Coal Walking

Kathmandu in the mid-90s appeared to be a city every modern convenience had skipped over. Nowhere was this clearest than the airport. Chaos reigned with crowds of people nagging, hectoring, and gesticulating wildly at each other. Watching it all with calm detachment were the photographs of King Birendra and Queen Aishwarya of Nepal hanging above the customs station. There was no placid TV screen telling which baggage carousel had the luggage from arriving flights; there was no luggage carousel.  I stood frozen, mouth agape, as my mother darted between the jostling crowds to secure our suitcases. Then I heard the sweetest sound.

"Rosie!"

It was my older sister, Kirsty. She had come to meet us at the airport, striding through the crowd of men in their socks and sandals and their wives draped in saris. She was taller than nearly all of them and noticeably paler. Her brown corkscrew curls had matted together since I’d seen her last, but I clung to her wide, illuminating smile like a life preserver in this mad sea.

When I began 7th grade in upstate New York, Kirsty began her junior year at Vassar College. For most American college students, junior year is a rite of passage with loosely supervised independence in a country where they may, or may not, know the language. Briefly, Kirsty considered spending her junior year in London. That was an exciting prospect; London was cool and I would be more than happy to visit her there. In the end, and to my exasperation, she decided to spend a year in Kathmandu, Nepal. She was deep in her hippy phase.

Multiculturalism was not about to make me cool. My status and worth at school depended on what brand sneakers I wore. My mother and sister did not help matters, especially when Mum told me, after Thanksgiving, we were going to visit Kirsty for 3 weeks in Nepal. This was a change of heart when we saw her off at the airport:

"I'm a librarian," Mum reminded her at the time. "I can't afford to fly you home for Christmas."

"That's okay, Mum. I'll see you next year!" Kirsty gave her a hug and got on the plane.

But, around October, Mum somehow determined that, though the airfare for 1 passenger from Kathmandu to New York was too expensive, flying 2 people in the opposite direction was actually reasonable. Christmas is a time to be spent with family, she reasoned.

No part of this excited me and I shuffled around school like a martyr until my math teacher gave me some advice.

"When I was your age, my parents took me to Paris and I was determined to have a bad time," he said. "I wish I had been more open to the possibility of enjoying it. Don’t make that mistake"

The taxi ride from the airport to our hotel only added to the immense culture shock. Our driver operated under two traffic rules: Don't hit the cow and yield if it's bigger than you. Otherwise, he accelerated at will and used both sides of the street.

Kirsty and Mum tried to include me in the conversation as we trundled along, but I was transfixed by the sights out the window: skinny nut-brown men in clean pressed shirts and pants; young girls sitting on the corner with chubby babies, large gold hoops swinging from their ears; horned cows standing still except for their swishing tails. The concrete buildings were festooned with as many colorful signs as could fit on one surface. Occasionally, I glimpsed an intricately carved wooden bay window leaning out with daring over the sidewalk, or a little stone statuary streaked with red. Guarding it all were jagged mountain peaks tipped with snow where the sky faded from a light blue to a dingy gray from smog over the city.

I almost had a handle on this place, when I saw a skinny girl, about my age, hike up her skirt and squat at the edge of the street. Brown diarrhea fell out of her. My mouth went dry with horror and I craned my neck as we drove past, trying to determine if all this was real.

Kirsty had booked us a room at the Hotel Tibet; the swankiest establishments of the time. Our driver dropped us off with a pleased grin.

The room was clean, painted in austere white that shone with natural light and 2 twin beds neatly made in maroon blankets. The en-suite shower had its own little water heater that had to be switched on about an hour in advance and would last for 20 minutes. I privately determined not to shower. From the window, I spied temples with pagoda roofs swooping in multi-levels and the gold stacked spire of the Buddha Stupa. Prayer flags fluttered in the wind, making me think of a used car sale.

Our bags stowed safely in the hotel, Kirsty guided us to her host family's house. It was only a 10-minute walk, but it was overwhelming. The smell hit me first: sweet notes of decaying garbage, followed by the tangy smoke of two-stroke motors, and the salty pungency of excrement. Interwoven throughout was the spice of burning incense. It tricked me to breathe deeper, forgetting all the other elements until I inhaled again.

Walking took a great deal of concentration. Stray dogs trotted past us with jaded expressions or stopped to squat only feet away from vendors with blankets spread out with fruit and vegetables. Tin shacks were erected with cuts of meat sitting on a wooden plank as flies buzzed excitedly around. Shit was literally everywhere, of every variety and beggars missing teeth and limbs cackled as I nervously hopped and skipped past.

As we walked, Kirsty told us of what we could expect at her house: "They're very excited to meet you," she began, “They made po cha; that's a tea made with yak butter and salt." She looked back at me and smiled reassuringly. "It doesn't taste very nice, but they make it for special occasions. I think they added extra salt."

I was tempted to compare myself with Alice in Wonderland, but at least her adventure had appetizing food and drink. I didn’t seem to be as fortunate.

"The trick," Kirsty went on, "Is the timing. Don't drink it too fast, or they'll pour you another cup. But don't drink it too slow, or it gets cold and it's definitely worse cold."

Mum chuckled wryly and adjusted her round blue glasses. It was difficult to shock my mother. When she traveled around Greece in college, she had been honored with the eyeball of a goat on a fork.

"They also made sweet tea, but that's not as special,” Kirsty said.

Kirsty's homestay was with a Tibetan refugee family in a two-story stone building next to a Buddhist monastery. Every morning she was woken at dawn with the droning of monks chanting, followed by the grandmother padding into the room for puja. She shared a bedroom with the family shrine.

Her host family was a flock of several young girls and 1 very prized little boy, herded by Amala, the mother, and overseen solemnly by their paternal grandmother. The young girls had thick, glossy black hair, and kind, innocent brown eyes compared to the impish flashing ones of their little brother. Filial obedience filled their every move, and a sense of anxiety hung over them, whether from the excitement of the visitors, or suspicion of what mischief their brother would do next, I’m not sure.

Amala’s black hair was streaked with smokey grey, and out of the way in a large bun. I towered over her, and she hunched her back, making her body even smaller. She never stopped smiling, and her hands fluttered like birds with slender fingers gnarled from a lifetime of work. Her husband was away working, and his mother, even smaller than Amala, slinked through the house. She blinked slowly at us, her eyes sunken into her cheeks like a withered crabapple, and mostly stayed silent.  

Big smiles, and hands directed us to a couch and then Amala came from the kitchen carrying a tray with a large blue thermos and several mugs. Steam smelling faintly of smoke curled into the air when she opened the thermos and she poured the hot liquid into my mug. There was a lot riding on this mug of tea. If I was rude, my mother would be angry in ways defying description and Kirsty would be gravely disappointed. So I took a sip.

And nearly gagged.

It overwhelmingly tasted of hot salt with the herbal tang of smoked tea leaves sticking to the back of the throat. The thing was, though, I was tired and slightly chilled. The tea was hot and creamy, inviting me back with a promise of comfort. I took another sip and forced myself to swallow it.

Amala and her teenaged daughters looked delighted. When I had finished, a green thermos came out, and a new mug. This was the promised sweet tea, and in contrast, it was amazingly refreshing; milky sweet, with a nutty aftertaste. But as soon as I finished it, Amala poured more salted butter tea. I tried not to cry.

We visited for hours, and I sagged like a bag of flour. I hadn’t slept since New York, and I had lost all sense of when that had been. Amala came from a bedroom with a pink fleece blanket that she tucked up around me, and I surrendered to sleep. When I woke up the grandmother sat on the carpeted floor sipping a plastic pouch of barley liquor through a straw; I saw my mother had another one but had set it on the table as far from her as she could. In front of me was a plate of dal bhat; a mountain of long grain rice with boiled green lentils tumbling down the sides. I ate it because I was exhausted and had no energy to object, and I was actually hungry. But it was, to my taste, overcooked and under spiced.

Everything had a dream-like quality: it seemed straightforward, yet made no sense at all. I ate mechanically with a fork while Kirsty and the rest of the family pinched bits of rice and lentils together with their right hands. Kirsty made a remark that she wasn't sure if I liked the dal bhat and I glared at her; at this point, did it matter what I liked?

Amala, in contrast, beamed at me with delighted approval as she had for the past five hours. Only now does it occur to me how worried she must have been. Her whole life demanded pleasing others: her mother-in-law, her husband, her son. Now she had two foreigners added to that list. Drinking her tea and eating her food, was probably the nicest thing we could have done.

Eventually Mum decided we should go back to our hotel. She said she remembered the way Kirsty had taken us, so we walked alone in the dark. I vibrated with fear, remembering the solicitous looks from the beggars which had been disturbing in the daylight. We returned to our room, which was freezing; all the meager heat of the day dragged away with the sun. I scrambled into my pajamas, then curled up in the twin bed, willing my frozen toes to catch body heat from my belly. Mum was in the other bed, a small nightstand between us; the street outside was quiet.

Tears that had been shocked away all day began to trail down my cheek onto the pillow. "Mum," I said, my voice thick with emotion.

"Yes, sweetie?"

"I want to go home," I needed a miracle: I needed my mother to understand what I was saying at this moment.

"We are going home," she said. "In three weeks."

"No, I want to go home, now."

"I know, but that's not going to happen," and she turned over on her side and went to sleep.

I lay awake for a little longer, feeling helpless. Then I heard my math teacher's advice: I wish I had been more open to enjoying it. That and the knowledge I had no choice in the matter put me to sleep.

The next day, the noise of traffic woke me up. The room was still cold, but bright with the sun and I shivered as I pulled on jeans and a sweater. Somehow, overnight my anxiety had softened into curiosity. I had survived a full day and night in this mad, dizzying city. I imagined it to be as triumphant as walking over hot coals. I stepped onto the street with Mum, and into three life-changing weeks.

We sent prayer wheels spinning as we walked counter-clockwise around the Buddha Stupa, trekked for 6 days along the foothills of the Annapurna mountains, sharing the path with mule trains, and sipping mango Fantas with the turmeric delivery man, carrying his spice in an immense pack that exhaled yellow dust each time he set it down.

I had my first magical sip of a mango lassi and was nearly put into a trance by the feverish mayhem of a drum circle. When we applied for permits to go to the ancient royal city of Bhaktapur, the government cleric shyly wished us a happy Christmas. Kirsty took us to Nagarkot for the best views of the Himalayas at sunrise and sunset, and we made friends with the father and son riding on the roof of the bus with us because livestock took up the seats inside.

"When everyone ducks, do the same," Kirsty warned us. "It's probably an electric wire across the road, and if it doesn't garrotte you, it may be live without any insulation."

I got used to the smells around me, filtering out the raw sewage, and deftly sidestepping the crap as the scent of incense guided me forward. I still didn’t like po cha, but I appreciated it.

Then Kirsty took us back to the airport, and we said goodbye over some mango Fantas in a restaurant. Suddenly I was crying; my breaths came in great gasps from the bottom of my lungs.

"What's wrong?" Kirsty asked with concern.

I thought about school, and how my classmates would never really understand what I had just been through. I compared my ordinary life with the grimy magic I had just lived. "I don't want to leave!" I wailed.

Back at school, my friends told me they thought I had maybe died (I definitely told them I was going away for a while.) In a way, I did, just a little bit. The 12-year old so desperate to fit in had burned to ash. In Nepal, a spark of wonder had caught fire within me, and I've carried it ever since.