Read Buttertea at Sunrise for Free Online

manage to choose a packet of Red Label and acquire a tiny strainer, a bag of powdered milk, and some not so clean and not so white sugar. As a special treat, I ask for some cookies.
    Then the shopkeeper climbs onto a shaky stool and, from a rope suspended from the ceiling, unties two rolls of toilet paper wrapped in foil. He scribbles some numbers on an old piece of newspaper and smiles. We look at each other in mutual sympathy.
    His name is Rinzin Tshockey, and he owns and runs this little shop. A short man, almost disappearing behind his counter, he seems in full control of his dominion. The shop is brighter than the ones I had been to earlier, lit quite efficiently by a huge gas lamp on the counter between 34
    Buttertea at Sunrise_PROOF.indd 34
    Buttertea at Sunrise_PROOF.indd 34
    13/01/2006 14:59:09
    13/01/2006 14:59:09
    F I R S T E N C O U N T E R S
    several jars of sweets. There seems to be more variety in the goods on the shelves. I notice it especially in the cookie section.
    ‘All coming from India,’ he explains. ‘Samdruk Jongkhar bus is arriving every week, but during monsoon, there is often road block. These days we are needing many food for people. So many people in Mongar. Good business now, only power is always going off.’
    Rinzin Tshockey points at the hissing gas lamp. ‘Many Indians coming here for Kuruchu power project. In some years, we have good electricity.’
    ‘Do you bring all of this food from India?’ I ask.
    ‘Not all, madam. But every month I take a truck to Samdruk Jongkhar, you know, to our border with India.
    I am thinking to expand this store. Last time I was buying some Coke. Do you want?
    Rinzin Tshockey points at a lone bottle of Coca Cola amongst a dusty shelf full of canned fruit juices that announce their Bhutanese origin with the label ‘Druk’.
    Amused I shake my head. I am not yet desperate enough to buy Coke.
    ‘Please let me know what you need. I will bring from Samdruk Jongkhar,’ the eager shopkeeper offers.
    ‘Thank you.’ I nod and inspect the other opened bags and baskets in front of the counter. There is a basket with potatoes and, miraculously, another one with broccoli.
    ‘I will get for you, madam. How many you need?’
    Rinzin Tshockey picks up several potatoes, turns them in his hand, checks them for bad spots, and drops only the most satisfactory ones into another plastic bag for me. He adds a head of broccoli.
    ‘Please doctor…’ Already the word has spread throughout town that the blond foreigner is a doctor. I have no idea who anyone is, and yet everyone else seems to be well informed about my identity. Doctor is a word they 35
    Buttertea at Sunrise_PROOF.indd 35
    Buttertea at Sunrise_PROOF.indd 35
    13/01/2006 14:59:10
    13/01/2006 14:59:10
    B U T T E R T E A A T S U N R I S E
    know. ‘Physiotherapist’ will certainly take a while to be remembered. Doctor. I try the title on and find that it sits comfortably. All of a sudden, I feel more respected, more of a somebody than just an odd foreigner.
    ‘Please doctor,’ Rinzin Tshockey repeats. ‘Please, you come again.’
    He bids me farewell with another impish smile, and I, Madam Doctor, turn back to the road.
    Mongar does not claim any flat land, other than the football field. Everywhere else houses cling to slopes of varying degrees, fields are terraced, walkways snake along inclines, and the road is cut into the mountain. Life seems to balance on the verge of sliding down the hillside.
    I take the long way back to the hospital, following the road as it curves in a U-shape away from the bazaar towards the dzong. Dzongs are fortresses built during Bhutan’s unification in the seventeenth century in an attempt to repel Tibetan invaders. Today they house both the governing administration as well as a monastery for the monk body. Huge, impressive buildings with Tibetan-style inward slanting walls, they dominate the view of most Bhutanese towns of any size.
    Following an inconspicuous footpath up