What I Will Not Miss About Bhutan

The lone school photocopier does not make multiple copies; if you try to make more than 10 or so, it eats the paper.  In addition, we are discouraged from using too much paper and ink.  So, to avoid using the photocopier to make exam prep worksheets for my 80 class 11 students, I try to use a projector.

9:15 am: In the Staff Room, I ask Karma Choedup for the key to the CR Lab (a computer lab); he says it is with Madame Dechen who is in the Conference Room across campus.  She says it is with Sir Binod Rai who is in the Staff Room.  Binod Rai says it is with Sonam Phuntsho who is there in the CR Lab now.  I go to the CR Lab and indeed he is there and is happy to give me the key, but there in no longer a projector in the room.  If I like, he suggests, I can use the projector that is in the Conference Room.  But the Conference Room is being used for exam prep.  So I go to the other Computer Lab beneath the Staff Room; it is locked.  I ask Sir Karma Wangchuk, the Computer Lab Assistant, for the key--it is with Sir Tashi who is on leave and Karma Wangchuk claims he doesn’t have his own key.  He suggests I ask Vinod V for the projector, but Vinod has told me that the projector he uses belongs to him and he will not lend it to anyone.  Everyone else asserts that it belongs to the school.  Anyway, I cannot find Vinod V. because he on leave.  I go to the Conference Room hoping I can take the projector out of that room and use it in the CR Lab.  There is no projector in the Conference Room. I go to the Principal and tell him I need a projector.  He calls Sir Tashi who is on leave and tells him to figure out how to get me a projector.  I begin correcting exams at a picnic table near the Computer Lab as I wait for a projector to miraculously appear.  After a few minutes, I hear the lock on the Lab door pop and the door open.  I turn to see Sir Karma Wangchuk--who said he didn’t have a key--enter the Lab. After about ten minutes, he emerges to tell me that Sir Tashi called to tell him to tell me I should use Vinod V’s projector which he keeps in his desk in the Staff Room.  At 11:30 am, we both go to Vinod’s desk; it isn’t there.  We look in his wife’s desk, and lo and behold there is a school projector in a ratty black canvas bag stuffed behind a briefcase full of exam papers. Miraculous.