I try to enjoy my last western meal for more than a week. The hotel is burning incense near to where I am sitting and the sweet burning smell is dominating my taste buds. Even worse, Kathryn is in a foul mood because of some family issues and her frustration taints the atmosphere. I am not looking forward to going back to Damdame, first, because of the climb and second, because I have to do an afternoon session at the library.
Somehow the climb up the hill is not so bad this time, am Aamaa greets us with a smile and a cup of milk tea. We relax for a little while before going up to the library, but today we have a new challenge. Bhai told us that we are not to hand out any sporting equipment for the first hour the library is open. The older kids are supposed to be in class, and they won’t return to class if they get a volleyball game going. I was grateful the other day for the sporting equipment because it took some of the kids outside so that the library wasn’t so crowded. 3:00 arrives. The children ask for the volleyball. I tell them, “not until 4:00”. They ask again. I give them the same answer. Someone comes back five minutes later and asks for the volleyball. I say, “not until 4:00”. Do they think I am stupid? They try to wear me down. They ask to draw. I give them paper and pencil. They draw a small Nepali flag and then they show it to me. Right after, they ask for the volleyball. When this job was described to me, I thought that I was going to be handing out books and helping children with their homework. I count the seconds until 4:00. So do the children and at 3:55 they gang up on me and mount a fresh attack. Finally it’s 4:00. I hand out the volleyballs to the children. The big kids take them away. The younger ones come back to see what else they can get.
Before dinner that evening, Kathryn brings out a bottle of white wine she has brought to share with the family. A few of Bhai’s neighbors come over and I do my best to describe the weekend’s activities through my limited Nepali and pantomiming. Aamaa mixes her millet moonshine with the Australian white and insists that I have a glass. Between the chaos at the library and the knocks on the noggin that I take going through the hobbit-sized entryways, I am ready to imbibe, and I am half way to rangi-changi by the time my daal bhat is ready.
