8.22.14
10.18am-It hasn’t rained today
though algae thick fog embraces everything.
And it is warm enough to take a few layers off. I declined the job to pick up milk this
morning because I’ll see the grandparents on my last day here tomorrow. I don’t know if I am going to see the
Tibetans this trip. A planned lunch was
cancelled and then I postponed a meeting and there is only tomorrow and
tomorrow is packing and saying goodbyes and drinking tea. What to do.
Nyima was a significant individual in this whole crazy journey. His medium and the spirit who would later
sync with me had something to discuss. A
meeting of two entities and I haven’t the faintest today of what that
conversation may have been about other than what he suggested was two old
friends meeting again. Right. And this whole missing spirit thing will
always leave me thinking unless I can get an answer and now that’s he gone,
what to do.
Walking along the lake front I saw Ringtheen (?) the 38
year old Tibetan woman with perfect teeth who sold me odds and ends a few years
ago and of course I looked at her stuff though my only interest was a ring to
replace my Tulufan jade brass ring. She
didn’t bring any rings but I wound up buying something for the key chain. And while we talked and I listened to the Tibetan
plea for justice here in Nepal I reminded her of a longer and more deadly
conflict and she should be lucky.
Lucky? This is my only money, I
have no passport. No one is bombing you
here, Didi. She thinks my Nepalese has
improved and I told her if she weren’t married surely she’d make it to the US
and live a life full of commercials and taxes.
And she’d be free.
Prem Maya and Tika tend to their gardens right
below. Their property comes right up to
the building and Tika plants large bare branches into the ground for beans to
wrap themselves up and out. Perhaps in
three or fewer years the two will build another row of rooms right in front of
room five and the rest. And that, would
be it.
1.28pm
The sun is out strong, hazy skies, the paragliders are
back with the big birds. I have looked
at the nicer hotels in Kathmandu and feel guilty only with one. I don’t know where I’ll stay but I’d like a
view and that’ll be where I go.
I’m ready to go.
Five weeks was a good amount of time.
I don’t know how I did ten months, holy shiva.
Prem Maya is working hard below today, pulling out the
chopped stalks and tilling the soil.
Normally she commands the guesthouse, usually from a bamboo chair in the
shop or the roof. She’s talking to
herself, ‘..bistarly…’ in the sun and mud, pulling those rooty stalks is not
easy work with only a prehistoric hand claw.
She pants and tears up another.
She rests and a loud audible sigh is released, she throws stones out of
the plot she has finished. On top of the
clean plot is a pile of fresh moist manure, waiting to become a useful form of
energy. She grunts, I’m done.
5.00pm
The non-coincidental returns with a young man, brother,
boyfriend, most likely the latter.
Why? She hopes I will see she is
still not and will never be, available.
I know she’s thinking our meeting was a sign, she believes in signs
though she’s trying to flee from her ancestral roots and be a 21st
century citizen. Well good luck to
you. Our encounter was indeed a
manufactured sign and you interpret it one way and I the other. Your interpretation is one of defiance, mine
is peace. I’m not interested in you,
honey. Shanti.
It has been a splendid day with lots of sun, blue sky,
and cool winds. Guests with a guide
check into room one. I almost took a
shower in room one today, hoping instead there’ll be plenty of solar heating
sunshine tomorrow. Maya and Ram clean
and till the plot of land that separates the plot Prem Maya cleared. I told Maya the woman was speaking to herself
and it was unfortunate I didn’t speak Nepali but it was enough to go out with
the wolf-boy and get it ready. Was she
complaining about someone else’s land or was she simply not interested in doing
this work I’ll never know nor do I want to know. In three years there might be concrete where
she plants squash tomorrow.
Next time I need to bring eye drops. The eyes itch an hour from dusk when I will
most likely begin sneezing and fighting ferocious mosquitoes. A calm evening one expects tonight, maybe a
sunset worth going up.
There are no laws stopping my cousin from building
right in front of my own.
Traditions are being honored even though it will
adversely affect someone else. And no
one wants to or is willing to change that tradition.
And democracy has no place in some places.
Ke garne, what to do.
10.48pm
The rain falls hard extending the streak. Laxman and I chatted with the couple from
room one, their guide, and a mysterious beauty the guide said was his
cousin. I am happy to see the
Oppenheimer bio go to the German woman who is working for Dior in Abu
Dhabi. She recommended ‘Red Horizons’
about a Romanian and his experience during the cold war. In our conversation I managed to share my
theory, my idea, about ending the crisis between Israel and Palestine. But I didn’t mention the change of
interpretation of slavery. Maybe
tomorrow. Tomorrow, packing, cleaning, visiting. Balrum came by to say hello and I said I’d
come by to say goodbye. Clean for two
weeks, he looks scarier now.
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