last days - december 19, 2006

it would have been my mother's 74th birthday on december 17 and my parents' 48th wedding anniversay on december 18. on december 30, my father would turn 75. in the middle of that is the so-called holiday. i called home yesterday, where my family is. mike was characteristically off his nut; jesse was characteristically cooking 5 dishes for 12 people (it being sunday in calgary); mom was sick and could barely speak, but characteristically gushed about her 3-second "spot" on some kind of "connection line" (i think) for adam & eve's exotic boutique; gaelyn told me that she had bought me a christmas gift, characteristically, but that mom had told her she'd have to give it to me in march when i come home. i hate crying in public telephone establishments.

it's sometimes comforting, being in character.

so i'm back to being scared out of my gourd by the idea of being alone in india, which mostly manifests in relation to anticipated train/bus journeys if i want to get to some interesting out of the way places. securing my belongings is a puzzle that leaves me gasping for air and longing for home. travelling with someone would be much more comfortable. however, since this is an experiential learning environment, in which the goal is to develop a facility for joyful discomfort, a companion would, i suppose, result only in a waste of the tuition fees.

i'm riding out my last day nepal as best i can.

i left Boudha at 10am to go to Thamel (the tourist district of Kathmandu). i left with Bahadur, my trekking guide. there was some mention of a strike, which usually has meant a short slowdown in the availability of transportation. the "from 10am until 4pm" didn't register as potentially problematic. we got to Thamel. there were burning tires and most of the stores were closed. within 1/2 hour just about all of them were closed. Bahadur said i was stuck there until 4pm when the strike is over. i contemplated 6 hours in Thamel with nothing to do but wander the weirdly empty laneways. nope. not today. so we found a bicycle rickshaw-wallah who was willing to pull me all the way back to Boudha (about 1/2 hour ride). some of it was so steep that i got out and helped him push-pull the device up the hills. eventually, we were stopped by the maoists, well short of my destination. he'd offerred to take me all the way for 200 rupees. i gave him 500 (about $8). his name is Kaji.

there will be demontstrations and strikes over the next several months as nepal adjusts to a new, and new form, of government.

i walked the rest of the way to Boudha along the wide, empty road lined with closed metal roll-shuttered shops. in the absence of carnival-like traffic, i consumed the billboards, e.g. "success is demanding. success is good fun"--this copy for sandpiper [whiskey? rum? something alcoholic] overtop a greenish-blue photograph of a nepali man on the front of a speedboat [nepal being one of the poorest countries on the planet], his arms being separately tugged by two nepali women, a third snapping a photograph.

success is, indeed, very demanding.