The Kids

The kids of the BYGA come in all shapes and sizes. Age 4 to 20, they arrive and we teach em. It makes developing a good practice plan difficult, but I've learned to improvise and use the older kids to teach the youngsters. English is only taught in the schools so the little ones who haven't been to school are the most difficult to communicate with. Often, I just give them a club and a ball and tell them to "swing under that tree over there". Back home, where there parents pay lots of money for lessons, such behavior would surely be neglect. Here it seems totally acceptable since they are skilled at entertaining themselves and more than disruptive when you try to include them in activities. Resourceful or evil, you decide...

Another challenge is the amount of energy they bring each day. All day the kids are cooped up in school without any recess or physical education classes. By the time they get to golf, they're literally bouncing with energy. "Coach, coach, coach" is all I hear for 15 minutes straight. Yesterday I arrived at golf to find a dozen kids gathered around 4 pieces of cardboard arranged in a semi-square shape roughly the size of a wrestling ring. It seems I had come just in time to witness their best interpretations of WWE professional wrestlers, mimicking their favorite show on TV. I was about to share the story of how professional wresting began in MN with Jesse Ventura and Vern Gagne, when the kids began body slamming each other with more that bit of fervor. There was no blood, but definitely some extensive bruising. It seems physical fighting here in Bhutan is a game, just like golf or badminton. Odd, I think, for a predominantly Buddhist culture.

Besides the fighting, which really doesn't bother me much since development experts say it can actually be positive, I don't have any real discipline problems. Learning names, on the other hand, can be a real challenge. In Bhutan there are roughly 15 common names. Chances are 80% of the people you meet will be named Jigme, Dechen, Dorji, Sonam, Tenzin, Rinchen, or Tshering (pronounced 'sring"). Or, more likely, some combination of the aforementioned. A fun game is to yell Sonam into a group of people and see how many heads turn. At least 2 out of 10, regardless of gender, is the norm. Evidently traditionalism comes at a cost to originality. 

Since learning names can be difficult, previous pro's here have simplified the matter by naming kids by the t-shirts they wear (everyday). Ex: one kid has a cartoon sleeping bear on his shirt, thus he has been named "sleeping bear", which he seems to enjoy since I've never seen him out of it. Pictured below is my putting group today. Cheki, Pema (Sleeping Bear), and Jigme. Jigme is the son of the general manager and lives on the course. He is the best 9 year old putter I have ever met. He enjoys saying "lovely putt" in a British accent as he follows his 10 foot putts into the hole. And yes, they all wear crocs, or more likely, some cheap imitation. Fun times with the BYGA.