I am only human

All of us have priorities in our lives. I have always thought happiness to be my first priority and it still is but sometimes I wonder if I was sick would I be happy. So shouldn’t health be my first priority. If there was no peace here would I be happy. I don’t know. But I am not sick (at least for now) and I am in a peaceful country so for now my priority is still happiness. But for someone living in a country fraught with war, their first priority might be peace. For someone living in a prison, their first priority might be freedom. And for someone who is sick, their first priority might be health. It all depends on each of our lives, how we might choose what is most important for us.

But oftentimes we take things that we have for granted, things that have always been there, things that we have always been able to do so there has never been a reason to think about them.  I have never thought about being able to walk, to talk, to write and I have never been grateful for being able to do these. Instead I have wasted endless hours wishing for things I didn’t have, things that wouldn’t necessarily bring me happiness. And I believe that is what most of us do, we wish for a bigger car when there are people who just want to be able to walk. We waste piles of money buying things just to show other people (who don’t even care about you) that you are fancy when there are thousands who don’t have enough for one meal also. Most of us, we waste half of our lives wishing for luxuries which when we finally achieve does nothing but leaves us wanting even more.

I guess that’s why we are here, still a long way from enlightenment. I wish I could stop wishing for more. I realize it’s wrong, I realize I am being greedy because I already have so much but I am only human…J

Gender

Sex         – refers to the biological characteristics which define humans as       

                   female or male

Gender  – refers to the culturally based expectations of the roles and 

                  behaviors of men and women                                                                                                                                                        

                                                                         – Gender & Elections, BRIDGE

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when we say gender? Are gender issues just about women? If it is not, then why are most issues about gender related to women?

Well, let me share my opinions with you. When we talk about gender, the two words that come to my mind first are equity and women. Now I know, one of those two words is women, but gender issues are not just about women as most seem to think ( at least most people I have met seem to think so). The following are some statistics that might interest you.

	Female	Male
Local Leaders	5%	95%
Parliamentary Representation	14%	86%
Dzongdags	5%	95%
Unemployed	65.9%	34.1%
Illiterate	65.6%	34.4%

(Some of these data’s are old and may have changed)

(P.S: I had originally made a beautifully colored graph to make my stats look more attractive but I just couldn’t figure out how to get it in my blog. So I guess the table will have to do to get my message out…. J)

Looking at the table above, it’s easy to understand why gender issues are mostly about women. And this is not just Bhutan’s problem. Women occupy 17% of parliamentary seats around the world and out of the 180 heads of Government, only 12 were women as of April, 2007.

 If we look at the table, for the first few bars which shows parliamentary representation, leaders, etc., the male percentage is very much high. But when it comes to disadvantages, the percentages are sadly reversed.

I don’t know whose fault it is. It’s something that has been bred into us, if you know what I mean. For thousands of years, we have believed that the male are the superior of the two and it’s not easy to just wake up one day and change all that. I am someone who believes there should be gender equity but I have also been stereotyping, although unknowingly. I always bought my daughter something pink, with flowers and princess print on them and Barbies. And I bought blue for my nephew and trucks and Ben 10 stuffs. You may think that these things are very subtle and hardly matters but now when they talk, they say that pink is for girls and blue for boys, Barbie for girls and trucks for boys. It was not intentional on my part but sadly I was the one who shaped them that way – I bred it into them.

So if you are reading this, begin your journey with me. Doesn’t matter how small your step, just take it. Buy your daughters guns and trucks and boxing gloves. Tell them they are inferior to no one, so that one wonderful day, we may be able to change the statistics that I have just shown above.

I can’t say that I will change the world overnight, but I sincerely believe that I have begun my journey……

                                         

                                         

Facilitation - a new skill

I am currently in Paro, co-facilitating a BRIDGE(Building Resources In Democracy, Governance and Elections)  workshop at Tashi Namgay Resort. Yesterday was the first day and it was a bit intimidating at first facing 31 adults, who work for the ECB while I, who works as a GAO, am trying to teach them something about election and that is also with Brian and Beatrice watching my every move. I am sure they could tell that I was a nervous wreck during the introduction and that did nothing to boost my morale either.

My nerves got calmer as the day progressed and after sometime I was doing fine(at least I hoped so....:)) But we have a very quiet group of 16 females and 16 males this time. At first I worried that it was me, thinking that maybe I was not clear enough or that I was not doing it in an interesting manner but they were the same when Brian and Beatrice and Tashi did their presentations also. I guess they were a bit shy since it was the first day yesterday and today they were a bit more responsive, they just needed a little push. We weren't getting any volunteers so we just got some people to do things and they did them quite well - I guess they are just not the voluntary type.

The two days have been hectic with early mornings and late nights, preparing presentations and trying out different ways because we don't have very outspoken participants. There's a lot of skills and preparation involved here and I don't know how the teachers do it day in and day out(no wonder my husband complained so much - it IS a lot of hard work). Tashi and I will be busy the whole morning tomorrow with the 'First Past the Post' mock election. Sigh....it's going to be another hectic morning and although three more co-facilitators will be joining us, they are just driving in from Thimphu in the morning so they won't have any preparation time. That just leaves us then.

All things said, it has been a very good learning experience for me and I am glad I got this opportunity. Hopefully I can become a workshop facilitator soon, then an accrediting facilitator and finally an expert facilitator. Its just wishful thinking, but hey, who knows! So keep your fingers crossed for me!

I shall write for you

I am Tshering. Married to a handsome husband with a beautiful daughter. I have always been interested in writing something, anything, but never had the confidence to do so. Oftentimes I would write, but my so called articles were fated to end up in the dustbin because I never had the confidence to either show it someone or get them published somewhere. So till now my relationship with my writing has been one of getting it out of my mind and onto a paper which ultimately went to the garbage.

My dear husband always had more confidence in me and has always encouraged me to write. This blog was also his idea and he has been pestering me to write for ages now. He is currently in Gujarat doing his Masters and every evening when I call him he asks me if I had written something on my blog (So much so that I can even hear him in my dreams). I have been making up excuses till now, and finally, since I am really running out of excuses, I am attempting to write something. I have no idea what I am writing but when I call Sonam in the evening and when he asks me that question, I can finally say, "Yes, I have written something".

I guess since this is my first, I will just write a little bit about everything. Umm...lets see, I have talked about my family a bit, so now, I should say a little bit about my work. I work In Gasa as a GAO and we were the first ever to fill this position. As is our Government's policy, we were sent to the Gewogs with no idea of what we were supposed to do, no terms of reference and with a lot of nonsense fed to us about how "important" we were. So in 2007, I came to Damji and went to office only to find it locked without a soul around and only trees for company. Its almost been five years to that day and a lot of things have changed now. The trees, for instance, have relatively thinned, and a lot of infrastructures have come up. There's always one person or another standing around so you don't feel like you are the only person on the planet anymore. Yet, I wonder if I have made a difference or after five years of living here and working here and giving it your everything, I leave and nobody would notice. Or if people will remember me for something that I have done. I guess I can only wonder.

With nothing else coming to my mind I think I will sign off here. I am too tempted to delete the whole thing but I don't want to go through the whole process of being questioned and making excuses so I will let this one be. At least I am confident that ONE person, that is my hubby darling, will read it, so with that satisfaction I will have written something...today. Thank you Sonam for making this dream of mine come true also. If not for anything else, I shall write for you......