I am sweating like crazy but cannot remove my long sleeve shirt… a tank tap is all that I am wearing underneath and bearing my shoulders is essentially equivalent to being naked… the spicy fried Nepali food and warm milk tea increase my temperature still yet. (Recently I discovered that this lovely milk tea contains 15-20 grams of fat per serving. For fear of offending the wonderful people, I drink the FIFTH cup given to me today while mentally plotting how to start kindly turning down this Nepali staple!) I gaze out the window of the little hut at the children bathing and playing in the river below… I am overtaken with the beauty of this remote place. Movies are truly reminiscent of reality… I am in a movie.
The truck/jeep has picked us up and I am in the back end utterly squished. The vehicle is having a tough time due to the weight of the 15 of us packed into the back end and the additional 8 clinging to the ROOF. A Nepali man is shoving rocks under the tiers to get us up the hill and dust surrounds me like a thick cloud. I’m clutching a scarf to my mouth in effort to filter the air and squeeze my eyes shut to keep the dust out. This is our only option of get to the remote village… all I can think is “my mother would kill me if she saw this!”
The children from the village jet out of their homes to check out the spectacle of a jeep passing through, and after 10 hours of travel we have finally have reached our destination. Greeted by “namastes” and smiles I hand the woman who has opened her home to us a bag of cookies, and do my best to say thank you in broken Nepali. We’re instructed to wash our hands and feet and prepare for dinner.
Sitting on a square rug on the floor in Indian style I take on the task of learning to eat the erroneous amount of food placed in front of me with my hands (as is tradition, no utensils my friends!) Breathing deeply I struggle to swallow the last bit of curry, beans, and rice, when, to my surprise, she piles MORE food on my plate. Then, while filling a cup with milk from the buffalo that is five feet away, she instructs me to “eat, eat”. It is completely unacceptable to leave any food on your plate, so, miserably stuffed, I follow directions. After dinner, feeling blow up like a balloon and exhausted from the day’s dusty journey, I happily close my eyes as I lay on a firm straw bed and cover up with a cozy yak blanket. I just ate a dinner cooked over buffalo dung… I think…
Many of us have the perception that village life is one of idealistic bliss, emerson into true culture and the harmonious simplistic life of living as one with the environment. While this tranquil perfection is semi-existent in some communities it is far from compete…
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