Thursday, November 25, 2010

Bhutan:the land of gentle people




Young monks at play

From Connecticut, I wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving!

I have so many thanks to give and treasure every moment of this life, the good and sometimes not so good... In this last post on Bhutan, I tried to capture images of the simple happiness derived from love and nature.
This journey through Bhutan ends with portraits of its gentle and playful children.

In Bhutan, the GNP is not measured in financial terms but as the Gross National Happiness.
This concept was introduced by the King and has taken the Western world by storm, governments, economists and scholars have invited the young handsome King to speak about the 4 pillars of Gross National Happiness: Environment - Culture - Spirituality - Society.
Bhutan is determined to keep its independence by preserving its culture and its ecology.



Children in school uniform, these young kids walk up to 2 hours each way to go to school they are so engaging and joyful 

Girls dressed up for the religious festival




Little monks getting a break from their studies





Student preparing for his high school examination. From the youngest age, young boys and girls learn english. The brightest student are sent by the king to Colombia (where the king studied), Harvard, Cornell, Yale, UCLA, Stamford, Georgetown, Oxford and Cambridge, Mc Gill, depending on their field of study. No student sent abroad has failed and all graduated in the 10% of their class.
These children wake up before sunrise to walk to school, study for 6 hours, go home for a simple supper, study some more or help their parents with farming duties. The greatest gift is a pencil, they look happy, playful, and love learning.

The people, nature, colors of Bhutan will forever stay with me.

Until next time...there is that one challenging trek (reputed for being the most difficult trek in the world...) along the Himalayas...





10 comments:

  1. Oh Francine,
    What glorious images....colour, joy and happiness shines out of each and every one of these photographs. These people live such hard lives but have known no other way and are grateful for what they have. It is very humbling and, even though I am English and don;t celebrate Thanksgiving, I shall set aside some time to remember how lucky I am and for all of the wonderful things that I am thankful for.
    I wish you, your family and everyone around your table, the most wonderful Thanksgiving. Lots of love to you Francine and have a day of togetherness. XXXX

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  2. Francine,
    These are absolutely gorgeous images. Thank you for sharing them.
    Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
    Teresa

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  3. Lovely images...

    Interesting Post...

    Happy Thanksgiving:)

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  4. Hello, Francine.

    This is my very first time here and I will stay for a while, if you don't mind. :-)

    I am so impressed by these pictures and the wonderful smiles I see.

    You've a beautiful blog!

    xo



    Luciane at HomeBunch.com

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  5. Wonderful photography!
    These people look so happy, a simple and healthy way of life is the recipy of sucess, after all, happiness is what we all aspire.
    Hope you had a happy Thanksgiving.
    Tereza

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  6. Dear Francine,

    How absolutely beautiful in every way.

    Can we please go off the blog and under cover? I have a question for you.

    My e-mail address is tishjett@yahoo.com

    Merci par avance. I'm always thrilled to see your comments.

    Warmest regards,
    Tish

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  7. These are the most fabulous photographs Francine...happy in every way....xv

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  8. Lovely, lovely post. What a gracious reminder to be grateful.

    Leigha

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  9. great pics,great posts on this blog. I'm on my way to Dhaka and will be needing all the information i can get because I will be staying shortly in Bhutan, I need to be able to gather knowledge as well as pictures, I adore Buddhism as well. Thanks for sharing. Your article was a real brain massage.



    --
    call Bangladesh

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  10. Amazing blog and very interesting stuff you got here! I definitely learned a lot from reading through some of your earlier posts as well and decided to drop a comment on this one!

    ReplyDelete

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