But there is a downside to the new prosperity – crime and sloth chief among them
Layaps may live in the remote northern frontier, but the granaries in their beautifully painted traditional houses are full, and solar energy lights up their rooms, which have imported woven carpets and blankets.
Generators provide energy to entertainment amenities like television, tape recorders and mobile phones, all of which are accessible because they have the disposable income.
They’ve also invested in lands in Paro.
Cordyceps sinensis, in the words of 75-year old Gokhey from Chebisa, Lingshi, is a godsend, without which life for the Layaps would be different and much more difficult. The legalisation of cordyceps picking made it even more heavenly. “This isn’t the kind of life I thought I’d lead,” Pasa Dorji, 45, from Lubcha village in Laya, said.
As the eldest of six siblings from an economically deprived Layap family, Pasa Dorji said he grew up in a small, one-storeyed house.
His parents did not own yaks and working for others kept the family going. “Since rice was rare, my mother would make food wheat flour,” the father of three said.
At 19, Pasa Dorji was granted a yak and a calf by the King, as a ‘soelra’ to poor nomads. “My wife and I reared the yak and also worked for others,” he said.
Life began to ease after he started collecting cordyceps illegally at the age of 25. He bartered it for food cereals. After legalisation, things changed for the better. He now earns an income of Nu 100,000 to Nu 400,000 annually, with which he has bought land, horses and yaks. Today, Pasa owns six mules and about 50 yaks.
Pasa Dorji now leads a comfortable life with modern gadgets and amenities decking his two-storied house. “Even if cordyceps perish, I can earn an income to feed my family by doing porter business,” he said.
The highlanders say cordyceps brought about an element of equality among the community. It has dispelled the dividing line between the haves and have-nots.
Tenzi Phuntsho, 41, who owns two houses and a shop in Laya, said, before the legalisation he lived in a one-room stonehouse with 13 other family members.
Today, all his siblings own a house and have also established businesses.
But, despite bringing about socio and economic growth in the communities, in the past few years crime rates have also increased. Jealousy and distrust reek among villagers, and village elders blame the youth for not handling money properly. Last season, two men were detained by police for robbing more than 1,000 cordyceps belonging to 11 households in Lingshi. In Laya, health workers with the basic health unit attend to more assault patients after the sale of cordyceps. But Layaps compromise and settle problems between themselves by paying cash and hardly report matters to police.
Another downside of socio-economic development is that it has made some Layaps work-shy. These lazy villagers contract out their work to labourers for Nu 500 a day to hunt for cordyceps.
According to Dr Nigel L Hywel-Jones, a biotech researcher, initially research was done purely from scientific point of view. “I was in Soe few weeks back with an Australian television crew, and a member said in Tibet, two villages were divided over cordyceps picking and it let to bloodshed,” he said. “The crew hoped it wouldn’t happen in Bhutan.”
By Tashi Dema
Kuensel, 7 July, 2011
Anthropology of Bhutan 