Girl in the World

My friend and I ducked down dark, rubble filled alleys till everything was quiet, and we escaped the bar-packed streets of Thamel. A pearl pink sheet hanging from two rusty nails in front of a partially destroyed wall created a small, jagged doorway. There was no welcome sign above the makeshift door, but my friend held it aside with a wink, gesturing me in.
A small woman in layers of faded, intricately patterned clothes smiled, bowing her head. Her wrinkles told the hard-earned story of an escape from Tibet. Smiling and nodding back, we stooped past the sheet into a tiny kitchen cluttered with stacks of tarnished pots and pans, sacks of grain and flour.
Her plump husband leaned over a stir-fry sizzling with something exotic and heavy, something I’d never smelled before. His warm smile cut through the chill of the Himalayan winter, “Ahh…tashi delek.” I never got tired of hearing ‘good fortune’ when I met Tibetan locals.
We sat at a rough dark-wood table beyond a low doorway. Worn out prayer flags crisscrossed the ceiling, frayed and faded versions of their former yellows, blues and greens. Three men wearing colorfully embroidered, fur-lined hats laughed and talked in what my friend insisted was Sherpa.
“Tongba,” the woman from the kitchen said. She presented us with mugs filled with small dark seeds steeping in scalding hot water. It smelled rich and inviting, but I was skeptical; the steaming contents looked more like a mad scientist’s experiment than the traditional Tibetan beer I’d been promised.
Taking my cue from my friend, we raised our cups to the men, who were now watching raptly, and took a long drink. The brew had an earthy sweetness. The comforting warmth led me easily to a second helping and a friendly toast from our companion table. Just as the woman returned with a thermos of hot water for refills, a power outage—called Load Shedding by locals—kicked in.
In the dark, I heard the slight gurgle of the seeds releasing their flavor and imagined the life this couple brought the recipe from.
They lit lamps and candles, placing them on both tables and on makeshift sconces stuck in wall chinks. Bringing a fresh round of tongba to everyone, they joined the group speaking Sherpa. We spoke in the traveler’s language of charades and laughter through the flickering light.
There in the dark of Nepali winter, we weren’t just foreigners or guests; by candlelight, we were an old family, gathered in tradition and woven as intricately as the woman’s dress.