"Little Dragons"

So the kids have fit right in to the neighborhood crowd an sports scene

here.

Kai in particular was all fired up to get archery lessons. We figured this would be easy since archery is the national sport of Bhutan, but after going to every archery shop in town, and even to the Bhutan Olympic Committee offices, we learned there are no lessons for kids. Nonetheless, Kai did get to handle some of the adult archery equipment, and built his own bow and arrow with Ashish, his new buddy here in the neighborhood. Ethan has hooked up with Samuel, a new 14 year old pal, who plays furious soccer. And Noah has made friends with Jim-Jim, pictured above shaking hands with Noah, the four year old son of the owner at Ambient Café. Noah is very quick to point out that he is four and a half, apparently giving him some authority in that friendship...)

The neighborhood crowd finds endless adventures in the environs around our apartment. In the picture above, Kai and Noah are going shoulder-in-shoulder to check out some of the night-time attractions. So far these have been a ghost that, by report, lives in a tree in the neighborhood. The ghost, when living, was hung from the tree because his wife beat him in a drinking contest and "clonked him on the head". More recent attractions have been a dead cat in a cornfield -- quite spooky after dark! The trees and roofs in the neighborhood make for great climbing, and Ethan is showing the kids here all sorts of TAASC climbing tricks.

There was an abrupt change 2 days ago. Suddenly there were no knocks on the door at 9AM, and we learned that school had started again here! Although all the same activities pick up again after 3PM, we suspect the kids will be finding new daytime adventures now in the second half of the month...