Home again, home again

We’ve made it back to the USA and our gradual cultural re-assimilation is underway. Content for many more posts will be forthcoming but we felt it timely to post some parting photos in the meantime. For those pictured who follow this blog, please post any names I have missed in the comment section and I will update this blog posting. I love you all and look forward to meeting you again.

The time for our departure from Bhutan came far too quickly and with a flurry of last minute duties and enjoyable social events. Above, the staff of the psychiatric department organized a warm send-off. Pictured are Drs. Chencho Dorji, Bikram Chhetri and Damber Nirola. Dr. Bikram, now the acting head of the department, was a third year resident during our 2019 visit to Bhutan.

These three counselors were third year counseling students in 2019. Their professional growth since that time has been amazing and I enjoyed every minute of working with them this visit. After graduating, it was determined that an additional year of attachment to the psychiatry department would better prepare them for the clinical demands they will face when posted in the district hospitals. In the meantime, it was determined they would alternatively serve on completion of the attachment as counselors for the new Gyalsung program, the mandatory year of service and skill training for all eighteen year olds in Bhutan to begin this September.

Two members of this year’s graduating class of six clinical counseling students. I look forward to working with them next Spring when they are attached for an internship year with the department.

Dinner at Dr. Nirola’s. Amazingly, every psychiatrist currently in Bhutan is in this picture, a total of six, including Dr. Puja and Dr. Ngawang, second and fourth year psychiatric residents.

Dr. Rabgay, amazing intern and star center for the Bhutan National Basketball team, Tshering Yangden, supervisor for the installation of auto charging stations in Bhutan, and her husband, second year psychiatric resident Ngawang Samten, a free flowing encyclopedia of knowledge and an eager and adept learner. We had a wonderful Indian dinner just a few nights before our departure, with a rooftop view of the city of Thimphu.

Wrapping things up with the Bhutan Nuns Foundation, I conducted a workshop on Buddhist Chaplaincy. Four of the nuns and the director, Dr. Tashi Zangmo, spoke English and translated for a lively and mutually beneficial conversation. (They only stopped smiling for the photo.)

Unfortunately, we missed an opportunity for a photo during a farewell lunch with the Draktsho staff. Here are earlier photos with Madam Deki, the director, Mutsuko, a seamstress from Japan that supervised Margaret’s stitching, and Dawa, the weaving instructor. Dawa wove the kira that Margaret is wearing in the photos. A later post will explore Margaret’s volunteer work at Draktsho.

Dinner at Pabi’s, with Kinley and Tshering, all true friends. Pabi and Kinley are the oncology nurses Margaret worked with in 2019. We had dinner at Kinley and Tshering’s just a few days before this as well, blessed this year with generosity and warmth wherever we turned.

Lots more to come….