
How was your holiday in Bhutan?
“So? How was your holiday?” “Oh, I would like to trade places with you”. These are the most common question and comment I get asked by default when I have been travelling for work. Yes, I get to places that most people associate with distant, exotic holiday trips. However, that is where the comparison ends in my view. Would most people really want to swap if they realised what a work trip entails? I think of the 2.5 weeks that Mekky (Centre for International Cooperation of VU Amsterdam), dr. Ellen Bal and dr. Lorraine Nencel from the VU Faculty of Social Sciences, two colleagues from Slovenia, Gregor Cerinšek and Tilen Šoštarič, Erik de Maaker from Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University and I recently spent in Bhutan for the HAPPY Project. It took us 2 days (and hours of waiting in Delhi) to reach Bhutan. We didn’t have time for a jetlag as the first meetings were already scheduled on Sunday. Our suitcases were never unpacked because we usually only slept one night somewhere before travelling on again. We did that travelling in an old school bus in which we spent 27 hours to reach eastern Bhutan. 27 hours in which we drove, continuously bumping, at an average speed of 10-20 km per hour along steep chasms, ravines and dizzyingly high mountain passes. And those 27 hours we also had to return. Every night there were dinners or meetings planned so we didn’t see our rooms until 11pm. And that for 2.5 weeks non-stop.
Is this a complete lament? No, it certainly isn’t! It was nice to finally meet all partners live after 2 years of Covid, to better understand the context of the project, to laugh and cry as team members because that too is collaboration. It makes us all ‘happy’ to be part of this HAPPY Project. But a holiday? No, not that.