Another Chimi I met last night worked for almost 20 years in the government, ending up leading (I think) the Policy and Planning division of the Ministry of Agriculture before deciding that she’d repaid the government for her education and left to work in the Tarayana Foundation.
I know little of the foundation and my main interest in our discussion were her plans for retirement. A self-confessed workaholic, she knew that she’d need to stay involved in something like Tarayana for as long as she could, but the big decision would be where to live. She currently lives in the ancestral home in the heart of Thimphu and doesn’t like the thought of spending the rest of her life in the growing town. Thimphu was built to cater for 20,000 people, she told me. All the sewerage, water supply, everything was created for 20.000, but it’s already at 80,000.’ And with the growing human population comes a proportionate growth in the canine population.
But where to go? Chimi had refused any number of opportunities to work overseas and wasn’t about to leave now. Bhutanese are tied to their homeland and to their ancestral homes. She’d have to leave the home to one of her younger sisters, but then where? She’d been making a list of places in Bhutan that might be right, but it had become a running joke in her family that she was crossing places off the list faster than she was adding them on.
And then there’s the issue of family support. She’d have to stay close enough that the 6 siblings could eat together a few times each week. And she fears the loss of that closeness for the Bhutanese culture as the country opens itself up to western influences. Apparently, one of Tarayana’s objectives is to raise awareness about the potential loss of those values and what impact that would have on society, but I think that’s another post.