...pay for tea

View from Landruk

On the first day of our trek we stopped in a little mountainside village called Landruk. We sat down after many long hours of trekking and it felt good, ordered some hot lemon tea and began stripping off anything wet or muddy. We indulged in that wonderfully simple pleasure of taking off your shoes after being in them all day. And then we took off our socks in euphoria. What a sweet truth in life it is that putting on clean socks feels so gratifying, and taking them off does too. There were quite a few young Nepali girls who waited on us, with coconut skin and vanilla bean hair. They flitted around, working, half-playing, watching the strangers that come into their home day after day. They find my inability in Nepali to be a grand comedy and as we get ready to leave the next day in the pouring rain, they chuckle behind veiling hands when I learn how to say "I'm crazy."

But we have an evening in front of us, nestled in the slowly disappearing mountains. A young Dutchman approached us looking for company and we couldn't help but like him and we invited him to join us for the tea that was brewing. We sat and shared stories of home and of culture and of trekking. Nathan's agnostic, we're Christian, and so our conversation even touched on religion and life, as it does often in the non-Western world. We're loud Americans; he's actually Czech, but was raised in the Netherlands. He told us that in the Netherlands people are "cheap" and never pay for one another. Even if you are invited over to eat, be prepared to pay something to help cover the cost. We balked at this, said good-night and he went to his own lodging. He didn't pay for tea. How Dutch.

In the morning we looked for our Dutczech friend, but sadly had to go before he woke up. The torrential downpour was a bit hard to navigate through, anyway. It was here, looking down the face of the mountain, when I said “I’m crazy.” But eventually we got moving. However, we came to discover that what follows is typical. Almost a week later two of us were on our way to dinner in Pokhara and spotted a hairy-faced, v-neck and flat-cap wearing oaf. We laughed and embraced and invited Nathan to eat with us. He accepted, but only for a drink, he said. 

photo cred: Bonnie Cohee

At Shiva's Tea House we shared even more stories and traded pictures of mountains, but as we waited for our food Nathan dove back into questions of religion and faith and life and morality. Nathan is one of the best question-askers I've ever met, and his blunt honesty is why. He ordered a beer and drank it and when we couldn't finish all the momos, he gladly accepted our leftovers. We parted ways again, smiling and satisfied. We bought the food, he bought the beer.

A week later, after we'd arrived back in Kathmandu, we decided it was time to go get some good lattes. Himalayan Java is the Starbucks of Nepal and so we rolled up, bleary-eyed and annoyed by the urban cacophony for some real espresso. We ascended the stairs, turned to sit and were staring directly at a smiling Dutchman. A chorus of love and reunion erupted between hugs and laughter and short stories. We coined the term/hashtag "smc" for "small world connection" and immediately set to posting pictures to Instagram (simonwskold). We all ordered something caffeinated and spent our time sipping in the pleasure of this serial relationship. 

photo cred: Bonnie Cohee

We expressed our growing fondness for each other, exchanged information and gave open invitations to our homes and cities and when Nathan departed in a flurry of smiles and hugs and ‘Namaste’s’, we set about our own business. We even mentioned to one another how much we were blessed and impacted by Nathan’s friendship.

And after an hour or so, we went to leave and asked for the bill. The man behind the counter, however, looked funny and said "that man before paid for you all." Our jaws dropped. We couldn't help but comment (loudly, of course) on how sweet Nathan really is, how much we really do love him and how un-Dutch he'd become.

photo cred: Bonnie Cohee

...accept the offer

I woke up in this room I had just entered for the first time the day before. I am in one of two beds that form a right angle with the cement corner. Windows open to the alleyway below where if one looks at the right time, one can watch some of those excitingly feminine ways the young unmarried neighbor goes about the kitchen. She's an excuse to blow smoke politely out into the air, rather than fogging up the room with that sooty odor. A rug warms the floor under my feet, but I am most thankful for the fan that hangs above the door and hums with a repetitive crick. Without her, the Augustine Arab sun would bake us whole.

Outside the window, which looks somehow alive with the mystical curtain dancing sensuously about it, there are the flat roofs and water tanks and hanging laundry so familiar to this Middle East. An elaborate minaret rises dramatically from all the sharp architecture around it, but it too is that beige color that paints every other structure. The uniformity absorbs the sunlight and stands out from the smoggy browns of further earth.

I am in Sahab, Jordan, a small city outside of Amman, the capitol. In the moment I take to watch the curtain, and perhaps capture her spirit in a picture, I thank God that of all the cultures I was stranded in, it was an Arab one.

Last time I checked in I was on some street, and that's indeed where it all began. Muttering Let's see what happens, I said a prayer of need and gave up all my plans for whatever might come my way. I walked down the street toward traffic. I knew there stood in glory a great old Roman Theatre in Amman, and so I figured I would go there, since I had wanted to visit it before, but didn't get the chance. So I make it to the end of the street looked up and down it, and settled in to wait for an empty taxi to drive by.

Meanwhile, at that moment of surrender, two half-Jordanian, half-European young women were driving around talking about boys and how they would never marry another Arab. It was at the precise moment when they crested a hill when one of the two said,

"Why aren't there any good foreigners around here."

And they looked up and saw a bearded vagabond with two pieces of luggage looking worse for the wear, I am sure. They had to do a u-turn to work up the courage but in another moment they pulled over, slowed down and opened the right-side window.

“You need a ride?” The timing was miraculous. People may encourage you to display a bit more caution than I when traveling abroad—and certainly in the Middle East on high alert—but I asked for some divine intervention and a car pulled up. There isn’t much room to weigh options, let alone decline an offer. I said yes and climbed in.

These two were Diana and Linda and they giggled at their own courage. They told me without shame that they had pulled over because I was a non-Arab and perhaps it would be love-at-first-sight. And so I was recognized, not for looking like someone, but for looking not like someone.

I was taken to the theatre for the ladies had to return home to their families. It was Eid after all. But I took Diana’s card and she said she’d come and get me later. Her friend had just returned from a Director’s conference at Julliard in New York City and had a spare room. I looked forward to meeting an Arab who does what I love for a living, thanked Diana for the ride and the room, and climbed out.

The Roman Theatre was absolutely gorgeous and I stood at the base of her broad, ancient beauty and imagined players moving about in their fashion. I thought of Seneca, the brilliant tragedarian, and his macabre Oedipus being staged here. My feet sank into my history as I looked around at the scene coming to life before me. I walked around and touched these stones that supported feet two-thousand years old. I sat in timeworn seats and disappeared into a crowd, rapt and horrified at the despair of Medea as she slits the throats of her own children in vengeance. Then we are laughing at the farce of Plautus whose wives and lovers interact with the wrong Menaechmi.

But I am pulled out of history by three young men I greeted outside the theatre. They had followed me in and began a conversation with me. We climbed to the top of the theatre and sat there for a couple hours. And in learning what I was doing in Amman and what my favorite Arab meal was, he invited me over to his house for it. I gratefully said the only thing to say: “yes.”

But I had lodgings that evening so we eventually parted ways, Diana picked me up and took me to her friends where I spent my time engaging contradictory nihilistic philosophies and too much smoking. I met Mohammed, my host, and passed out after a long day.

The next afternoon, I left the director’s house, thanking him for the hospitality and took a bus to visit my new friend from the theatre—also a Mohammed. And that is where I woke up the next morning, in Mohammed Hasan's humble home.

Mohammed is the oldest male in the household by tragedy: his brother Hitham passed away in his sleep undeterminably within a year of his father dying in a car crash. I saw the pictures of the mangled car and the sleeping brother after his autopsy. This family has many reasons to be in grief.

Mosa and Rania

But they welcome me heartily, providing me with a bed, food, company and even some clothes I need. Rania is the youngest and she is sweet and serves me with joy at all times. Mosa is the younger brother who eats and eats and is fat and jovial, but likes to make trouble. Then there are two other daughters who I barely saw in the two days I stayed there, for they had to remain hidden and covered. They cooked for me and cleaned the room I stayed in, but when I was around, they locked themselves in their room. Such is the custom when a non-believing foreign man is under your very roof. Mohammed’s mother, however, did not have to hide. She was a kind woman with some English to work with, she was hospitable and sought to all my needs. She also took some delight in being the only mother with such a foreigner in her home, and many guests “happened” to swing by over the days. Sahab is no tourist attraction.

That first night, though, as I lay in the bed, with everyone around me, talking and playing, Mohammed first noticed something. I didn’t fit on the bed, and he said that it was just like Hitham, his brother. He was tall too. In fact, we were pretty similar in height, and I stood to confirm this suspicion. I assured him that it was no problem about the small bed and we finally slept.

In Hitham's alley, in his pants

But that comparison kept coming up. His mother noticed it in my facial structure and the color of my eyes. They gave me his favorite pair of pants to wear because I had nothing long enough to cover my knees and it set the resemblance in deeper. And as I spent all my time with this family I found myself becoming a kind of brother to Rania and Mosa, the friend to Mohammed that Hitham was, and the son their mother misses so much. But it was in small ways, or so I thought. Mohammed relaxed in the false idea that he wasn’t the head of the household anymore; he could shelve that while I was around. Rania and Mosa always sought out my attention and laughed with me, took silly pictures with my camera and sat out on the roof-deck with me as the sisters went about business inside. And we all ate together in a circle on the floor.

Mohammed Hasan, me and Mohammad Rizeq, our friend

But our mom looked at me from the locked chests of her eyes. She showed me pictures on her old phone and glanced up at me in double-check. She asked me to encourage Mohammed to do better in school and to work harder and to come home when he says he will come home and say thank you, for goodness sake. Her expectations are very high and she’s missing the help to get him moving. She even offered one of her daughters as a wife, if I would convert. And as I finally prepared to leave she went through old clothes of her son’s and husband’s, and in a quiet way she relived some memories. I saw her store special items back in the closet, undoubtedly because of the memory they coat. I gratefully took what was offered and said a bittersweet farewell. 

And I left, and once again they were missing a son. I wouldn’t have thought so much of it until that very moment of departure when Mohammed and I walked out of the alley onto the street. Approaching us was a young man who looked up at me, and his expression melted into a kind wonder. His eyes went wide and his mouth slacked slightly. He recognized me. But as we greeted each other, it faded. He swore he had seen Hitham standing next to his younger brother, walking out of the house as they had done many times before, but knowing him to be dead for unknown reasons, he might have believed, even just for a moment, that an equally unknowable reason could have brought Hitham home.

I suppose that did happen, though, and humble, sweet tears greet my eyes when I think of Um Hitham at home longing for a return of her son that will never happen, but did. Even for just two days.

So, sorry it wasn’t love-at-first-sight Diana and Linda; I guess I am too Arab for you after all. 

...see what happens

I was standing on the side of a street somewhere in this web of a giant city. I had all my earthly possessions in two bags, a backpack and a duffle. I looked up and down the street waiting for a taxi to somewhere and took a moment to chuckle at how I even got here.

I had been to Amman once before on a short trip to renew my tourist visa in Israel. Then too I had been charmed, perhaps bewildered, by her size. On and on she spreads, hardly a five-story building anywhere, or so it seems when you look out over the city from a high point. In the yellowy purple of a hazy twilight she twinkles like gold dust and at night the lights of dinnertime or ongoing business shine out from their place like stars in the heavens, and so they seem as far away too. At any point I was surrounded by the city as far as I could see and I felt it a bit eternal and I a bit lost and where was the edge of time and space anyway? Getting from place to place we are shuttled in taxis, but this is an expensive endeavor. The buses are so much cheaper, but you trade price for a far-longer trip. And a good walk after you disembark.

But this time I am not here to renew a visa, but in punishment for even trying to get one.

On Wednesday the 7th I flew into Amman, paid for a week-long visa, and took a bus and a shared taxi to the Jordanian border control. Everything was going all-too smoothly. It was a great pleasure to speak Arabic again, though, and I figured my familiarity with the language and culture was helping things run along well. But that all changed quickly.

The process is extensive and expensive. I paid for the visa, then the bus ride, then the shared taxi. At the border control center there is an exit tax I didn't have to pay, but I did pay for the ticket to the bus which transports us over the River Jordan to Israeli customs and for my one piece of luggage I was forced to store below. My anxiety grew as we inched forward; I knew what was coming. Approaching Israel is always stressful. Perhaps I should have been confident, for I had been through this many times, and it is never pleasant, but always eventually over. But we sat and sat and waited and moved forward and stopped and waited and turned two kilometers into an hour of shortness of breath and not enough room and restless hands. When we finally got off the bus, I took a deep breath and gave some thought to the insanity of anxiety. Was I overreacting to a day full of travel or did I know things were not going to go well? And why has Israel become a nation unmarked by blessing, anyway?

My last trip to Jordan

It took four and a half minutes to get summoned by a pectoral, automatic-rifle boasting, scruff. I was pulled out of line and taken into detention number one. I had some extra screening to go through and I guarantee my beard had something to do with it, but I got to skip ahead of a long line at least. After one round of check up I was allowed to go to the passport checkers. I have never once made it through these unscathed. This time was to be no exception. And so I found myself in detention again, this time with many other men and women. We began chatting, laughing at how ridiculous it all was and sharing stories about Jordan, Israel and Palestine. Two Muslim sisters were there. One was married to a tall American who got his stamp with no problem, though she and her sister sat for four hours before were given access into the country. And her husband sat there too and we laughed together. A half British half Tanzanian man had been there for over six hours by the time we arrived. He couldn't speak much Arabic, wasn't an Arab or a Muslim, but he could have passed for one. He was repeatedly taken away and each time he returned with a goofy smile on his face. In that formal way Brits speak he said,

"They keep speaking to me in Arabic, and I say every time that I am not an Arab nor do I know much Arabic." We all join in on the joke, our only power in this situation, which we cling to to feel less like cattle. We look around and find not one officer or employee older than thirty. The uniformed men and women look pubescent and we shudder at how Maoist it seems to have the decisions of entry and exit made by kids who use there work time to flirt and laugh and take little moments to gossip or talk about their weekend plans. With M-16 in hand. At some other point we came up with names for our band, if we had one, and what we would all do. Really, we developed some terrible ideas, and all we had was a hype-girl, a rotten beat-boxer and a knee-slapper. But we were determined to succeed. And everyone did. Except me.

Five hours of this nonsense, this back-and-forth, this questioning and answering and waiting, a young woman, certainly younger than me, came out and approached me.

"It's going to be a no." I argued with her politely and intensely. I used reason, but to no avail. My passport was receiving the red stamp of rejection anyway. And so, in a desperate and deeply quiet rage I was escorted to my luggage, and then the bus back over the Jordan, where it is free. 

The only other man on the bus was a husband separated from his wife and children by the choices of unmarried children. We had to pay for the bus back, and then shared the price to a hotel this man had already been staying at. There are few options after midnight.

In the morning, I woke up, checked out of my lodgings, paid the expense, and walked to the nearest place to find wifi and food. Now I had planned to be in Palestine with my family that day, for it was the first day of Eid, and it would be a time of joy and laughter and love. Instead I only found a McDonald's that was open, and I felt bad for all the other people who were separated from family on that day.


Hours of wifi and meditation and contemplation later in a next-door coffeeshop I had my only plan: go to the Israeli embassy in Amman and plead my case. I found the address, climbed in a taxi and soon found myself on the side of a street somewhere in the web of this giant city. The guards informed me that everything was closed and the Israelis had gone on vacation, or was it evacuated? There had been some travel-warnings and Al-Quaeda threats, so perhaps it was the latter. A manager came out, spoke in English with me and then ended our interaction:

The web expanding

"Enjoy your time in Amman." 

He smiled and walked back inside. I had realized that rejection was one of two outcomes, and though I wished it wasn't so, I turned around. Let's see what happens, I thought, and put one foot in front of the other on the side of this street somewhere in the web of this giant city. 

...celebrate friendship

A couple of days ago it was the worldwide celebration of friendship. I didn't wake up knowing this; it was too early. Before I could know much of anything I was flying into Lakeside (the touristy part of Pokhara next to Phewa Lake) to meet my dear friend Raaz for a bike ride. We had planned to go on a substantial ride together with one of his friends, Sudess. So we met up, strapped up and were off before the shops were opening. Later that morning a couple of texts came in to phones handled by sweaty, tired Nepalis who informed me that, apparently, it was Friendship Day. 

Those hands were sweaty and tired because the three of us were biking in Nepal, which never goes as flat as one would hope it would go. No, instead we spent a solid 4 hours climbing Himalayan foothills on bike. It was exhausting.

There is a place high above Lakeside from where the paragliders leap and soar. This is a big tourist attraction and brings in substantial monies for the Nepali. You can see them up in the sky, like great colorful birds enjoying the breeze, like a swarm circling, searching for prey below. And yet, on our bikes we looked down on them. I kept saying, "We're crazy."

But you have to be a bit crazy to bike around in Nepal. I thanked God every time I successfully made it through a certain intersection on my way between where I was staying and Lakeside. I grew quickly thankful for horns because drivers would use them as they approached and at least then I knew to glide as far left as possible. Yes, left, they drive on the left here. 

Yet, however crazy, it was a friendship day well-spent. We reveled in it once the climb was over. We hit pavement again and went downhill. For six solid minutes. That doesn't sound too impressive, but watch the clock and see how long just one minute is, and then realize we were flying downhill for six of them. I wondered if I'd get altitude sickness, but we stopped before we even reached the bottom. Sudess took us up a side road and then down through the thicket where the sound of rushing water rose. We had made it to the swimming spot, a gorgeous, clean river descending down from Macchupucchre, the holy mountain also known as Fishtail Mountain.

We stripped down to our underwear and left our sweaty clothes out to dry in the intense heat (which made our climb that much more enjoyable, actually). And for over a half-hour we sat in the refreshing current, allowed the stampede to massage our body and the purity to take away all our grime. We spent some time just laughing. "This is like Paradise," said Raaz who initially wasn't going to get in until he saw the change in us, the pleasure that relaxed our faces, when we submerged ourselves. 

Indeed, it was a friendship day well-spent. When the ride was over we ate a couple helpings of Dal Bhat--no, we eagerly ate a couple helpings of Dal Bhat. And then I hopped onto the bike, which is also a friend's, and rode over to her house. And that night I went home to where I was staying: the spacious blue home of another friend. 

But the friendships all had to take another form, for Bonnie and I had to leave Pokhara for Kathmandu where we would fly elsewhere. We decided we wanted some more time with our friends and less time on a bumpy, hot, annoying, strangely-tiring, seven-hour bus ride. So we bought plane tickets and were there in twenty-five minutes. Twenty-five minutes. It cost sixty-four dollars and when we landed in twenty-five minutes--did I mention that yet?--I decided that it was the best sixty-four dollars I ever spent. 

And though Kathmandu is the worst place to have to be after Pokhara, even if it took just twenty-five minutes y'all--twenty-five!--we fortunately found ourselves in an area not so afflicted with all those diseases of Kathmandu. The afternoon--which we had because we took a plane that lasted only twenty-five minutes(!!)--was spent at a children's home that is run by the family of our good friend Paul. The twenty-something children and teenagers that live there sang for us, introduced themselves, and let us peek into their lives. Most of them were studying for exams, though, so we left them to their studies and had a delicious meal instead. It was a lovely time, and had not some parcels of luggage been in Thamel waiting for us, we might have just stayed. 

We sat on the roof in a sweet breeze from atop the lime green boys' house and looked around at all the great cake-houses of Kathmandu. These crazy colors would only fly in certain neighborhoods in the States, but here yellows, pinks, blues and purples all sit side by side, like a row in Cake Boss' display. It is a farther cry from the Middle East, where the local stones cover every building.

Here in Amman, it is uniform, and I like it that way, for it is just like Palestine. The cakes people live in color Nepal; here the Earth they walk on rises and shelters. And so my thoughts tumble backwards to those friends I have said "see you" to, and forward to those friends I have said "I'm coming" to.

And in the aloneness of Amman, they keep me company.

...inhale, exhale

I am offered hashish several times a day. It is not surprising, for with my white skin and long beard, I fit the bill. But it does get frustrating and causes me to wonder: do people really smoke this much weed here? I get the chance to ask one such salesman, and from behind glazed and restless eyes he told me he makes a sale a day. It is evening and the shops are closing. Lights disappear around us and the grating clack-clack-clack-clack-clack of closing metal garage-style doors ricochets around us. I am surrounded by rickshaw drivers who think my interest in their language to be most amusing. They tell me about their families and their tough life; I listen and nod and agree, "that is hard." One tells a joke at the expense of our high friend. He tells me his name and everybody breaks out in laughter. I take it to mean some expletive and I chuckle with them. Even Mr. Gonga is laughing. He agrees with his nickname. 

One-by-one the men ride off to make some money and I hop in Ganesh's for my first rickshaw ride. He was married at nineteen, has two kids at home and rents this rickshaw at what I assume to be a barely profitable price. His lips part in some fatherly pride as he tells me about his children and they expose a gap between his front teeth. His smile is so genuine, and I am easily won over by the simplest of stories; I pay too much. 

But there is a truth here, that when we sleep in the nicest of hotels and eat at the most exclusive restaurants, when we take long, hot showers and travel by comfortable buses and breathe only cool conditioned air, we don't really ever visit a place. We only look at it through glass, lenses and pricey Ray-Bans. The shop-owner sells us something to take home as a reminder of the place we never really visited to tell people stories of food we didn't really taste and people we never really met. Somehow we think the photo album is more real than the actual moment, and so we separate ourselves from everything foreign around us, capture it in some electronic cage void of real memory. After all, if I take the picture now, my brain knows it doesn't need to use energy to store the memory; the camera is doing it for us. And so we are brainless people with tacky clothing walking around experiencing what one could have from the National Geographic special at a much cheaper cost. 

But this is not the case when you stand on the corner and say "What's your name?" in their language. The dimples in your cheeks prove you are genuine and the young man feels so much more human. We exchange those simple looks and touches that affirm our humanity. After all being American is only different from being Nepali in gross possession. The windshield only separates socio-economic status--little else. 

My internal struggle with this idea really heightened on my way to Chitwan. This jungle/national park/reserve sits in the south between Pokhara and Kathmandu and boasts the pleasures of sunsets, elephants and safaris. Bonnie and I came this way to see those great--almost mythological--creatures that reach the west in those dense, jungled stories of Rudyard Kipling and George Orwell. To get there we walk to the bus, reaching the station in Kathmandu a good half-hour early. Typical Americans. However, when we arrived, we were informed that, contrary to what we were told when we scheduled our tickets, there were no buses going to Chitwan. We complained, made two phone calls, weighed our options all in a few minutes and were ready to call it quits on going south when the man working for the bus company descended from the bus. 

"We have bus coming. You will meet half-way and switch, no problem. You can go to Chitwan, no problem." Satisfied, we climbed on board and were off in another hour. Typical Nepalis. We arrived at the place to have some lunch and switched buses and found that the company had summoned an entire bus--one of those big Greyhound size buses--to take the two of us to Chitwan. We felt guilty as the driver hopped in, groaned the engine to go, and took off. We couldn't help but feel like spoiled American tourists. We would have been happy with something much smaller.

And as we passed bus after bus after hitch-hiker our guilt only swelled. We found out that the reason buses to Chitwan had been cancelled was because some members of the Young Communist League were arrested and thrown in jail and their brethren wanted them released. So they began a strike preventing anyone from entering or exiting the area. Anyone except tourists, that is. So Bonnie and I, in our enormous vehicle, squeezed through rows of parked vans and buses that stretched for miles, full of sweating passengers looking uncomfortable. Our air conditioning, however, prevented any heat from creeping in and, though slightly delayed, we made it to Chitwan before the rain. Our bus was surrounded by hopeful taxi drivers who were equally perplexed by the number of passengers on board. In shame we hopped in a jeep and bumped away to our hotel. 

Back on the bus, while we were miraculously making our way through the line-up, we saw UN vehicles maneuver past, following military jeeps with camo-covered men with guns. A small man stood in his gray tank-top holding the hammer and sickle flag. We had to kick it in reverse at one time and were continually stopping and going. One of the men on the bus, the only hop-on we took, looked back to Bonnie and I.

"This is Nepal" he commented between a nod of his head left to right. And then he chuckled in a kind of shoulder-shrugging way, and turned back to the front. I looked out the window. No it isn't, I thought. Nepal can't be me sitting on this huge, cool bus, passing Nepali after Nepali trying to get home. 

Nepal is Kumar, my young friend in Ghandruk who works hard every day and goes home to his new wife. They live simply and joyfully. He takes a break to get me a Sprite and answers my questions about the rituals and traditions in Nepali weddings. Apparently a party is all they need to live together in matrimony. He gives me his name and addresses me as such when he sees me descending the next day. Kumar! I take a moment to respond to the gift. He has no idea what Facebook even is and so I tell him I'll come over for dinner the next time I'm in Ghandruk. We part ways and I reflect on how far one has to go to find someone who doesn't know what Facebook is. 

Nepal is the sweet woman from Pokhara who cooks me Dal Bhat (Rice and Lentils). I sit on her dark kitchen floor with her son and eat with no utensils. She stuffs me and I tell her how delicious it is in Nepali. Mitocha! Deri Mitocha! I invite her two grandsons to go to the river with my friends and I and we play for hours, jumping from rocks and flipping off of my shoulders. 

Nepal is her son who sits with me and drinks milk tea or takes me "fissing" by the lake, or climbs with me early in the morning to a Buddhist temple high above Pokhara. We boat there and back, and make time for a quick mid-lake splash. We've become brothers now, and our love for one another continues to grow. 

Nepal is Santos, the drunkard in Ghandruk who laughs heartily, smiles widely, and somehow makes it through each day. We have mostly incomprehensible conversations about life, and often settle on taking silly pictures. 

It is Jayaram and Pema and Ohm and Krishna who sell their various goods to us or just enjoy our company as we sit and speak with them. It is the sweet family of five who feed us Pullow and Rice Pudding out of their poverty to bless us and the time we've spent with their children.

It is Suman and Bhim and every other waiter or busboy or taxi-driver, friend, neighbor, stranger or rickshaw driver who serve us with a smile. They each have names and in asking what they are one begins the simple conversations. 

And in those, one really finds Nepal. One meets it, sees it, and says "This is Nepal" and means it. I have some pictures to remember these people with, like the ones posted here. And I have many memories to go by, as well as the stories I've written down to revisit in the near future. And as my last week here ticks by, I know I can leave having really breathed Nepali air.

...knock it off

I am on a bus returning to Kathmandu, leaving sweet Pokhara behind. We left the Kathmandu Valley a week and a half ago, begrudging the seven-hour bus ride to Pokhara hardly at all. We were saying good bye to a sandy atmosphere filled with black, grimy exhaust that left lungs dusty and skin caked. We were leaving behind the noises of grating horns and barking strays as well, those increasingly unbearable characteristics of urban centers. At night the canine choir would light up and I would wonder how we could get them to knock it off by entertaining notions of government-funded neutering initiatives. Seven hours was a pleasant price to pay, and as it wound up and down the foothills of the Himalayas, I only enjoyed it more. But now we're saying hello. Again.

But Kathmandu has her collection of beautiful things, too.

In Thamel where we stay there are shops upon shops of handmade items and knock-off goods, made-to-look-like brands and religious tokens, souvenirs and cheesy t-shirts. And in each one there are beautiful people. Their skin is darker, their smiles brighter. Many have those comfortable wrinkles that speak stories of their own. Some toothy grins are, well, toothless, and their eyes are shining, though often so dark there is no distinction between iris and pupil. Conversation is relaxed, easy; tea is sweet and milky; laughter is not hard to find.

I went to a Nepali church service where we sat in rows on the ground, cross-legged and split: women on the right, men on the left. Up front there were six people singing, a guitarist, bassist and drummer. The room was a concrete rectangle with a tin roof and hanging ceiling fans. In front of me sat a young, passionate man who raised his right hand in worship with a four-letter word tattooed on his knuckles. I smiled and longed for the story behind it.

We also visited Pashupati, the most holy site for all Hindus. This is a temple to Shiva, the destroyer, and within the Hindu-only site for worship sits a giant golden calf--I mean bull--that people pay homage to. Nepali, Indian, Chinese all whisk past us on their way in and out. Some people hope to get to this temple just once in their lifetime, a relationship like Muslims have with Mecca. Hopefully your visit isn't also your funeral, but such is the case for many. Right next to the temple is the ceremonial cremation site along the river, and you can smell it in the air. Several stone platforms support the bonfires of departing lives going on to join the five elements: the body is burned by fire, the body becomes like earth, the smoke floats into the air, the ash is placed in the water and their spirit ascends to Sky. 

However strange it was for us to see burning bodies, and stranger to smell them, it was a fascinating sight. Groups of mourners stood at every stage in the process: some were saying good-bye to their shrouded loved-one as he lay by the lapping current, some, red and puffy-eyed, were watching the fire smolder after hours of flame, and some the ashes being swept into the river. A group even carried one body in on a small bed, tears held back by duty.


But we've left that behind for Lakeside, Pokhara, Nepal. Here dark-skinned boys strip down to their underwear and dive into the warm lake water. They come out gleaming in the sun, smooth, smiling. Some have found a little drop-off and are leaping the ten feet down, splashing below. It is quite hot after all, and even we take an opportunity to leap, fully-clothed, into the lake and swim out to an island where sits a famous hotel owned by the royal 

family. Many dignitaries and celebrities have stayed here and their names are carved on wooden plaques hung outside the room they stayed in. We just sit with an old friend for tea and conversation. The beauty of the shade, the grass, the trees and mostly, the view, gives a sense of youthfulness. It is a kind of paradise here in Pokhara. 

On the outskirts of town winds a river that cuts a deep gorge. It is lower than the lake and thus fed by it, among other sources. There is a family we are good friends with and we took a couple of the young guys to this river for an afternoon of playing in the water. We found a good rock from which to jump and I swam down to see how deep it was there, but quickly resurfaced before I could feel anything; it was too creepy. We leaped into the water, launched them from shoulders and raced back and forth. These boys are brothers, but not by blood; one was found and taken in by the other's mother years and years ago. A hawk circles about the nearby shallow rapids and we enjoy the natural beauty of this country and her people.

Lakeside draws in many tourists and so the main street is lined with trekking shops and restaurants, bookshops and short Tibetan women who make crafts in their refugee camp and bring them to sell. Their shop is their backpack. We have good friends here, our favorite spots for tea or Dal Bhat and a gregarious mentality. Quickly we begin relationships at the Asian Tea House or Shiva's, as we call it. We think there is some kind of divine gravity in this epitomal hole-in-the-wall, for we connect with Aussies, Malaysians, Nepali, Canadian, Chinese and a Czech/Dutch guy. One we met on the trekking road, the others we see day after day, and even one we just met again at a bus stop. Nepal is full of small-world connections, and many emanate from the milk tea conversing at Shiva's. 

Raaz, the young man who sold me gear

Because I left Kathmandu and my luggage never left America, I had to purchase a couple of items. In anticipation of the rain, I needed something as waterproof as possible. So I did a bit of shopping. Nepal is a land of inflated prices. With so many tourists passing though her villages and cities, the locals have learned to price everything high. Bartering is expected and they will still come out with something of a profit. Though I am not a great barterer, I managed to knock off about half of the price that a Tibetan woman asked for; I know she still made off well. This is the case in the capitol as well, where every shop sells the same things and I can get a couple hundred rupees removed fairly easily. Our shop-owning friends give us the inside scoop: it isn't really yak, it isn't really handmade, it isn't really made in Nepal. But they point us to the things that are. 

Yes, the capitol towards which I head once again. There was no good-bye to Pokhara, though; we will return. My heart is there right now and I'll go get it next week. For now I'll partake in the joy of a dog--well, a joy of a dog. No, I will not be urine-marking my space or greeting with a sniff. I'll be sticking my head out of the window. Here, in these tiny taxis, I do this in order to fit in the vehicle, especially when we max out her capacity. And I find that it is delightful to watch everything pass as the wind cools off my sweating brow. Of course I have to lean carefully in order to keep all my parts from departing or getting my head knocked off. 

...piqué interest

The foothills are something even pictures cannot grasp, and my words certainly hold little power to contain them. Shrouded in mist they play hide and seek, with great, strong bodies that house intricate arteries of rivers and ribboning, dancing falls. They are a deep, untouched green, and they metamorphose into heavenly beasts; covered in eyes they always look at me. As I humbly place each one of my strides on their bones, I find gratitude in the muscle of Earth below me, and below the mountain, and below that. And how they launch me into the Heavens.

There is power here; the river rages and surges with it, the mountain quietly keeps it, the air pulls, passes and pours it. I am so small, and as I cross a wooden bridge or come face to face with a leaping cliff, I am reminded of it with clarity. 

And step-by-step we climb, passing the humble homes of mountain dwellers who hike briskly in flip-flops and rubber boots. Cows and water buffalo moo in the uncomfortable rain, chickens peck pathetically, pausing to shake the water from their feathers and ruffle and re-ruffle themselves. A dog joins us, walking ahead and waiting, watching, perhaps protecting and caring for these bipedal strangers. Four children send warning shrieks from under their umbrellas to ward off the monkeys from their family's maturing corn. Three older, wrinkled, calloused, tanned men and women crush rocks with a small hammer. A bare-breasted woman with suckling child sit on their porch we so invasively pass, and many men and women of all ages carry baskets of greens on their backs, supported by a cloth strap that rests on their crown like a bandanna. To each of these we greet with our hands held together in prayer, Namaste, and they return it. From under their plastic coverings some of the friendlier ones say 'Pani! Pani!' with a smile on their face. Pani means water and they chuckle at our sopping state. I agree with them through tone. Yes, Pani. Tons of it. 

It is monsoon season in Nepal; I have never been so soaked for so long. Some of the best gear is defeated by this onslaught. Wet to the core, we continue to climb to keep warm, and we make good time for it. The real enemy are those slimy suckers that come with the rain. Perched on leaves, trees, rocks leeches attach themselves to passing flesh. When we finally take off our shoes we have endlessly leaking wounds to attend to. A cheesecloth-covered ball of salt is our weapon in removing them as we climb, but some make it through all our defenses. When I finally remove one and kill it, I watch it bleed my own blood. How audacious. 

But we finally make it to Hotel Milan high up in Ghandruk. If the clouds clear we will see the glorious snows of the Annapurna Himalayan Mountain Range. Those are the real beauties. In another season we could climb to the top, but monsoon season makes for snow-storms that are not to be reckoned with too audaciously--we wouldn't want the mountains to make us bleed our own blood, so we tread humbly. For now, we hope just for a peek. 

As we dry and tend to wounds and eat a large lunch the mist and clouds pass and dissipate and we become more and more excited, anticipating what lies behind them. Across the valley a lonely structure manifests and I wonder what it could be, with nothing around it, the closest village half a cliff away, who lives there? What do they eat? How do they even get there? The mysteries of the Himalayas continue on...

And then, in the light of morning, when the clouds haven't yet had time to cover the hills, we finally see behind the veil, and oh!--what a change! Suddenly I'm even smaller. Those mountaintops I was so moved by, whose height I was so impressed with, and breadth in awe of--they become, well, hills. Monstrous, gorgeous, green and white--pure white--peaks have been towering above us all this whole time. So quickly my perspective changes. In just a small space between the creeping clouds I see the rising thrust of Fishtail and my hike, my view, my very self, have all shrunk. In the presence of giants we see ourselves as we ought.

But the sight is short lived. From over the hilltops comes the covering. It hugs the mountainside like a woolen blanket. Like a fleece is sits and contours to the shape of the rolling, jutting earth. Within minutes we can't even see the tops of the hills, our horizon is blurred out, and we are back to a world only meters wide and long. But I'm no bigger; I know now, and I cannot forget what greatness lies all around me: the peaks of the Annapurna.