I am only a tourist

4.5.13

 When I sat down at  the tap right below in a blazing afternoon sun yesterday and waited for one container to fill so I could put a blue container under the weak flow, the 15 year old girl from the Lake View Guesthouse ignores me and puts hers ahead of mine, well that just isn’t cool. I politely remind her of the queue and she ignores me like a fly on a goat.  First, I am a tourist and I will not engage in such rabble for water, especially with this girl who knew I couldn’t argue in Nepalese and wouldn’t argue in English and tell her she’s obnoxious because cutting in line would not have ever happened if I wasn’t there.  Fatalism, the law of the desert, rules for mountain life. 

Of course I called out Maya and in a few minutes Prem Maya poured the water from this child-girl’s yellow container into Maya’s blue container, and that was it.  It is better to be diplomatic in such confrontations and let the others fight it out.  I am only a tourist. 

5:02pm—Strong winds, a rumble in the north, will the rain hold off, who the hell knows.  All rooms are full, walk-ins save for a family from Melbourne in room six who booked on-line and may I note they are very happy in room six.  A six hour trek from Damphus with two kids under 14, troopers they are, righto? A hot morning sun drove me back into room eight where I dozed off and on before Didi called and for the next hour collected about 30kg of red potatoes planted earlier this year.  Aside from ant holes most of the buds look clean albeit some are too small to peel, no matter right?  Just boil ‘em and add salt and butter and ya da, an easy meal, though I haven’t cooked a potato for myself, I really can’t remember. Aside from mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving, say 12 years ago, that’s it.  Hmm.

I glued Didi’s part of the sandal that goes between your toes with super-glue because the rubber had snapped and by golly three hours on and at least 10 trips from the compost hole to the field below the rooms her sandal’s still holding! 

Water shortage.  The country with the second largest natural supply of water in the world.  Access.  It’s all about getting it out of a government that can’t handle big projects without the cost of corruption that spirals budgets to the too expensive we’ll never get it done so let’s not even start.  It’s hard to dream big when you don’t have the heart of your elected officials looking after you.  Didi just walked past with bag number I lost count. 

It will be difficult to leave but it won’t be impossible.  Everything happens for a reason.  Your wildest dreams sometimes do not come true and these illusions become distractions, hindrances, the thorn in the side.  Sab kuch malega. A relative and quite optimistic phrase that keeps you hoping foolishly.

I will be disappointed that I will not see those green eyes again only because I was terribly misled. This place is just too small. Out of sight out of mind.  How many days left? 

I helped wash a ten year old’s hair in the middle garden with warm water from the tap.  Later in the evening the ten year old asked me to go with her to the tap.  She’s been real busy today at the tap, so many women, all jockeying, slashing, burning, to get to the tap and they show no mercy to little children so I went to the tap, a dying lighter flashlight in someone’s hand down the uneven steps to fill up the containers and in the waiting a reason to drink a bottle of cheap apple vodka stops at the tap and I feel so old looking but never in the eyes, even in the dark, even without my glasses, all things happen for a reason was a bloody mistake!!!.  It did happen and it wasn’t supposed to happen equals what.

It did happen for a reason but it wasn’t supposed to happen.  A coincidence that turned out to not be a coincidence questions the credibility of your memory.  Not in this case, though, she said she was the eighth daughter, I was talking about Marcella Ranagan with the Polack so why would she offer this I’m the eighth of eight girls if she wasn’t?  Because she didn’t know she was dealing with a lunatic who knows how to bake? Out of sight, out of time, sunrise comes earlier tomorrow.