A Walker in the Suburbs

I’m up early. Too late for Nepali time. Maybe it’s Dubai time. Speaking of that place … my airline out of Kathmandu was called “Fly Dubai,” and it carried a crazy mixture of tired trekkers and migrant workers headed back to the Middle East.

Ads in the Kathmandu Airport featured the money transfer service “Himal Remit,” with an older man on a tractor waving his hand in glee. The check has arrived! The check from my son or daughter who can no longer live here because there are no jobs.

One issue I heard from all quarters in Nepal (from bank execs to taxi drivers) was the brain drain. It’s difficult to find a family that has not been affected. Two interviews in a row ended with stories of children in college in Iowa or Massachusetts. Will they return?

As the world shrinks and problems grow, populations are on the move. One-quarter of Nepalis live outside Nepal. I’d like to think this country will remain its lovely, spiritual self. But what is a nation but its people? This is a question every world citizen should ask.

Jumbo jets are seas of humanity, hundreds of people jammed into tight quarters, each with their own pasts, presents, futures — and languages. Some travel in pairs: old couples with their heads tipped together in sleep; lovers on honeymoons. Others travel in groups: families and babies in the bulkhead. Many travel alone, as I did.

When I arrived home this morning, I looked out the window of the bus taking me to the main terminal to see the craft that had just borne me home. We flew up and over from Dubai to Dulles, crossing eastern Europe and Scandinavia, Labrador and Nova Scotia.

And now, miraculously, I’m home.  The busy boulevards of Bangkok, the dusty thoroughfares of Kathmandu, are behind me now,  alive in photographs and memories. How improbable it all seems, to travel to the other side of the world and back. How very lucky I was to have done it. How grateful I am to be home.

Last night we visited Boudhanath. Pilgrims walk three times around the stupa, touching the prayer wheels, burning incense, sometimes even prostrating themselves. We walked three times around, too.

As I prepare to leave this wonderful country, I’m remembering something my colleague and friend Chadani said to me last evening as we were leaving Boudhanath.

“In my culture, we treat our visitors like gods.”

That’s exactly right! I’ve been fed and gifted and given far more than I can ever return.

The culture of hospitality gives me hope. If we can treat the visitor, the stranger, with such loving care and concern, then can’t we ultimately learn to live together in peace?

We don’t have these where I live, these vine-draped, sun-splashed oases of calm in the midst of busy cities. But the courtyard at my hotel is, I think,  one of the most enchanting places I’ve ever seen.

Wisteria vines hang heavy over tiled roofs. Something fragrant — frangipani? spirea? — blooms by the pool, which is filled by spouts of cool, piped-in water augmented by a sculpture spring.

A bird I’ve never heard before chatters in the shrubbery. Incense wafts from a small shrine, and water trickles from a quiet fountain.

To enter this courtyard is to feel an ancient spirit, tapping the inner peace of a place designed for tranquility.

Since I’ve been in Nepal I’ve considered the courtyard, the haven it provides, how it soothes the soul. Considered it — and coveted it, too.

This morning I spotted a new friend at the hotel, a dog named … Maya — which astute readers of yesterday’s post will recognize as the name of the safa tempo driver I described yesterday. It’s a lovely name and this seems like a lovely dog.

Maya knows how to work the room. She walks around the hotel lobby and outside in the courtyard where there are tables and tidbits. She is fat and happy. She is not your typical Nepali mongrel.

Kathmandu has a wild dog problem — this in addition to its mean monkey problem and its abandoned cow problem. Packs of wild dogs roam the streets and alleys of Nepal’s capital city, and they carry rabies and (from the looks of it) mange.

The cows are especially pathetic. Since Nepal is primarily Hindu and cows can’t be killed, some people simply abandon their animals when they’re through with them, especially since the earthquake in 2015. Cars must swerve to avoid hitting the animals, this in a bustling city of three million people. Sometimes people take pity on the cows, but more often than not, fate is not kind to these beasts.

But back to Maya. The wild dogs I’ve seen run in packs, bark at cars, and (especially in the warm afternoons) curl up and nap wherever they like, including the street. But Maya walks proudly … and alone. She is plump and well-mannered.  I’d love to know her story. Is she a favored pet? She’s the only golden lab I’ve seen here, so I don’t think she’s ever been on the street.  Maya is, at least as far as I can tell, the luckiest dog in Kathmandu.

I spent much of today riding in the back of a three-wheeled electric vehicle that somehow, improbably, holds 12 people, not including the driver, a woman named Maya, one of the first female safa tempo drivers in Kathmandu.

Maya has made a living for herself, her children and her extended family by dint of much hard work and personal sacrifice. When she first started driving these vehicles, women were rare behind their wheel … and they were harassed. Now she’s not only become a fixture on her route but has trained other women who drive for a living, too.

When she finished her 12-hour-plus shift, Maya took us to her house and made us a cup of tea. Serving others … again. The view from a safa tempo is almost all she sees. I wish she could see herself as I see her — a model of serving others.

Sunrise in Nagorkot

Today I did what I do so often at home: take off walking to see what I can see. Only today I wasn’t sure where I was going. Oh, I had a basic idea, but it was very basic … and I had no sooner walked down a hill than I realized I would have to walk back up it again.

That’s OK, I told myself. I was using both the up muscles and the down muscles. And it wasn’t that awkward walking through a village where I was so close to one house I could smell the coffee. (Actually it was, so I snapped only one picture there, and very quickly.)

I eventually reached my destination by jumping in a cab with two Russians, only to end up at the same observation tower I had been to before. There I ran into Chinese tourists I’d seen on my second trip down the hill and shared another cab that finally deposited me at Club Himalaya in Nagorkot, where I was meeting a colleague.

Whew! Maybe I should call this a Cabber in the Himalayas.

Today we visited the sacred garden in Lumbini and saw the marker stone that represents the exact place where the Buddha was born. Brickwork around the stone dates back to 300 B.C., which makes it part of the oldest structure in Nepal.

To meditate at Lumbini is to come closer to enlightenment, said our guide, and plenty of people were trying. We, however, were at the tail end of two days of field visits with farmers, fishers, traders and more. I hope we gave the spot the reverence it deserved.

Later, we hopped a flight back to Kathmandu aboard a Buddha Air flight. A funny name for an airline. Patient acceptance? Life is suffering?

Neither one is their motto … but the plane that was supposed to leave at  4:20 left at 7 p.m. instead. And we patiently accepted the delay.

This morning we flew to Bhairahawa, near the Indian border, to visit a rice mill, agrovet (seed store) and various vegetable collection centers and farmer’s groups in the region.

To reach these places, we traveled some bumpy, rutted, and in some cases unpaved, roads. When I say “we” I mean the convoy of seven SUVs, several of which say “U.S. AID from the American people” — though the words were frequently obscured by the dust we kicked up.

Let’s just say it was wonderful to step into the Buddha Maya Garden Hotel in Lumbini and be greeted with a cool washcloth. They don’t call it the dry zone for nothing!