don't mind the buffalo behind the curtain

Rain fell until after nine, the traveler from the UK was ready to return to Pokhara.  She didn’t even go up to the viewpoint.  Why even make this effort to come here if you’re leaving less than 24 hours?  Oh well.

The sun is out now, a cool breeze tempers the heat, accelerated work in the dining room and in the garden as men cut plywood with rubbery saws continues, it is much quieter in room six as fog comes and goes and the sun is gone.  I watched the frenzied from a seat under the banana tree when Tika took a seat and gave me his aural cv.  In Iraq with the American Air Force for eight years he’s considering a job in Afghanistan.  Money is a drug, as misleading as heroin.   I’m told he’s saved enough he doesn’t need to work right now, so the temptation will linger for another month before he is to give them an answer, a month to mull being with family on a mountain, sitting every morning watching traffic go up and down, feeding and slaughtering chickens, what else, or follow the money trail. 

And for what it’s worth, talking to the uncle of the coincidental woman at least leaves me thinking everything is more or less tiksa between me and their family, not that there would be anything other than what he may have heard from Prem Maya. 

“He threw two of mother’s plastic chairs off the house.  Two weeks later we found two new bamboo chairs with cushions in the yard.  Mother called him son of Murda.

Why did he throw the chairs?

It’s a little unclear but it has to do with samyog.

Ramuz and a worker dug away at the landslide.  It is one thing to repair a wall, it is another thing to repair  the earth once it gives way. 
 

The Hershey Kisses are good to have if you insist on eating chocolate because of their size although their size doesn’t stop at eating one.  Five and a kit-kat and oh here comes the Princess with homework under her arm and we’re doling out the Dutch Pastilles and the stuff smears her teeth, I tell her not to bite it just let it rest on your tongue and it’ll last an hour, though I know not if this is true. 

And then it’s lunch, a bowl of vegetable noodles and a glass of water.  Thirty minutes later I’m walking with Suman, Suraksha and Suson to their grandparents house for a special Nepali dish called pooah, a lightly sweetened (ghee) grain and cucumber slices. 

I asked Suman what he was learning in science. ‘Thermodynamics’.  He asked me about the Hadron Collider again, and he wondered aloud if this meant that his faith was all a lie.  On the contrary all are working in tandem.  It’s like touching that buffalo behind the curtain kind of thing. 

 

The saws and hammering drive the children to room six to do homework.  The men-boys have built a semi-circle reception-bar and were at work building shelves.  Meanwhile the ceiling  continues to receive additional curiosities I’m unsure of at this moment.  One of the putty boys, and the youngest at 13 is so happy to be working with a bed and free meals. I’m told he can make 10,000rs for the year until he is skilled.

It was a bit of a surprise to receive a FB note from SVB.  It has been 14 years since I last saw him.  He wanted to know how to spell my last name.  When Harry turns 18 he can legally change his surname since for the last whatever years he has used an Ulster name which, well, it’s not surprising, is it? And it wouldn’t surprise me if his mother managed to get his name changed without my approval. 

Well on to Shanti time with Vince Guaraldi…A haze and fog fill the valleys, all is still…within three hours fog embraces flashes and rumbles, a couple in room five, five boys still sawing and making whatever in the dining room, the kitchen is ridiculously hot since they closed the door to keep construction dust out, three females checked into room one and within ten minutes checked out.  Not having a place to sit and ponder with a cup of tea, and there has been no place for two days, you don’t stay or you go somewhere else to eat. 

Not much internet today, a very weak connection, no visible mountains for some time, dinner, uno with Suman and Suraksha, and it is enough, like clockwork, come nine o’clock and we’re yawning.