Day 71 - Chovar, Nepal

Day 71 – His.

This is our last full day here and although the day has been pretty much like the other days, there is a definite air of sadness about it. We will be sorry to be leaving. Our host family have never hosted before and as we are their first they didn’t really know what to expect. But we clean the pots every now and then, help to look after the baby and this morning we cooked them a breakfast of French toast, honey and cinnamon sugar. It really wasn’t to their taste. They ate it dutifully and thanked us but you could see they would rather have had Dal Bhat. Even so, these little things seemed to have endeared us to them and we are now part of their family. I know this because in the night, after we returned from dinner with one of the teachers they poured us rum and told us a little tearfully that we are part of the family. I genuinely feel they are going to miss us – and it was at about the same time i realised i was going to miss them – well at first – to be honest I am a little bit of a sociopath and not likely to remember them a week from now – my loss I guess. But Patti has a little more feeling for humanity than I do so I am thinking she will do enough missing for the both of us.

Dinner at the teacher’s was an interesting affair. We were walked over by Sanju who showed us the temple of Ganesh and the Chovar caves as we walked over. After dinner we walked back in the dark to our rum session on the balcony. Unfortunately we had to get up at half six to prepare our breakfast and all the walking – miles and miles – Nepal seems to consist of nothing but stone stairs and most of them are up – I am tired and want very little more than to go to sleep.

Patti organised a little exam for her students and she is stuck with a few hours marking because of it – her dedication is a lesson to me – that doesn’t mean i won’t read for a bit and fall asleep as she is doing it – but i certainly admire it.

Our host mother suggested we go over to her father’s at midnight to see a buffalo being slaughtered for the festival and although the idea was tempting for a bit we soon realised she was offering to organise it for us by having her brother run us 22km across Nepal and they weren’t coming – so we said thanks but no thanks – it all seemed like too much and bed sounds much more promising at the moment. Steve was a little disappointed but our host mother decided to send him there with her son tomorrow so he was happy and I get to sleep.