Puppy Love

It is sort of embarrassing to look back and think about how dreamy and wispy I felt when I first met Mongolia. I looked into its skies and gazed at its smiles and mountains and endless plains with such fervor, such hope. But now that I've met Nepal I realize it was all puppy love. I know what real love is now.


The bus to Kathmandu took THREE days. To hear me describe the journey you'd think I was some kind of martyr, trudging the earth with a giant cross or sack of hay strapped to my back. The truth is something else, though. It was incredible, and I can't think of words to describe it, or even trust that a good thesaurus would be enough, would do this glorious place justice. First of all, I woke up super early in Lhasa to get to the station, and I ended up waiting for what seemed like hours. No matter, Tibetans are kind and giving, curious, smiling... I spoke with one gentleman who works with a non-profit and teaches locally. He was sending off some people so the chat ended, unfortunately, at the bus station. The bus was packed with about 40 Tibetans, all hopeful and excited with very new passports and very new visas for Nepal. Over the course of the trip we shared laughs, hot tea, dirt paths as toilets, fruit, and dirty hotels. I really had no idea when the bus would arrive, so I was already surprised when we stopped at a hotel after a relatively easy 8 or 9 hours of driving. Most of Tibet looks like this first photo, and I met this sheepy thing at the border town. It was posing for me, don’t you think?




This is a photo of two of my bus-mates who were heading into exile in India after Nepal. It was really amazing to see firsthand the treatment of Tibetans by the Chinese. I’ve seen plenty of ‘Free Tibet’ stickers and maybe even signed a petition or two… Anyway, the second photo below shows the line (on the ‘Friendship Bridge’) separating China to the right and Nepal to the left.




The second day we continued to ascend high mountain passes and then, sort of suddenly, everything changed: there was grass, there was green, there were livable areas and people again, then we were descending, approaching the long, deep gorge toward the border and into the Kathmandu Valley.



I was awestruck by Nepali people I chance encountered as I waved my silly arms and head out the window. Boys screamed and waved, skipping in dirty half-sandals, shopkeepers smiled and girls washed clothing under pipes coming out of cement structures. I was in love, and my cheeks were pained from smiling so much. Not that fake Mongolia-love you always hear about. I mean, I am not trying to diss Mongolia. It was so good to me; I'll never forget the gifts and love, mountains and museums, and bad hip-hop. But I feel something new, something that makes my stomach jittery and my heart tender. I'm really happy here, and I don't even have a guidebook.

I arrived late in the afternoon almost exactly two weeks ago. While using my ATM card across the street from the bus park I ran into a friendly US ex-pat who gave me some advice about what part of town to stay in. It is where most of the tourists go, but a thriving, bustling local scene is around every corner. Right away the smells of spice and joss enchanted me, and I didn’t much mind the trash in the street and the narrow streets crowded with taxis and motorbikes, farmers and hustlers peddling their wares. There also signs of oppression, like the guards and checkpoints all over the roads.






I knew, though, that I needed to see some more of the country, so I headed west to the scenic and popular town of Pokara. Hated it. Absolutely hated it. It was paradise, sure, but I've seen paradise. I longed to be back in the dusty streets of Kathmandu eating cheap Nepali food and watching tea runners and women in sarees walk down the street. There is one part of Pokara where all the tourists go, Lakeside. I felt like I was in an open-air mall, and there is no shortage of malls in my home country. There were only local children prowling the streets begging or hassling tourists, and there were only other locals in their shops beckoning you in with incessant cat calls. I ended up staying a week, but only because I took a motorbike tour of all the surrounding sites (after silently cursing the entire Asia entire) to try and salvage my time after a few days…




And then… I met a family I’d been growing friendly with invited me to their village for a special Puja, a blessing by a priest for the villagers. It took an hour on a rickety bus and then an hour and a half climbing a small mountain to get there. There are a total of fourteen houses in the village but they are so spread out that I only walked by two of the homes and stayed in the third with my host's family.




How do I describe that day, that night? Am I supposed to thrown out 'it was great,' 'fabulous, 'lots of fun'? No, I can't. I (and all our thesauruses) are lacking yet again. Ask me about it sometime. You might think I look like I'm about to cry, the way I look when I talk about Omega House, the AIDS hospice where I did volunteer work and research in Texas. "How sad," people always say, which I never understood. What they mean is 'Wow, I'm really afraid to die and if I ever saw death in front of me I wouldn't know what to do!' And this is terribly unfortunate because it is a wonderful place full of love and light and people you've never imagined. Nepal makes me feel something along those lines, but I wonder about the intrinsic reason for this crazy love. Is this unparalleled love condescending, is it insulting, as I come from the most powerful and wealthy (albeit fairly unhappy and disliked) country?

In my field of study, anthropology, there is a term, or a theory called the noble savage. It is typical for us, even for middle class populations in the ‘third world,’ to see farmers and peasants as beautiful, so see them as being close to the land. In the United States we’re fond of speaking heart-lustily about Native Americans, we like to tell people how neat their lives out. We put ‘dream catchers’ on our walls and talk about how they use EVERY PART of a buffalo- wow, no waste! We think about people in Africa and Asia, their sweet simple lives, and then we catch a taxi to a bar with a $20 cover charge or dust the top of out DVD player. So that is the noble part. This is the savage part: none of us would trade or grand lives for their puny ones would we? I’m so in love with this place, right? Well, should that mean I would trade my life for one of theirs? If it is so beautiful and fantastical, is it not worth the same as mine? I wouldn’t trade, I admit it. And I’m sure all those grade school teachers who said those things about Native Americans wouldn’t trade their lives either. And I don’t think this is a matter of being used to what we know, being familiar and comfortable. I think it is a severe value judgment, and my love for this place and the people here is rooted in my Western idea of beauty in being close to nature with a ‘simple’ life.

Well, I still love it here. There is so much green, sometimes I get to share a meal with a new friend, and almost every day in Kathmandu (before Pokara and now that I am back), I visit these kids…



I have had tea in one of their father’s shops, I have been invited into three of their homes and even tonight I return for dinner and a visit. I’m not sure when I will leave and head south to India. Sometime within 3-8 days I’m guessing. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to feel not only this boundless love, but also the hope that time proves it pure and real.