By Thomas Jackman Kuwabara

Waking up at 6 in the morning, with the sun, is something I rarely do, but on Wednesday, March 13th, that’s what happened. This wasn’t a normal day for me. March 13th was one of the days I was in Bhutan. This early rise was for an early school day, one that would  become one of the most memorable times in my life. The school was called Ugyen Academy. When I was thinking about Ugyen Academy, before arriving, I had a certain mindset of how this experience would be. I expected to have very little conversations with students and I assumed the majority of the students would try to avoid all of my friends and me. My experience at Ugyen Academy was the opposite of what I had expected. 

When driving through the main gates of Ugyen Academy, I saw many unfamiliar faces of day students arriving at school. With a few smiles from a few students, my nerves started to settle a bit. Getting off the bus and being told to stand in a group at one place made me realize that this experience was actually happening. When looking around, I saw many stares directed our ways from many students. As we were waiting, I gained some insight from the chaos of students getting to their first period into what I would experience at this school. 

After a 30 minute introduction about the school and head staff, my fellow Canadian students and I headed off to our classes. We got separated by our grades, 9-10 and 11-12. The buildup of stress was very high when we were walking to the junior wing of the Academy. Getting split into 2 groups of 5 didn’t help my stress since there was going to be fewer people I actually knew.  Walking into a grade 9 class was a much anticipated and stressful moment for me. When Kieran, Hilary, Nicole, Max, and I were standing in front of the class, getting an introduction, I tried to act as confidently as possible. Even though I was trying to act confident, my hands and head were sweating. 

I saw a spot being opened for me in the left row, in the second last row in the column of desks. I took a seat, put my legs under the desk, and lay my backpack against the outer side of the desk. There were only 2 minutes in which the Bhutanese students were talking among each other, and I was as silent as possible, switching between staring at my water bottle and the chalkboard at the front of the class. Those 2 minutes felt more like a half hour. After a silent, awkward 2 minutes, I heard a “Hello, what is your name?” coming from the boy with whom I was sharing a desk. I said “Hi, my name is Thomas. What’s your name?” We talked for a few minutes with the three boys who were sitting behind us. After some chatting and getting to know each other, I started my first class in Bhutan. This first class was supposed to be math, but it got hijacked by Mr. Spacie and his many scientific tests he had been doing over the first 3 days of the trip. This lesson had me trying to stay awake, partially because of my early morning that day and partially because of the tests boring me. The next classes in the morning were chemistry, history, and Dzongkha, the national language of Bhutan. 

Walking to lunch, I had no idea what was about to happen. I got in line for lunch and was given a tray by a fellow student. When I saw a student walking by with a tray of lunch, my mood went down for a second. The tray was filled with a pile of rice, some curry, and a dissatisfying looking, unknown food. I received my food and sat down at one of the outside benches with Max, Ali, and some of the Bhutanese students.  Beyond the food, I had experienced something I had never personally experienced before, the hospitality of other students. The hospitality reminded me of the RSGC word “Georgian.” I expected that if I wanted more food or water, I would get it, but I was asked by our hosts, “Do you want more food? I’ll get you more.” “Are you still hungry?” and “I’ll get you more food or water if you want.” I was very startled about the UA students asking me about more food, since I had lots of extra food on my plate.

With a break after lunch, I got to connect with the Bhutanese students even more. When chatting on benches, next to the turf, solving a Rubik’s cube, a curved soccer ball shot came right towards my face and made direct contact. I expected this to be the start of my demise, and it seemed true. About 15 minutes later, I had hit my head against the wall, while distracted when walking to classes. 

I was talking in class when all of the Canadian students and I got called out of the classes. We were told that we were going to run the activities we had prepared the previous night. I was ready to run these challenges with a string attached to a rope with grade 11 student Will Rochon. 

As UA middle schoolers were herded onto the turf, Will and I set up our activities and then we directed groups of 8-9 students to rotate through the activities.

 

As our activities came to a close, all students had time off. All the Canadian students went to the basketball court and watched a class vs class basketball game. All the Canadians, except for myself, sat together, while I was sad in the first row with some amazing new friends. After the basketball game, all the RSGC gents were guided towards our dormitory for the night. I was surprised by the size of the dormitory and the conditions of the room. I was given a bed and, with some hesitation, put my bag down on it. I hesitated, since I was leaving my backpack in a room where people who I had met only 12 hours previous to that moment could be in there by themselves.

As time went by, all the girls had gone to dinner, while all the Canadian guys played basketball with a grade 12 from UA as the sun was setting. As the girls were finishing up their dinner, the boys and I walked over for ours. I met up with some of the grade 9 boys and had dinner with them, a high-carb dinner of rice. 

Back in the dorm, the RSGC boys and I connected with the Bhutanese grade 9 boys who were boarding students. The UA students had an hour of night study. How they study is very different from how the average Canadian high schooler studies. The RSGC boys and I shared some jokes while we waited for the study time to be over. It ended with a very loud whistle. With grade 11 student Alistair already passed out, some RSGC and UA students decided to joke with another whistle right next to Alistair’s ear. 

After a few minutes of interaction, it was lights out and the dorm went quiet. Even after being up for nearly 16 hours and running around in the sun for a few hours, I could not fall asleep. In addition to not being able to fall asleep, I was the only Georgian in the section of the dorm I was in, while all the other Georgians had at least one other Georgian right next to them. That made me anxious, since I believed that if anything were to happen to me, no one would know. When staring straight at the ceiling, I could see one student, who may have been the top student in the dorm, walking around the dorm with an end of a broomstick or some other object. I saw him pace back and forth, so I was very scared at that moment. I rolled on my side so I would be able to see him. I saw the broom guy walk to the bed in the middle of the other half of the section I was in. There were two boys in that bed because one of them gave up their bed for one of us, the RSGC students. I saw both of them sit up. I noticed them talking in my peripheral vision. They were talking for a few minutes, and I then decided not to think about it. After 5 minutes of their talking, I saw all three of them walk over in my direction with the duvet from the bed the two boys were in. They stopped right next to me. This was the peak of my fear over this trip to Ugyen Academy. I was getting ready to get out of the bed I was in, curl my fists, and throw some punches, but they decided to swap our duvets. One of them told me “this one is warmer.” I was confused since I was wearing sweatpants, a shirt, and a sweater. In the morning, I found out the guy walking around thought I would be cold. 

The next morning, we got woken up by a loud whistle at 5:30 in the morning. I went up to the classroom I was in the previous morning with some Bhutanese students for their morning studies and I made some small talk. After some time waiting for the girls to finish their breakfast, I had some breakfast, more rice and a half of a banana. 

After a ton of rice, again, the RSGC and SMLS students were at an outer meeting, lined up by classes. We Canadians got an intro to their senior students, grades 10, 11, and 12. There were gifts given to the school and speeches made. I was acting like I was paying attention, but instead, I was thinking about all types of things, such as the questions, “Why are there so many redheads in the grade 10 class? Does the number of redheads in my grade represent the exact percentage of the population?”

After the meeting, the Bhutanese students headed off the classes while we were directed where we were going to go. The RSGC and SMLS students went into grade 10 classes. We got to choose who we would go with and to what class, so Max, Charlie, and I went into one class together. We were taught chemistry and were planning to have a Dzongkha class, but the teacher spoke very limited English, so the chemistry teacher entertained us over the 2nd class. 

After another lunch of rice, I was able to teach Canadian/American football to the grade some 7,8, and 9 students. Trying to teach students football with a tennis ball was a tough thing to teach, but we came through and were able to teach the basic rules of the game. 

Coming up to the last event of the day, the culture show, I was not ready to perform our rendition of ‘Oh Canada’ and our awfully choreographed dance with the song “Cha Cha Slide.” The RSGC, SMLS students, and I walked to the front of the theatre, sat in the front, and waited for the theatre to fill up with lots of students, from grade 7, 8, 9, and 11. As the theatre filled up, I found my newly found friends. As the show went by, I had a bit of time to start thinking about this 36 hour experience. 

The first take away from this experience was the focus of all the Bhutanese students compared to mine. I was able to see several students completely focused on their work. I took their focus back home and started to implement it in my work.

My second take away was the personal connections I had made. Going into this experience, I thought I wouldn’t have a very close relationship with many people over just a day and a half, but I was proven wrong within the first two hours of my time at Ugyen Academy. I was able to connect with many students over a short time. These connections helped me improve my first impressions of them and taught me how to treat people when you have had some assumptions of them already. I was told previously that many of the students knew we came from a first world country and go to an expensive private school in a big city. Even with this knowledge, every student talked to us without any bad thoughts of us.

The biggest takeaway I had from my time at Ugyen Hospitality was the hospitality everyone showed me and everyone else who was on this trip. What I witnessed was something I had never witnessed before and will possibly never experience again. The kindness students showed me surprised me and changed the way I looked at life.