I could hire a guide or porter, but I’ve heard horror stories about trekkers who’ve been sexually harassed by porters on the prowl for “loose Western women,” or swindled by porters who changed their fees halfway through a trek, or flat-out abandoned by porters who had no experience and no idea what they were getting themselves into.
I’m running out of time. The Annapurna trek could take up to three weeks. In three weeks the dry season will arrive and endless clouds of dust will engulf the mountain vistas I’ve traveled thousands of miles to see. This afternoon Pokhara’s view of the mountains has disappeared in a dusty haze, making my choice clear: I can’t wait any longer.
The Annapurna Circuit is popular with backpackers. Surely I won’t be on the trail completely alone. Even if I am, it makes no difference. I won’t let my solitary state dictate the pursuit of my dreams. Tomorrow I leave for Besisahar, the starting point of my trek.
“Never trek alone.” That’s the warning of every book and every expert on the Himalayas. At least, I think it is. I can’t say I’ve read any of them.
the mountains above kalamati, nepal
Yesterday I woke up with good intentions at 6:45 a.m., but dawdled in denial. Maybe if I wasted time over breakfast in the guesthouse garden, or dilly-dallied around town buying supplies, a trekking partner would materialize. I finally gave up and walked to the bus station to take the 1:40 bus to Dumre, where I planned to catch a bus to Besisahar.
When I arrived in Dumre at four, I wondered if delaying my departure had been folly. I got to town just in time to buy a seat on the last bus to Besisahar, but the sun was beginning to set and I feared that the rusty old bus overflowing with Nepalis wouldn’t make it up the mountain roads before dark.
As I boarded, my eyes fell on a beautiful young Nepali woman with high apple cheeks who sat in front breastfeeding her baby, one plump breast un-tucked from her bright pink sari. She dimpled sweetly at me and patted the seat next to her. I smiled back and took it.
During the interminable wait to depart, food vendors walked by with a variety of snacks. The young mother next to me selected a hunk of cucumber sprinkled with spices. I shook my head at the cucumber vendor, but my pretty young neighbor nudged me insistently. “You try!”
“No, thank you.”
“Yes!”
I shrugged my shoulders and held up one finger to the vendor. I took my piece, paid the two rupees he asked, and couldn’t figure out why he continued to wait. Then I realized my neighbor hadn’t paid for hers. When I looked at her, she only smiled and tipped her head toward the vendor. So I paid for hers, too. What the heck? It was only two rupees.
Another vendor walked by selling nuts in little horns of paper. My pretty seatmate bought one, paid for it, and offered me some, temporarily restoring my faith that she wasn’t playing me.
Then a third vendor came by selling sweets. My seatmate smiled at me and tipped her head again, indicating I should buy some. “No, I don’t want any.” At this she pouted, puffing out her lower lip like a small child. “Do you want some?” I asked. She brightened up and nodded. Another five rupees.
We waited on the hot bus for nearly an hour. Sweat dripped in earnest from my forehead, between my breasts, and down my back. My seatmate leaned toward me, pulled open the back of my collar, and blew on my neck. It did offer some relief, and I didn’t object. I chuckled, wondering what would happen if someone did that for a stranger in the U.S. Here it seemed normal.
Finally, we started to move. The bus backed up two feet . . . and blew a tire. Moments later the fifty or so passengers were herded onto another, smaller bus. The young mother handed me her purse and shepherded me to another seat next to her. The benches were wedged so closely together that my knees were pressed firmly against the seat in front of me. The people who were forced to stand were packed so tightly that if one had fainted he or she would have remained standing. I wondered if I might faint at the unbearable stench of body odor. The young mother turned to me with a beaming smile, the picture of serenity.
It was well past five when we took off, and daylight was fading fast. I had serious doubts we’d ever make it to Besisahar. Not only did the bus’s surfeit of passengers cause considerable drag on the steep hills, but a section of the bus siding next to the driver fell off several times. A man up front leaned out to tie the siding back on with heavy string.
As grey dusk blanketed the mountains, my seatmate gave me a knowing look, leaned toward my ear, and said, “This bus: no Besisahar tonight. This bus: Bhote Odar. You come my house tonight. Besisahar tomorrow, okay?” At the word “okay” she bobbed her head from side to side like the wobbly head of a dashboard doll, neither nodding “yes” nor shaking her head “no.” I wasn’t sure how to respond to the head wobble, but I looked at the darkening sky and said, “Okay. Thank you.” She introduced herself as Shyama.
I stepped off the now nearly empty bus at the small town of Kalamati, with Shyama, her baby Nirmala, and her father-in-law Narayan—one of the standees from the bus. The driver and his string-tying assistant urged me to stay on board, insisting the bus would make it to Besisahar. The girl and her father silently shook their heads at me. My mind was made up. Although I didn’t know Shyama’s intentions, she seemed a safer bet than continuing up the unlit, winding, rutted mountain road after dark.
After the bus drove off, we started to walk up the hill, using an uneven set of rock stairs. It took me a few minutes to grasp that we were not staying in Kalamati, but in a tiny mountain village high above the town.
As we walked, Shyama put a friendly hand on my arm, smiled, and said, “You, me, my father’s house, eating rice—no money, okay?” There was that head-wobble again, signifying a question with the expectation of a yes. I thanked her. A few minutes later, she put a hand on my arm and said, “You my dear friend.”
After we’d been walking about half an hour, I began to wonder just how far this village was, but I was afraid to ask.
Then Shyama turned to me and said: “Five minutes—”
Thank G—
“—resting.”
Shit.
I threw down my backpack and flopped onto a rock. It was a good thing I’d shed about half the contents of my pack and left them at the guesthouse in Pokhara. But the pack was still heavy, and I was hot, hungry, and cranky. Shyama once again blew on the back of my sweaty neck, then handed me her baby and disappeared into the dark to pee.
After we walked at least another half hour, Shyama turned to me again and said: “Five minutes . . . resting.”
By this time, night had filled every fold of the mountains. I turned on my headlamp for the rest of our uphill trudge. We passed several farms in the near distance, and the soft glow of candlelit homes dotted the blackness like distant constellations. I was impressed that neither Shyama nor her father seemed winded, nor did they ever indicate by word or facial expression that the steep climb was at all difficult. I knew they were used to it. But I also thought, “Bet that baby doesn’t weigh as much as my pack.”
After another half-hour we arrived at the home Shyama shared with her in-laws. I sat on the porch of the main house—a simple, one-room earthen hut—with Shyama and her sister-in-law, while her mother-in-law prepared dinner inside. The two young women chattered companionably in the candlelight. Every now and again Shyama stopped to quiz me on the names of her relatives, pointing at them and turning to me with questioning eyes.
“Baby?”
“Nirmala.”
“Husband’s sister?”
“Meena.”
“And . . . ”
“Shyama.”
“Yes. Good.”
Shyama was the village schoolteacher. I could picture her teaching-method: plenty of rote repetition, children’s voices rising and falling in unison. Her sister-in-law, Meena, gazed at me shyly, but Shyama was the only one in the family who spoke any English. Shya
ma saw me writing in my journal and asked if I had another pen for Meena. I happily gave her one of my three spares, figuring it was the least I could do to thank them for their hospitality.
When dinner was ready, the silent but ever-smiling mother-in-law beckoned us inside where we sat in a circle on the smooth-swept dirt floor. Before each of us a metal plate sat heaped with Nepal’s most common dish, daal bhat. Daal is a kind of lentil soup and bhat is rice. Both are usually served with curried vegetables or curried potatoes. This was my first time eating the stuff. I followed their lead, and when they picked up the food with their hands I did the same, swirling the rice in the daal and shoveling it into my mouth. Something in my manner must have given away that I wasn’t used to eating this way because Mother looked as if she were holding back laughter as she handed me a large spoon. It looked like a serving spoon, probably their only one. I tried to indicate that I was perfectly happy eating the same way they did. But she continued to hold out the spoon, so I took it, though I felt self-conscious using it while they continued to shove handfuls of food into their mouths.
The rice was good, but the daal was too salty and the curry was bitter. I forced it all down with a smile. Such strict adherence to good manners might have been a mistake: Mother kept scooping more food onto my plate, over my polite but sincere protests. My guidebook suggests that, when staying in Himalayan guesthouses, it’s more culturally and environmentally sensitive to order daal bhat because it’s easy to prepare in large quantities. Many guesthouses along the trekking circuits offer their own versions of Western favorites, like pizza or spaghetti, but they’re more difficult to make. The growing business of cooking for trekkers has caused many locals to cut down more trees for their cook-fires, leading to increased deforestation and erosion. But by the time I was finished with my first meal of daal bhat, I was pretty sure I’d never eat it again. Screw the forests.
After dinner, they gave me some sort of pickled vegetables, a special treat I suppose. I took a bite and it almost came right back up. It tasted like a cross between kimchi, dirty socks, and ripe armpits. Anxious to maintain my manners, I swallowed two bites whole, trying to avoid chewing. I couldn’t keep up the ruse. “I’m sorry,” I said, pushing the plate away. “It is too different from what I’m used to. My stomach won’t let me eat it.” They all smiled and didn’t seem offended.
To show my gratitude for dinner, I pulled my best snacks out of my pack, walnuts and raisins, and presented them to Shyama’s mother-in-law. She took a bunch in her hand and rocked back and forth, grinning at me and laughing. Shyama explained, “My mother very happy.” But although Shyama, Meena, and I ate the goodies, Mother didn’t take a bite. “My mother happy, but she will not eat.” I suspect she wouldn’t eat the nuts and raisins for the same reason I couldn’t eat the pickled veggies.
After-dinner conversation was limited by my ignorance of Nepalese, while TV and radio were limited by their lack of either a TV or a radio. We went to bed at about nine. The elder couple stayed in the main house. The younger women and the baby slept in a separate hut, above the buffalo in the manger. Shyama had mentioned a husband, but he had yet to appear. I slept in the smaller hut with the young women.
As I prepared for bed, Shyama caught sight of the bar of soap in my pack. Her eyes narrowed on her target, then blinked wide and innocent as she looked up at me. “You give to me?”
“I’m sorry. No. It is my only one, and it must last for three weeks.”
“Soap for baby?”
“No.”
It seemed important to be firm, or this woman might try to cajole me out of everything. Instead, I offered her my cake of laundry detergent. I figured I could wash laundry with my bath soap, but not vice versa. Shyama wrinkled her nose at the inferior gift and again poked out her lower lip. Her disappointment didn’t stop her from accepting the laundry soap, however.
After that, I crawled into bed with Meena while Shyama plopped down on the floor mat with her baby. I felt guilty, thinking I’d probably taken Shyama’s spot in the bed. But the guilt didn’t last: Meena stole the blankets in her sleep, so I was cold most of the night and slept fitfully.
***
I woke with the dawn as Shyama’s village came to life, several dozen farms and perhaps five hundred people scattered across this shirttail of the Annapurnas. Everyone moved in a state of placid but constant busy-ness. I watched Shyama as she swept the floors and fed and clothed the baby.
I had to restrain the strong urge to intervene each time the baby cried, not because of the crying itself, but because of the way the family responded. One of them would put the baby in a small hammock on the porch and swing it back and forth so violently it’s a wonder the motion didn’t snap Nirmala’s little neck, or at least make her throw up. I peeked in at her once while Shyama was rocking her and saw her tiny body rolling from side to side, her eyes wide, her face mashed into the sides of the hammock with each swing. The rocking did little to stop her tears. When she finally did stop crying, I assumed it was the result of minor shock.
After a bit of tea and toast, we were relaxing on the porch when Shyama’s handsome young husband showed up, along with several neighbors and friends. Soon there was a gathering of nearly a dozen adults and children socializing on and around the porch. I don’t know if this was part of the local routine, but as I was certainly the only foreigner on the mountain this morning, I deduced that I was the big draw. One young man began playing a lovely tune on my recorder and another asked me to dance for them. I smiled and shook my head.
Shyama asked me to take photos of her family and mail copies later. I’d already taken a few photos, catching the family in natural moments: doing chores, talking on the porch, shock-rocking the baby. In return I was happy to take a few posed portraits.
Eight a.m. came and went, the time Shyama had promised to walk me down the mountain to catch my bus to Besisahar. I reminded her it was time to go. In response, she said, “You, me, Besisahar tomorrow, okay?” There it was again, the question-mark head wobble. I told her I was grateful for the hospitality, but explained that my trekking permit only allowed me limited time on the Annapurna Circuit, so I must leave. She reacted with annoyance, “Yes, yes, okay!”
When I stood up to leave, Shyama announced that her mother-in-law had made more daal bhat, and she invited me inside to eat. “First eating, then walking, okay?” I raced through breakfast, which was pretty much the same as last night’s dinner, with the added relief of sweet, creamy buffalo milk.
After breakfast, Shyama again smiled coyly and said, “You, me, Besisahar tomorrow, okay?” She tried this several times. Each time, I explained I must leave, and each time, she looked royally ticked off. In the end, she wiped the scowl off her face and said, “You still my very dear friend.”
I went into the second hut to put on my pack, and while I was adjusting my shirt, Shyama caught sight of my bra strap. She walked up to me, pulled on the strap, and said, “You give me?”
“I only have enough for me,” I said.
When she began her predictable pout, I said, “Besides, you see?”—I lifted my shirt up to point out my small breasts and thin sports bra, then gestured toward her much larger breasts—“It will not fit you.” Two of my breasts squished together would not equal one of hers. She saw my point and giggled like a schoolgirl.
But a few minutes later, after going through the complicated process of wrapping herself in her sari, she strode up to me and demanded, “You give money, for eating rice.”
Ah, friendship in Nepal is a fragile thing. For a moment I felt crushed. But, though I was amazed at her audacity, I knew I must seem rich by her standards. Perhaps she thought asking for money from an American was no more pert than asking a friend for a tissue. I might never get used to the idea that, by the standards of most of the world, I am wealthy. For me, the realization is as embarrassing as passing a foul fart. Surely such a smell could not come from s
omeone as well meaning as I.
Of course, I’d expected to pay something when she’d first asked me to stay with her. It was only her smiling “you, me, my father’s house, eating rice—no money” that had thrown me off. The question now was how much to pay her. I mentally calculated all the things I’d already given her, which I wouldn’t have given if she’d informed me upfront that I was a “customer” rather than a “guest”: walnuts and raisins (more than 100 rupees), laundry soap (ten rupees), pen (twenty rupees). I subtracted my other losses from the estimated cost of a typical night’s stay in a mountain guesthouse, and handed her twenty rupees.
She cast a dubious look at the coins in her hand and, now all-business, she protested, “Eating rice!”
“Last night you said, ‘Eating rice, no money.’”
“More rice in morning, bread, milk.”
I didn’t bother mentioning that I hadn’t asked for the breakfast, which was thrust upon me after I’d begged to leave. However, I listed the things I’d given her and pointed out that I was also giving her photos, which are expensive. As I spoke, I realized that it all amounted to less than three U.S. dollars, and that she had no way of knowing I’d ever send the photos. Suddenly I felt ashamed. I handed her fifty rupees.
As the money changed hands her father walked in, saw what we were doing, and scolded his daughter-in-law. He gestured to her to give the money back, but at this point I wasn’t about to take it back. It was only fifty rupees. What was it to me? What was it to them?
“No, no. It’s right I give money.” I smiled at him. “You have been very kind and this is my way to say thank you.” Then I turned to Shyama and said, “But maybe next time you make a new friend, you will tell them what you want first, so they understand they must pay.”
Shyama then handed the money back to me and said gently, “You should give it to my mother (her mother-in-law).”
They Only Eat Their Husbands Page 21