Lunana: A Yak in the Classroom 2019

Ugyen, Sherab Dorji, lives in Thimphu with his grandmother Tsheri Zom. He has completed four of his five years of mandatory training as a government teacher, but his heart longs for a different life: to sing in Australia. When he is assigned to teach in Lunana, a remote mountain village, he wrestles with the idea of quitting, yet his grandmother urges him to finish the assignment and honor the commitment he began.

With the help of Michen, Ugyen Norbu Lhendup, a patient village guide, he begins the six-day ascent to Lunana, a place perched at 4,800 meters above sea level that houses just 56 people. The stark beauty of the landscape clashes with Ugyen’s discomfort at the village’s spartan conditions, and he wonders aloud if he made a mistake by coming.

Upon arrival, the villagers welcome him warmly, but the conditions feel hard and unfamiliar. Asha, the village leader, explains that the mules need time to rest and that he can return to Thimphu in a few days if needed. The next morning, Pem Zam, the class captain, wakes him to a classroom where eager children believe teachers can touch the future. Their affection moves him, and he decides to stay for the remainder of the school year, despite his initial misgivings.

Right away, Ugyen proves adaptable. Lacking a traditional blackboard, he writes on the classroom wall with charcoal, and Michen later constructs a makeshift board to help the lessons. He also makes small sacrifices, such as stepping away from the windows to preserve scarce writing material, and he slowly earns the trust and respect of the students. The kids respond to his guitar melodies and his patient teaching in math, English, and Dzongkha, and a bond grows that makes the idea of leaving feel heavier with each passing day.

One day, Ugyen meets Saldon, the niece of Asha, singing atop a hillside. She explains that she performs Yak Lebi Lhadar as an offering to the mountain spirits and invites him to learn the song. They meet daily, and he gradually learns to sing it himself. Saldon tells him the song’s poignant origin, a tale of a local yak herder who lamented slaughter but offered a promise that the yak would return one day.

Saldon then gifts Ugyen a yak named Norbu to provide warmth and fuel—its dung can be used to start fires in the cold nights. Norbu becomes a fixture in their classroom life, and Ugyen’s lessons adapt to incorporate this unusual new helper, letting winter’s chill be met with creativity and community.

As winter approaches, the reality of leaving Lunana looms. Ugyen informs the villagers that he intends to depart for good in the spring unless something changes, but Saldon reminds him that only the children can judge whether he should stay or go, and they plead for him to return in the spring to continue teaching.

Before he departs, Asha sings Yak Lebi Lhadar as a farewell, and Pem Zam presents him with a letter from all the children thanking him for teaching them and urging him to come back. The elder Michen reveals that Asha had written the song in memory of his wife, lending the moment a quiet, shared history that deepens Ugyen’s connection to Lunana.

On the descent, Ugyen stops at a shrine to offer thanks and to request safe passage home, secretly hoping that he will someday find a way to return to Lunana and keep guiding its bright, hopeful students.

Back in Australia, in a dim bar, the bar’s Sydney Bartender Art Finch tries to keep the room steady as Ugyen begins with a Western tune, but the moment shifts when he switches to Yak Lebi Lhadar, drawing the room to attention and signaling a deeper truth about his journey as the closing credits roll.