down by the water

My childhood fantasies of wandering through seas of tall green grass in search of rhinos and elephants were coming true. I could feel the panting of the monsoon on my neck, like some wild animal, threatening— but then the sky would smooth over, and the only wetness came dripping down my forehead and neck. A happy mess of sweat, sunscreen, and failing insect repellant, my eyes were wide for anything with a heartbeat. The air was full of every delightful cheep, tweet and hoot I could imagine— but what I found more interest and joy in listening to were the cheerful identifications of the calls, shared between Pedro and Tikka, the ornithologist.

"Zitting Cisticola. On the right. In the grass." Tikka calmly lead our eager eyes over to a clump of green, where I could see some movement and a flash of brown. How on earth he managed to find it still mystifies me. My heart pounded when I located the Cisticola through my binoculars, thrilled to be able to watch it fluff, twitch, and breathe. I later learned that this was not an especially exotic or rare bird. Nevertheless, I had never knowingly seen a Zitting Cisticola before, and silently celebrated. 

Zitting Cisticola! Zitting Cisticola! I chanted in my head with each step further into the grass. Taking pleasure in the sound of the vowels and consonants in the little bird's name, this would be my mantra.



 Down by the water, I saw my first rhino. At first we thought it was a cluster of tree branches, until it moved— he was a massive, intimidating male, with gleaming black skin and sharp, curved horn. For some reason I imagined the rhinos would be smaller— the word that still comes to mind is mighty. I climbed a small tree for a better look, where I was stung by an unseen and unhappy insect.



At some point in our wanderings, I noticed the faint outline of a paw print in a puddle at my feet.
"Tiger." Our guide declared with a grin. "Looks fairly fresh." 
A tiger?

Zitting Cisticola! Zitting Cisticola! I continued to chant.

south to sauraha

Our trip to Chitwan National Park was as planned as a short discussion about how we should go there, followed by a packing of bags and a taxi to Kantipath the next morning at 6:30 am, hoping to catch any bus that would take us there. Every bus in the long line of tourist buses turned us down, with the exception of one dodgy-looking one named Sai Baba. The last two seats in the back of the dilapidated bus were available for about 500 rupees each, which we gladly took.

The ride was perhaps the most hair-raising I have had in Nepal, with the driver speeding down the Prithvi Highway in the fog, slamming on breaks at nearly every bend, which took a good 10 minutes to screech to a crawl. We grinned optimistically at each other with clenched teeth, silently and desperately hoping to avoid taking to the sky— deeply aware that the Trisuli river was rushing somewhere frighteningly far below us in the white mist. Rather than study how the side of the road plummeted into nothingness, I kept staring at the small photo at the front of the bus of a smiling man with an afro. The faded photo seemed important to the driver, by its prominent placement. The fog eventually lifted as the hours passed, as the mountains and hills were ironed into flat green paddies.



We wobbled off the bus with jelly legs, surprised that we arrived in one piece— vowing never, ever to take a Sai Baba bus again. The moment our boots hit the dirt, we were approached from all sides by people offering us rides to their guesthouses. Though we had not planned out the trip, we did know where we wanted to stay: Gaida Lodge, which is run by one of Nepal's most renowned ornithologists. There are over 500 species of birds in Chitwan National Park, and with our hearts set on seeing anything feathered, we decided there wasn't a better place to stay than at a lodge run by an ornithologist. I offered Pedro one of the two boiled eggs I had been saving in my pocket since the rest stop in somewhere before Dumre, and with a vague notion of the direction of Gaida, we set off.

"Crumble the shells up small so the little birds can use them."

I ground the shells in my hand, delighting in the sensation. It tickled me, the thought of some colourful bird carrying off the little pieces to his nest, in hopes of impressing a lady bird. The air was thick, and smelled of animal.

excuse me, may i take your photo?

fragile wings

atop swayambhunath

We sketched for an hour at the foot of the hill which holds Swayambhunath at its peak, competing for space with camera-happy, pushy tourists, mischievous macaques, murderous mosquitoes, and curious Nepalis. Children all but climbing on us, sweat beading down our faces, we reached a point of physical and mental exhaustion, and decided to shut our books to pull our bodies up the 365 steps toward the stupa. Buddha's wide eyes of compassion, watching our rib cages expand and squeeze heavily, watching little brown hands reach out toward the foreign, watching tika-marked brows and fingers clicking buttons on cameras and phones— watching over us all.



On our breathless 366th step, we moved clockwise past the enormous dorje, trying to make sense of the colour, the noise and movement, the scent of people and incense. It was all familiar to me, yet still like some overwhelming wave. I searched Pedro's face in an attempt to understand what he felt as he stood there. We leaned against a wall together, not saying much, watching the monsoon blanket the valley.

red and green

and earth.

sketching the school

Shree Mangal Dvip is a boarding school. Some kids have not seen their parents in years, as their villages are more than a week's trek from the nearest road, lying at altitudes that would make us gasp. The peeling buildings at the school are home, while fellow students and younger teachers become brothers and sisters. Many former students grow up only to return as teachers, as they just cannot bear to leave the arms of the school.

While most of my younger students are content to draw mountains, princesses and Justin Biebers, I wanted them to draw something that truly mattered to them— something that was a part of them. I hope they learn to find inspiration in the everyday, and begin to really look at the world around them.

After the rain one afternoon, we began to sketch the school.



As we scattered about the yard with papers and pencils, others wanted to join in or huddle around and watch. Most kids drew the dorms or the playground, while others drew their friends or some plants.
 


My favourite moment was when this little girl— who often appears at the window to the balcony where we have class, ready and willing to model for portraits— asked for a piece of paper and a pencil. Gripping both tightly in her hands, she climbed into the see-saw, and very seriously sketched the swing set. She was not originally in my art classes, but seems to have been listening to a thing or two while posing for the artists, and has been a part of the lessons since this sketch.

blue

the other side of the coin

With our backpacks burdening our tired bodies, we decided to walk to Hanuman Dhoka Durbar Square from where the bus dropped us off in Kathmandu. The ride from Pokhara was a cramped six hours, but we had arrived in the the early afternoon and preferred to take advantage of this fact, instead of running to our guesthouse for a shower and sleep. As we navigated through potholed alleys which stank of incense and sewage, trying to avoid mysterious muck and the kamikaze motorcyclists, our traveller mental fog lifted with each step, as Kathmandu pressed itself upon us. The noise of the city is astounding; the incessant beeping of every type of motorised vehicle drowns out conversation and the calls of fruit sellers— and yet somehow you always manage to catch that plea for money, milk, chocolate or water coming from somewhere around you. The brilliantly coloured ladies and the fine details of ancient architecture can sweep you away, but when you look down or to the side, there's often something you would have rather not seen. Missing limbs, twisted bodies— children with lined faces and broken, forgotten elderly. You get followed, pulled and grabbed, and you don't know what to do or what to feel— but your gut is tight and your neck, stiff. No one tells you how to help, or who you might be able to help— and how to distinguish them from those who might be taking advantage of your foreignness and ignorance. I try to focus on the positive on Harika, as I try to focus on the positive in life— but reality is inescapable, and it smacks you in the face in Nepal. You are forced to come out of your romantic, rose-tinted dream, and see the hunger and desperation— and if you are a thoughtful, open human being, you try to do what you can, and you become grateful.

I love Nepal. The people I have met, the landscape, the culture, history, and nature are unlike anything I have known; there is so much beauty. I've never been greeted by so many smiling faces— whether in some dark corner of Kathmandu or on a cloudy forest trail in the middle of nowhere. There's a reason why I can't stop returning.

Wherever our feet take us, let's look at the beauty, and appreciate the hands and the earth who made it—
but let's see with clear eyes.

red

leaving pokhara

Once our stomachs were stable,
it was time to go.

for the butterflies

While out on our walks, I developed an interest in chasing down and photographing butterflies. This resulted in the eventual purchase of A Photographic Pocket Guide to Butterflies of Nepal— which, though the text has thoroughly abused the use of the exclamation point, provided me with names for these mysterious, seemingly weightless creatures. Nepal is home to over 600 species of butterflies, and it's astonishing what you can see without venturing too far into the wilderness.

the culprit

In Nepal, where clean water and sanitation are often hard to come by, you are nearly guaranteed at the very least, gastrointestinal distress, and at the most, parasites or typhoid. A drop of water accidentally falling into your mouth while showering might strike you down with giardia or some other nasty— and the risk of getting sick increases during the monsoon season. Street food is out of the question, and raw veggies and salads are generally a no-no (there are some establishments who claim to wash their produce in ionized water, but unless you see this for yourself, you have to merely trust that they do). Having toughened my stomach early on in life on the various street foods of Cairo and other places, I usually do not succumb to stomach bugs, and as I have mentioned in earlier posts, I successfully avoided any problems in Nepal during the last two summers— even while eating in hole-in-the-walls. This time however, I was struck down.

But what was it? Was it the greasy breakfast we shared that first morning in Pokhara? Perhaps it was the roadside chow mein we scarfed down at a rest stop along the way. My bets are on the Newari buffalo dish we enjoyed at a restaurant by the lake— if you've seen a butcher shop in Nepal, you'll understand why— because I doubt it was the fried eggs and Tibetan bread we ate the second morning.



We'll never know what kept us from trekking; leaving us with mini-adventures within five minutes of our guesthouse, but what I do know is that a diet of banana porridge, banana lassis, toast and mint tea sure helps your stomach feel a little less awful. During this abstaining of everything that was not bland or affiliated with bananas, we discovered that a little café called am/pm toward the beginning of Pokhara's Lakeside region, had the best banana lassis we had ever tasted. I don't know what they do differently, but it seems the ratio of fruit to yoghurt is more in favour of the fruit, and when my stomach was a little stronger, I moved from the banana to the exquisite mango lassi.



My goodness, just looking at this photo makes me salivate— and mangoes are hard to come by in Istanbul, which crushes any thoughts I have of attempting to recreate this beauty. Sigh...

an update

My friends, as I wake up to a cool morning in Istanbul, I can scarcely believe the summer has flown by so quickly. I wanted to let you know that I am just fine, and my disappearance from Harika was due to a complete meltdown of my computer. While I was on a rhino-spotting adventure in southern Nepal, my computer decided to give up and never turn on again, taking with it precious photos and many files. I suppose Kathmandu was too much for it to handle, and hopefully I can find a talented soul to retrieve all that was lost.

That being said, I have my dinosauric back-up computer, and many photos to share with you. Luckily, everything I've snapped since Pokhara is on memory cards, so we can pick up where we left off, which was unfortunately the diarrhea story (and I got a second bout in Chitwan). Stay tuned!