From Trongsa (II)

I have put up in a transit camp. It has the facilities of a three star hotel except there is no wi-fi and data card fails to connect it. I spent the first weekend in Langhtel in the project office. There were other colleagues who came to work. They are all hard working people. No officer leaves office at 5.30. They remain seated working on the bills until 7 p.m., play table tennis which is nearby, have dinner in the mess and leave to their respective beds around 9.30. I envy how each of them take their work professionally. Having come from civil service very recently, I could only draw huge contrast of professionalism in these two public sectors.

I have one cozy empty bed beside me (which instills natural yearnings to see it occupied by someone who leaves long strands of left over from her head the next day). It has become a dumping yard of my clothes. In the mornings I don’t waste time wearing gho. Nobody wears gho. The tunnels have yet to see people in Bhutanese attire. I got a pair of gumboot which I have kept in the office. They are big. The size that fits me is out of stock. I got yellow safety helmet. Yellow helmets are worn by laborers, the store keeper told me. White helmet followed the fate of black gumboot. I am a worker so I wear them. In big gumboot and yellow helmet, I drive bolero to the site. I don’t expect rocks to identify me as engineer from the color of my head. It is my head that instructs contractor to put correct methodologies of work like an engineer. And that matters.

There are no cock-teasers (intentionally did not look for synonym of this word) around. Most are males. There are few females but a man in yellow helmet and over sized gumboot behind the wheels doesn't make their heads turn around. I am safe inside my pants.

I remember telling my friend that we should remind ourselves of not letting loose in the wild while being away from our homes. “It is the test of commitments,” we agreed. And the reality, there does not even exist one entrance exams for us.