Hot Tea at Dawn

When you're trekking in Nepal, you walk from early until mid-morning tea and biscuits, either at the top of a mountain or at the bottom, depending on how you feel. You stop again at the end of the day, at a local goTh or someone's house along the road. You can order dinner with your stay. If your'e lucky, they'll have some fresh meat to go with your rice and dahl, for a few extra rupees. If you're really lucky, there will be a vegetable.
There's no rest like the sleep of exhaustion after a day on the trail. If it's a one-flea establishment, you might get a room for your family apart from the other travelers  They'll let you use your own bedding. If it's a five-flea place, you'll be happy for a few wooden slats between you and the animals. Sometimes those are the best spots. Sometimes that's as far as you could make it before the next place to stop.
Next morning the hostess will get you tea at dawn before you start the day's trek.
On the doorstep of my colonial two-story in an older, established neighborhood in the Brandywine Hundred,  I stand to greet the dawn. The tag from my tea bag hangs from my no-spill travel mug, as I wait for my carpool. It'll be two or three mountain passes before I can stop tonight, but I'll be back home here at the end of it.

The Same

As I waited for the city bus in the rain, my memories carried me back to another rainy afternoon, far away. I pulled the drawstring tight around my hood, pulled my hands inside the fur lined sleeves of my city coat. Today is a bad day to forget my gloves. At least the outside of my coat is waterproof, but the wind is strong and cold is finding its way in at the seams, up under the edge; the waterproof coating has already worn off the boots I wear to work.
It was a late storm that caught us unprepared at the top of our trek. I'm pretty sure I had Indian-made tennis shoes on my feet, and no fur-lined coat. The backpack helped keep my back warm, but the cold water ran down and soaked my kurta and jeans. We were young, though, and it didn't really matter. We ducked down into the shepherds' hut, laughing, and sat close together to keep out the cold. Some of the shepherds shared their woolen shawls and blankets, and they used up some of their precious firewood to heat up the smokey hut.
The lights of the bus finally distinguished themselves from the other rush hour traffic. I climbed up, gratefully looking back at the stone pillar of the church that had broken the wind during my wait. My cell phone rang in my pocket. It was my husband saying he'd been happy to come pick me up at work so I wouldn't have to wait in the rain.
Drying out on the bus towards home, my thoughts range many highways I have traveled. I want to tell my stories, to share my experiences. I want it to be worthwhile for others to read. I also want to join my highways, span the oceans separating them. There is really not that much distance between my rainy afternoon in Delaware and a high sheep pasture on the side of a mountain in Northwestern India. Is there?

Change of Season

The changing of the seasons has always excited me. When I woke up this morning it was still dark, instead of light and muggy. It was cool, too, and I pulled up the covers. The night insects were still chirping. Even though I know the winter will be cold and dark, I still relish the changes. The leaves will color (and clog the gutter). Temperatures will fall (the ants will hibernate). Mornings will be foggy or frosty, the air (and my skin) will get dry. The deer, squirrels, and raccoons will be bold and let themselves be spied in the back yard.
When I lived in Minnesota--we joke that winters are nine months long: it can snow in April as easily as in December as in October--I experienced the same whole-life excitement at the beginning of fall. In the spring, I look forward to bright mornings, warmer days, the delicate green of new leaves, even though I know I will be tired of sweat before too long.
The thrill I experience when I wake up at six am and it's still dark is an slight reminder for me, every year, of the anticipation of monsoon. As many artists aspire to depict the sunset with their paints on a canvas, I dream of one day expressing the delight of the beginning of monsoon, the suspense before the first rains. More intense than any other seasonal change, waiting for monsoon pervades a whole community, and beyond your own local community, you KNOW the whole country--the whole region--is waiting and hoping for the same thing. The cicadas in the trees express it by their frenzied whine in the hottest part of the summer. The larks express it with their intricate, silly song.
Even though I know I will be exasperated by the rain, by wearing musty clothes, by not being able to see the other side of the valley, and dreading the telltale trail of blood following the leach that just gorged itself on your blood, I eagerly yearn for the absolute exhilaration of clouds floating in the open window across my face. Discovering rooster head ferns, catching glimpses of the sparkling lights in the valley between the showers, watching the sheeting rain advance over the landscape, falling asleep with the rain thundering (or tapping or thrumming) on the tin roof above your head--these are the joys of the monsoon in the Himalaya.
Alex Frater almost captured the senses in his Chasing the Monsoon. goodreads.com

Wet

In India, the rains come quick and hard. I had invited all 17 of my advisor group to my house for supper, a movie and a sleepover. By the time we all got ready to leave school on Friday afternoon, the cloud burst was looking imminent. We decided to make a run for it. It's not very far to my house, but long story short, we were all soaked, top to bottom, umbrella to Converse. No drier, we raided the closets and found dry things for them all to put on and hung the wet clothes in the bathroom to drip.
Last night in Delaware there was a flash storm. It was Maria's grad party--all the siblings were there with their friends, Maria's friends from near and far. They had been in swim suits, trying to stave off the oppressive heat with an inadequate "Slip-N-Slide" (two were even inadequate). Watching out the kitchen window Daniel said, "God has a bigger hose and is having fun." They all had fun, even those who had opted out of the Slip-N-Slide. After the downpour, as they all tromped up the stairs to the back door we ran for towels and welcomed them inside.
Towels collected from our pool room in Upstate New York, from Goa - India, some from St Croix - USVI. I think the ones we splurged on in the Galapagos as newly-weds have all passed on to the place where all well-used beach towels go...

Community

The professional lady sat behind her large desk, the phone cradled between her ear and her shoulder. She had been sitting like that for about half an hour. Papers were strewn across her desk, the mouse lay motionless in her hand. Her mouth was moving but her colleague across the hall could not hear what she was saying. As she was packing up her things to go home for the weekend, the other lady noticed her wipe her eyes as she put down the phone.
As in the inner city, there isn't much real privacy on the hillside. Often three or four families call one building home. There's not much to keep secret when you share the same balcony, and the same bathroom out back. Conversations, and arguments are seldom between only two people.
In the afternoon, on our way home from work, 10-year-old Pinky* plays in the sun on the packed dirt patio stolen from the steep hillside with her two younger brothers, the neighbor's two kids and the puppy. She has the new baby strapped to her back. Two of the missus of the house sit in the sun as they clean the beans for the evening meal.
Pinky's bare legs stick out of her too-short dress. Soon she will be responsible to cover them up in public. She is already responsible for whatever her brothers need and much of what the baby needs. If there's going to be rice for supper, it will be Pinyk's job to cook it.
The children's father won't be home from work for at least a couple more hours. The sisters-in-law tell me their mother hasn't cleaned her house since the baby came. She sits in the windowless main room--kitchen, living room and master bedroom combined--and has hardly bathed in a month and a half. In the early mornings before her husband goes to work we can hear their voices carry across the amphitheater hills. The baby cries. The children, when they're not in school, spend a lot of time outside even on the cold days.
My husband is a mental health counselor. He speaks a different language than they do. Are we responsible? If we report it, Pinky's dad might lose his job. Would that help? Then what would they do? Where would they live? Maybe Pinky's mother could go back to her mother in the village. Is it better for the children to be without a mother at all?
*name changed for protection

Hot

The oscillating fan in my office noisily blows around hot air, while sweat accumulates--very unladylike, but what can you do?--in the armpits of my professional dress and under my chin. The small gathering of homeless guys outside have gotten punchy, not dealing with conflict very well (even worse than usual), waiting for the lunch line to open up. The rest of the usual crowd has moved somewhere cooler. In this advanced country, there are people in the inner city that still have to make do with a fan instead of air conditioning.

' Reminds me of the border crossing at the end of spring term, Sunauli waiting for monsoon. I found the picture on Facebook. 30 years later we came through the same border post and I could swear it was the same government officials there on the Indian side. We even took the same picture, sitting around the table, under the fan slowly circling above our heads, filling out endless forms for everybody in the travelling party. I vividly remember sweet talking the grumpy, overheated border guard into stamping our exit visas, legally, without a bribe, just to hear a white girl speaking Hindi. I wonder how many times our parents did have to bribe them to get across on schedule.

I remember one trip that Ko Man Singh brought us right onto the train during a general strike so my mom could get me to school on time. A few rupees must have changed hands that time: bringing the Land Rover across the border without the proper permissions, so we wouldn't have to ride the public bus. Ko Man Singh met every train two days later until he could escort my mother safely into Nepal again.

Diplomacy in Hindi really only worked because it usually impressed them enough. It gave them something to talk about for a couple of months, until we came back through the crossing for the start of next term. Not because my Hindi was any good. It's kind of the same way the homeless guys look at me, now with silver speckling my hair, when I say, "Good morning!"

Hair, Properly Fixed

The other day I had to make a choice whether to leave the house in time to make my bus, or to fix my hair for work. I decided to catch the bus, and I would deal with my hair later. But the question is where? You can't do it on the bus--it's too private. I knew I wouldn't' have time at my bus stop--besides we all know how public the bus stop is: right where the traffic light stops all the drivers on their way to work, a favorite stop for Jehovah's drive-by Witnesses... On the other end  I get off under the tree at the top of the hill, the best view in the city, and white girls don't stop around there. I usually don't have time once I get to the office--besides, somebody might see me with the fly-away hair.

I learned how to do my hair on the bus. I wrote about it at the time; the bus stopped for some undisclosed reason for what seemed like hours. Women in bright, flowing pahardi skirts got out their lunches to feed their families, traveling by bus to visit family in some distant village. They might have to walk a couple of days, like I had. I watched the barbers take entrepreneurial advantage of the delay to earn a few extra rupees with their quick hair cuts for gentlemen and vigorous head massages. The lady-in-front-of-me's bun fell down, and she deftly twisted and tied it back into a simple knot that would hold it near the nape of her neck for a couple more hours. My hair was just starting to grow out from my tenth grade winter holiday bravery: my first drastic hair cut since third grade.
I've perfected my own slick style for hair since then. But the basis of all hair styles I learned on the bus, in India.