Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Thinking ahead about the festival

It has been a while since I last uploaded a post. I am currently in Thimphu, Bhutan. Tomorrow is the big Asia Pacific Forestry Commission conference that Bhutan is hosting, and at the helm of the organizers is Kinley Tshering, a UM alumni.  Just yesterday Tempa and I saw off our advisor and friend Dr. Scott Mills (from UM WBIO) at the Paro airport.  He is following his wife Lisa and kids Nick and Linnea who have all been here for about 5 months or so, enjoying every minute of their stay here (their words).

Well, we have been busy for a while - an international conference and workshop on wildlife monitoring techniques at the Ugyen Wangchuck Institute for Conservation and Environment (UWICE) that brought a lot of folks from UM here; then a quick sojourn into the mountains with Scott to look for snow leopard scat; launching Bhutan's first Ecological Society - well, that's quite a few.

I have been thinking about the Chilies and Happiness festival this year. We would like to continue the tradition but this year Passang and I will be the only Bhutanese (the real ones - I know there are many of you who are almost Bhutanese) around. I think it might make sense to hold the event in September - many people feel October gets a bit chilly (cold chilly, not ema chilly).

I am sure all of you who are in Missoula are enjoying the great Missoula Summer. I will try to upload a post once in a while.

Till then.