. A villager in Gorthongla village
does not mind walking for an hour to Pam and back, several times a week to
recharge mobile phone batteries. “Mobile is the only luxury we have,†said Leki. Friends and
family members in towns recharge their phone vouchers.
As the journey continued,
we saw villagers now peacefully cultivating in areas where the Indian militants
had once camped a decade ago. The fields are so steep, a slip means rolling
down to the bottom of the valley.
Yet villagers are hopeful.
The Gyelposhing-Nganglam highway, which passes through the villages on the
banks of the Dangmechu, could help them out of poverty within a few years. A
massive hydro electric project is also planned along the river.
On the last day of the
walk, a crimson western sky turned to a grey blanket and slowly spread across
the sky. We took part in a tshogchang and rested. We drank the milk and ate
tengma (flattened maize). There was one last descent and a climb before getting
to a mining road in Nganglam, Pemagatsel. As we left, the women bid us
farewell, singing and waving scarves from a hill until we could no longer see
them.
 Source: Kuenselonline
