Bhutan's Path to Contentment: Exploring Community and Modernization

Exploring Bhutan's Path to Contentment overview

Early morning visits to traditional schoolchildren and volunteer corps along the ancient Trans-Bhutan Trail offer glimpses into Bhutan's cohesive community and Buddhist practices, while challenges of modernization and mental health highlight the need for initiatives like The Contentment Foundation’s programs in Paro.

Important details from the source

• On a recent trip to Bhutan, journalist Catherine Fairweather gets beneath the surface of what makes a happy society – and talks to Daniel Cordaro, Founder of the Contentment Foundation, and Tshering Eudon, Director of their Bhutan operations.
• Early one morning during a recent stay at COMO Uma Punakha, I followed a neat crocodile line of smiling schoolchildren, who were picking their way over stream and rock, past the local shrine and on to the village school, high above the hotel.
• They were immaculate in traditional dress with combed and braided hair.
• I offered them a handful of sweets from my coat pocket, impressed by how they divided out the treats, shyly and fairly, amongst themselves, bending down to retrieve stray wrappers.
• We passed gaggles of older teens, members of the Desuung volunteer corps — on their way, they said, to repair the Trans-Bhutan Trail.
• This ancient trade and pilgrimage trail dates back to the 16th century and extends 403 km; west from Ha near the Chinese border to Trashigang in the east.
• Before the first and only tarmacked road was built in1960s, the Trans-Bhutan Trail was the nation’s life-blood.
• For centuries, messengers, or garps, delivered news and mail on foot, running through the mountainous route, across flood plains and gorges.
• A section of the route threads through the valley, close to where I was staying, hence the brigade of volunteers.
• Many of them had helped rebuild the trail in the Covid-19 lockdown, but now a minor landslide was impeding passage.

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