you wascally wabbit

4.3.13

Another country, another interview.  I should be so lucky.  Two months to go, where will you be. Oh to dream simple and listen to braveheart, hmm I ought to get up and clean rooms.

Two years ago where were you, I was leaving Turkey and heading here.  Three years ago I was somewhere between Peoria and Las Vegas, four years ago, the second week in April, time accelerated.  How has life changed cannot be measured accurately because I’ve seen too much and moved too much and change doesn’t appear to have any plans on stopping. 

An afternoon tree bending storm sweeps in and doesn’t stop, blue skies and the layered ranges return.  Change.  I’ve changed places enough in the last four years a three year deal in a new desert town appeals, doesn’t it?

And yet I suffer from random phantom waves of optimism unjustified imagining that has never done me any bit of good.  How can I be blessed if my desires are not, apparently, of the divine kind?  I can’t have both, can I? 

Five Americans checked in after the rains and now they sit in the dining room after sunset, quietly, one woman talks.  I decided it best to take a walk and got as far as Ram’s Mountain View Guesthouse for a bottle of apple vodka and entertainment provided by Italian jugglers in practice with rastarfari hair.  Yes, a different crowd hangs out elsewhere on the mountain, I forget hippies will always be here in some form. 

Only Maya occupies the kitchen, the rest, who knows, such is life when your home is a restaurant.  There’s always food, good food in this case, in a kitchen that has been pretty darn busy in one’s humble opinion. At the view top yesterday I told a Japanese lady who’s been volunteering in Kathmandu and had made her eighth trip to Sarangkot  that I too volunteer, in the kitchen cutting garlic, onions and so forth, carrying water, wood, someone’s gotta do it I told her and she didn’t think too much of me after that to be honest and we parted ways. 

Remember:  In the interview last week:  “Well, Dr Ali, I’m an Irish Catholic Democrat, like my Vice President, loyal, compassionate, and I look in a man’s eye and take his word for it, that’s me in brief, I guess, is there anything else?

8:36pm—A Scandinavian couple arrive looking for something to eat just as Maya and Suraksha head to the bathroom to clean up with a bucket of scalding hot water.  Laxman is engaged with work in the internet world and I return to room eight.  I avoided meeting the American pentagon, perhaps tomorrow, perhaps not.  I don’t pursue anyone’s time, figuring they are here to escape similarities.  And lo!  The rain falls hard, a pattern has changed. 

Good night everyone, goodnight to the lucky and the unfortunate, the love and unloved, the confused, the enlightened, may the waters of heaven reassure you into an easy and deep sleep beginning now.

4.4.13

The two Italians who stayed in room six for two nights left a bag of orange candy and pens.  Manab entered the kitchen when I opened the bags and the hobbit left with something to suck and chew and a swastika on the palm of his right hand which he thrusts outward like a superhero stopping crime.  The men were treated to brilliant and brief storms during their stay, Tibetan incense burned at their entrance. 

The five Americans enjoyed breakfast and interact with children and their mothers in the dining room, a cool air and strong sun make it quite pleasant for outside sitting. These are quiet Americans, one has the Ann Richards look working for her, mom and dad and two daughters.  There are no discussions between us, the last thing Americans want is to find another American on top of a mountain thousands of miles away from a Taco Bell who doesn’t mind serving them breakfast.  So There!

And before I forget Carl the Cock gave his life up for a hungry and thankful group of men a few nights ago.  It seems too quiet now and there’s no one pecking at the door, waiting to be put to sleep under the basket.  See ya, Carl, you were pretty tasty.

How has life changed here for the family and residents of this ‘diamond’?  This is only my opinion but appearances don’t tell a quarter of their stories.  The lack of water and the pursuit of it is still a challenge, perhaps more so now here at the Lodge than two years ago, though two years ago I waded through the entire monsoon season and that was too much. 

Another brief shower with high winds comes and goes.  Only one room taken, a Chinese couple.  Very quiet tonight and are so my thoughts.  An interview delayed ten days or so is ok, I have to consider getting at least my masters diploma attested in Kathmandu. . 

A charming threesome claiming to be from New Zealand ate lunch and relaxed in the garden.  We talked before the rain came and the man with the academic looking beard and large camera said ‘willage’ in one of his sentences.  Earlier I heard the man’s wife speaking in another language but I didn’t hear enough.  Willage.  Whea you fwom owiginally you wascally wabbit. 

Their daughter was quite enamored with the idea of staying here for eight months and for reasons I don’t understand she made herself more attractive physically than she was when she spoke of such things, which isn’t to say she wasn’t attractive when she didn’t say such things, it was just, ok never mind.