I leave Kathmandu in one week, but nostalgia has already set in. For three months, I walked from my room in Thapathali, across the Dhobi Khola, through Buddhanagar to the blue gate of the Jagaran Media Center. I’ve grown familiar with this commute: I know where last night’s rains will puddle, I recognize the calls of the vegetable sellers, I know by sight the dogs that hang around the butcher shop.
It’s difficult to write anything definitive about this country on a postcard. It’s beautiful, but terribly polluted; it’s friendly, but distrustful; the food’s delicious, but repetitive. I’ve had a life take shape here, and made some amazing friends, but I leave all that in six days, after almost three months of building it. I wonder what parts of this life I will take back with me to DC. I wonder how I will remember this years from now.
I stand on the shores of the Seti River in Doti. A woman passes me by with a sandbag balanced by a strap across her head. She wears a red sari and gold jewelry in her nose and ears. She looks familiar, I know I’ve seen her face before. Prakash turns to me and asks, do you recognize her?
I’m in a pharmacy just north of Nepalgunj in a dusty travelers’ town named Kohulpur. Bhim Nepali, the journalist we have come to visit, brought us here an hour ago for Phoebe and now I am back to pick up the medicine and pay the bill. Phoebe’s stomach hasn’t digest food for five days and she spent yesterday lying in bed.
It’s overcast and grey this morning, but so far no rain. Shiba, the manager of Radio Jagaran, tells me with a smile that it has not stopped raining for five days, so we must have brought the nice weather with us from Kathmandu. I look up at the clouds and smile.
The burning ghats along the Bagmati River are no more than elevated stone tables. Today is Saturday, a holy day for Hindus, and there is a waiting line to burn the dead. JB and I stand 20 meters away on the other side of the river, but I can still inhale the smoke, although I try not to think about it.
Bhola and Dipendra, two Dalit journalists who I’ve traveled 10 hours to visit, share mangoes with me this morning. I am told I will never eat a mango like the mangoes I will eat in Saptari. Two kilos sell for 50 rupees from piles stacked higher than the children who sell them. I eat mine like an apple before I board a bus to a Dalit settlement 10 kilometers away.
There aren’t any seats left on the bus to the Hetauda settlement, so Prakash and I sit in the aisle on bags of rice. This is a new experience not only for me, but for my fellow travelers who stare in unabashed curiosity. An old man comments I’m a real Nepali as he steps around me to get to his seat. A father who sits with his young son, offers me space. I smile and say “tikcha”, which means I’m fine.
I’m in a microbus with windows that slide open and my head is out in the cool air like a dog. The early evening sky is clear and the pictures I’m taking of the snowcapped Himalayas would look a lot better if our driver didn’t swerve so much. The road’s not paved and boulders the size of full grown cows (as well as full grown cows) often materialize in our path.
I sit on a plastic chair outside the Pokhara bus port and sip black tea. I’ve been here for more than two hours, just waiting. I’ve watched the sun burn off the morning clouds. I’ve watched the vegetable sellers wheel their carts full of eggplant, cucumbers and potatoes down the hill towards the bazaar. I’ve watched children, dressed in school uniforms, sidestep the puddles from last night’s rains on the broken sidewalks.