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A(cute) Shortage

Phuentsholing has an (a)cute housing shortage. And I won't be surprised if 7 out of 10 people I meet on the street say they are looking for house. Some of the house owners demand three or four months' advance rent payment, which doesn't at all make sense. Why would someone pay before he/she uses the house? But if they have something over their heads, they don't mind paying.

One of our friends is transferred, which means a house will be vacated soon. And when I requested if he could give me the house (which does not belong to him) he says he has already given it to someone who is willing to even pay his last month's rent. That's amazing and truly a wonderful bargain of course.

And every time I walk down to my uncle's house near KMT Press, above the sewerage tanks, I get all sorts of haunted feelings. About 10 or 11 one-storied buildings greet me from their dilapidated state. No one in the locality exactly knows when they are vacated and why. If they were to be dismantled in the first place, why are they still standing? I only wonder where could those that once lived here must be today.

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