TRACING BACK TO THE BEGINNING.

Gonong, Lauri, S/Jongkhar.

Historical Background
This is my village, Gonong. Located at the extreme eastern part of Bhutan, my village has literally remained isolated and ignored for decades; deprive of basic modern facilities. That is why majority of population from my locality was illiterate sometime before 1980.

 According to elderly people in my village, the historical background behind the name of my village "Gonong" describes "Go" means "First", and "Thong" means "sun rays was first seen".  It was called as Gothong but later on, it got changed into present name "Gonong" due to people finding it easy to say.

There are around 40-50 households in my village. The houses are built traditionally with locally available raw materials. The people in my village live in harmony by extending helping hands among themselves. I have never seen any sign of division among the villagers and I was told that people in my village are basically from same ancestral parents.

Changes and Current Scenario
However, my village came into lame light in late 1980 (Nineteen eighties) with institution of primary school, basic health centre, agriculture and livestock centres in the Geog. Since then, the livelihood of people in my village experiencing a gross change day by day.

Today, I am very proud to say that I came from Gonong, Lauri under Samdrup Jongkhar. My village has almost all the modern facilities like education, health, agriculture, livestock, mobile connection, clean drinking water. The works to connect village with road and electricity are in full swing. Nowadays, many farmers have switched from subsistence farming to intensive farming method. Unlike in the past, they focus on growing cash crops like vegetables. The socio-economic status of farmers is likely to improve once the village is connected with road. There are farmers Groups working to collect both forest products etc available locally. 

There are many people from my village working in both government and non-governmental agencies across Bhutan. And many children are in succession in various schools and colleges. The village which was isolated one time back in history is galloping with positive strides at faster pace. As a member, I wish the same momentum continues even the days to come so that peace and tranquility prevail as ever.