The next morning Chris and I depart from Shivalaya. The old man emerges from his basket shop and waves farewell as we cross the Chamja khola and ascend towards Bhandar. A few of the children we had met the day before join us, on their way to school. Just as our loads are now hung across our heads in dokos, so rest their bookbags, hung by cloth or leather strap. They laugh as we try to ask them “Thik cha?” We smile and clasp our hands to those we pass on the trail. ‘Namaste’ is exchanged. Davis and I walk. Our necks ache already. We wonder if our spinal cords will compress after a month of this.
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| Nepali children on their way to school |
Late afternoon we stop to rest our necks and drink tea. The hostess asks why we carry these dokos. We stumble over some words trying to show we love Nepal ‘Nepal raamrolarghea ho’ and ‘doko bokeko raamro’. She asks, perhaps seriously, if we are half Nepali. We smile and say no. ‘Dokedai’ she calls me – The guy carrying the doko.
And later that night, rarest of rare, I get to see my old friend Davis get tipsy on the local brew chang, he earns the nickname “Twonkedai” - Drunken guy
