Saturday – Nepal’s one day weekend, and our day to explore.
This particular Saturday I decided to take the Champa Devi hiking route,
located just behind the foundation which takes you directly up to the peaks of
the mountain range that continuously cast’s its shadow on the village. Another
volunteer here, Silea, asked if she could join and of course I welcomed the
presence. It’s always better to have someone along.
The walk up is a warn in trail of hard packed earth and
rocks, traveled for centuries by the locals to reach their century old homes
and occasionally to celebrate the new year on top of the mountain. We pass
through several villages, consistently being turned around by the, “ello! What
is yer name?” of the small children who are just now learning English is
school. We walk through a field, where an energetic man recognizes my face and
flails his arms in the air to say hello. This man, full of life, was one of the
bamboo experts who we had recently worked with to construct a bus shelter that
we’re currently building. After we exchange hellos, we continue our trek up the
mountain. There reaches a point when the earthen trail turns to a shamble of
broken rocks laid out to form stairs. At the peak, there’s a new construction
of paved stones that pave a smooth path, making for an easy stroll amongst a
beautiful setting. Silea and I found a nice flat grassy area and sat down to
rest.
After an hour or so of chatting, we decided it was time to
go down. There were heavy, ominous clouds moving in and a bone chilling wind
that gracefully pushed the tops of trees and caused the leafs to ruffle.
Descending the stairway to heaven that brought us to the top we stopped
occasionally to rest our legs and have a drink of water. 3 hours later, we
found ourselves back in the villages with kids screaming “ello!” once again.
Passing by the same field which we found our energetic bamboo man earlier, we
noticed a gathering at the house just below the field. Walking through the
villagers, many tried to communicate with us asking if we were part of the
foundation just a 20 minute walk down the hill. It seemed they wanted us to
stay for a bit, have a cup of tea maybe. How wrong we were.
I found the comfort in recognizing our bamboo man, with a
pile of smoked cigarettes in front of him. He was sitting on his porch, cross
legged staring into space. As I greeted him, something didn’t seem right. He
wasn’t enthusiastic; he wasn’t flailing his limbs in joy to see us like he
always had. He looked up, found my eyes and said, “my father… dead.” I gazed
slightly to the right, to find the body of a frail man wrapped in a sheet, laying
on his back only a few feet from his son. Words cannot express the sorrow that I
wanted to, because words mean nothing when you can’t speak another’s language.
I gestured with my heart, I let my body speak for my mind’s mourning.
This is my first direct experience with death. I’ve never
seen life change so fast. One minute, a charismatic young man; another minute,
a torn and cheerless individual struggling to cope with reality. After the
event, continuing our walk down the hill I couldn’t help but try and understand
what had happened. I, also, was struggling to cope with reality. It forced me
to realize how fragile life can be, how anything can change so vastly at any
given moment. It made me think of my family, my friends, how any one of them
could find themselves in this situation. Most importantly, it made me realize
how special life really is. How graced we are to exist and how wonderful it is
that we have this time to live our lives in meaningful ways. Death, I’ve found,
is not merely a time of sorrow but rather, a celebration of life.
My heart tonight rests solely with this man and his family,
his friends and his community; for I am part of this community now and a loss
is felt in every member’s heart. My thoughts seek to find his spirit and to
wish him an enduring sense of happiness wherever he may come to rest.
Cheers to this man, whom I’ve never met but will forever
remember.
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