Tony Robinson-Smith - The Dragon Run: Two Canadians, Ten Bhutanese, One Stray Dog

Published by

The University of Alberta Press

Ring House 2

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E1

www.uap.ualberta.ca

Copyright 2017 Tony Robinson-Smith

LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION

Robinson-Smith, Tony, 1964, author

The dragon run : two Canadians, ten Bhutanese, one stray dog / Tony Robinson-Smith.

(Wayfarer)

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 9781772123005 (softcover). ISBN 9781772123494 (EPUB). ISBN 9781772123500 (Kindle). ISBN 9781772123517 (PDF)

1. Robinson-Smith, Tony, 1964-. 2. College teachersBhutanBiography. 3. College teachersCanadaBiography. 4. Running racesBhutan. 5. Fund raisingBhutan. 6. EducationBhutan. 7. BhutanSocial conditions21stcentury. I. Title. II. Series: Wayfarer (Edmonton, Alta.)

First edition, rst printing, 2017.

First electronic edition, 2017.

Substantive editing by Kimmy Beach.

Copyediting and proofreading by Meaghan Craven.

Map by Wendy Johnson.

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The University of Alberta Press gratefully acknowledges the support received for its publishing program from the Government of Canada, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Government of Alberta through the Alberta Media Fund.

To Her Majesty the Queen Mother Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck and the Tarayana Foundation

Contents

1 Lamas Blessing

With the blessings of the Trashigang Lam Neten, 10 students and two lecturers of Sherubtse College hit the eastwest highway yesterday in a 600 kilometre marathon from Kanglung to Thimphu to raise funds for poor Bhutanese children .

Final year economics student, Ugyen Lhendup, said he and his friends had covered more than 3,000 kilometres during practice. Were confident, he said .

The boys, however, dread the stretch across the 3,650 metre high Thrumshing La between Bumthang and Mongar. The climb and the cold were expected to pose a challenge .

But its a once in a lifetime opportunity to help unfortunate children avail education, said Sonam Wangdi, a II year English honours student .

KUENSEL, December 22, 2007

Day 1 Itinerary

FROM A BUDDHIST PERSPECTIVE, December 21, 2007, begins auspiciously. The horoscope in last weeks Kuensel assured me it would be a good day to conduct thruesel, and Lam Neten has driven up from Trashigang Dzong specially. The Khenpo, abbot of the local shedra, has come to assist. I am a little concerned that the paper also said it was not a good day to venture on long journey but recall it saying in February, when the lunar year began, that the symbolic good direction is north and south. While starting new ventures or an important task, the datho recommends facing in one of these two directions. We are running west across the Dragon Kingdom, but we start our new venture auspiciously by heading north today to Trashigang.

From an earthly perspective, however, our departure day, although pleasantly warm and dry, does not start out very promisingly. A hundred shouting school kids will descend the mountain with us, I wrote in my first entry on our Tara-thon blog two days ago. My wife Nadya and I had decided earlier in the year that a run for education should involve as many children as possible. We would drop in on all the schools along the way; speak on the value of education, sports, and volunteerism; have the students draw or write about acts of kindness; and get teachers and students to run a few kilometres with us. I sent letters to district education officers (DEOs) across the kingdom, asking them to alert the schools in their dzongkhags. Nadya visited Kanglung Primary School and talked to the head teacher, and Mr. Sangay contacted the primary school in his home village five kilometres down the mountain. As a result of our preparations, at 9:30 A.M., Nadya is ready on the playing field with paper, pens, crayons, and a whistle. No school children, shouting or otherwise. An hour later, she is still there alone. We are also short of the two dashos, the dzongkhag administrator, and the judge from Trashigang.

Today marks the beginning of a great event, I say, not so sure now that it does. It is already eleven oclock, and we have not had the lamas benediction yet. We are expected at Rongthung Primary School in half an hour. We have retreated to a square of worn grass with a jacaranda tree just inside the college entrance. Nadya and Mr. Sangay are at my side, and our student runners, driver, and cook stand behind. Our audience is the college administrators, five Bhutanese lecturers, and four monks sitting on plastic chairs. Team Tara-thon almost outnumbers the well-wishers. I hardly need raise my voice. Sherubtse College is dead now exams are over.

We have given the name Tara-thon to our fundraiser, a word combining Tarayana with marathon

We are lucky to be running for the Tarayana Foundation. At the start of the year, the executive committee rejected our proposal, saying that the foundation was interested more in advocacy than charity, which we took to mean helping the vulnerablehelp themselves, as declared in the leaflet Aum Chime, the secretary general, had given us. Fortunately, Her Majesty the Queen interceded on our behalf, saying that our project was a worthy initiative. After that, things started falling into place. In June Aum Chime promised to get Tara-thon T-shirts printed and sent me a list of schools with Tarayana clubs. In July I sent her a months salary to help with expenses and to confirm our commitment to the project. I wrote to the new director of Sherubtse and asked to borrow the twenty-five-seater college bus for the winter. Mr. Sangay came on board in August to handle logistics. (I think you will need someone to say kuzu zangpo to official and make arrangement.) In September Nadya made a press kit for the media and gave a presentation on our run during morning assembly. She invited students either to run part of the way with us or volunteer to be sponsorship collectors. In November we got news that the minister of education had authorized the release of funds to the DEOs of the six dzongkhags we would cross to provide assistance and support for the Tara-thon program.