My face crumples in disgust as the earth shifts. In the dry season, miry ground here can mean only one thing. My feet engulfed in waste, I inhale refuse, coriander, sweat, and tangerine which sting my nose. Yet the tingling aroma is strangely welcome, for I know without opening my eyes where I am.
Blindly I walk, feet heavy in cumbersome boots, making my gait ungainly. My pace remains steady, one foot following the other, cargo pants billowing. I taste grit, consoled by the warmth daylight brings for the Nepali night winds from Sagarmatha, from Lhotse, Makalu, Cho Oyu, Kanchenjunga, and Dhaulagiri herald autumn. These morning breezes are sandy, but their kiss feels exotic and comforting.
I arabesque through carts of street merchants selling syrupy sel roti, sizzling dumplings and spicy panipuri; their vociferous calls remind me of sea shanties beckoning sailors traversing ancient currents. They howl singsong, ringing in my ears as crude gurgles and jargon, “Kasto cha?,” “Subha Prabhat …," as they wave to treasures of contraband trinkets strewn across the dusty street.
Up I climb, navigating narrow alleyways. Each step forces my toes into a fantastic dance to avoid excrement, rotting carcasses and starving stray puppies. Even in sleepy dawn hours, Kathmandu seems restless and wide awake. Nepali folk songs radiate through makeshift speakers, gaudy splashes of turquoise and magenta float on scarves and fluttering arrases, buffalo sausage and oil-drenched samosa hiss on all corners. The ascetic Sadhus puff charas and look like dragons; smoke fuming from their nostrils. Life here is lived outside. In this bevy of bedlam it seems impossible that the chanting and chattering could ever cease. But even the bellowing of the vendors will soon silence and the streets empty as Maoist protests swallow the city’s vibrancy once more.
I traverse on, nearly immune to locals eagerly craning to catch a glimpse of the yellow-haired girl who stands as an Amazon, a foot above even the tallest of men. Cameras snap and people gawk through curved eyelids as though they were the petrified statues of the Monkey Temple. They tease a familiar, "Hello!" resounding queerly in their rich accents.
Further still I climb. At last I lift my mask and breathe. Away from the heart of the city, the air feels as ephemeral and crisp as heaven. As I look back Kathmandu smiles back at me, its high-perched temples winking jovially over the smog-filled valley. The city seems to greet me with a knowing smirk, as if this timeless land finds me amusing.
Reaching the gate of the Nepal Women and Children Service Society I am besieged by jumping children overwhelmed with exuberance; Shristi with her cherished one-eyed puppet, Krishna’s worn wrapped shawl, Shiva wobbling in his fractured roller blades. Their waving hands are caked with dried mud but their smiles are genuine and clear. In this unknown land, I call out with my whole spirit—though the exertion takes my breath away in the fragile air, “Namaste!” for I am home.
