As I sip, I look through my window to the wreckage of the abandoned dry port of Nepal. I can hear someone singing in a temple through a loudspeaker. The sites and the sounds make this place beautiful.

This is my last day in Birganj.

Moments later, I’m at Himanchal Cabin, looking over the Kathmandu Post and Himalayan Times with yet another cup of coffee and eggs and toast on the way.

With the kids working here, I joke and answer questions about the photos in the papers. They know me and sit at my table when they have downtime. I have known many of them for more than a year, a few for more than two.

After breakfast, I walk across Maisthan past the newspaper man who waves to me from his shop. I wave back.

Further down the block, there is a man who sits on his patio with a radio held to his ear. I have seen him nearly everyday since I coming to Birganj. His hair is now shoulder length.

I have never met him or spoke to him, but every time we see one another we mouth, Namaste.

I turn west for one block, and then south one more block to the Internet cafe. As soon as I walk in, the young computer nerd turns on a computer and I wait for it to boot.

After a moment, I log on and read my emails. The keyboard totters and bangs loudly on the uneven desk as I type. I send a few emails and then sign-off. I’m there for just 15, 20 minutes.

Outside, I jump on a rickshaw and head back north past Maisthan, the clock tower, and my neighborhood, Ranighat, towards the water tank area, Murli Gardens, my previous neighborhood.

I get off in front of my first flat and immediately notice that nothing looks different, except that someone else’s laundry hangs from my balcony. This is me. I am coming, I am going.

Rajesh and his family make lunch, Nepali daal bhat, and we sit together, eating lunch and drinking whiskey, perhaps a bit early. This is a goodbye I knew would be hard. I have a little whiskey and realize all those misunderstandings were my misunderstanding.

A flood of memories pours over me, and I feel shame thinking of their patience and friendliness towards me. All I do, though, is compliment the food and ask for another drink, smiling.

Two hours are gone and, as I walk back towards the main road, I stop at Mira’s for tea and a scolding. It has been nearly a week since my last visit, a period of absence that they find entirely unacceptable, and I smile as they hassle me. Still smiling, I ask for a biscuit with my tea. They tell me not to leave. They say I will forget them.

Mira, who gave me bhai tikka, I won’t forget you.

I know that in small ways, I will remember them, but I will probably never see them again.

They opened their home to me. I feel that my friendship and occasional gifts were completely inadequate, so I almost wish they would hassle me more. They don’t. They just give me more tea.

After I finish prolonged goodbyes, I walk to Ashish’s. He lives where a British VSO once lived. She was a friend and showed me much of Birganj.

Now Ashish lives in her flat. I think about my flat and the Australian who lived there before me. I wonder if this cyclical nature of volunteers coming, working, and leaving is good. We fly in, from far away places, try our best to improve things, and then leave just as suddenly as we came. Again and again.

There are already several volunteers from out of town at Ashish’s for the big farewell party. Oh, and St. Patrick’s Day.

There’s green Carlsberg beer ready and water buffalo meat cooking. Just after dark, the music gets louder and the dancing begins. This has happened so many times that I can’t help but be sad to know that this, again, is a last.

Before it’s too late, I walk alone back to my flat. The streets are empty and the houses are dark. I notice (as I always have) how the fluorescent lights hanging as along the way eerily illuminate the crumbling streets and gloomy homes.

It’s beautiful. I walk across the abandoned dry port, past a building that was bombed by Maoists, arrive in Ranighat and finally home.

As soon as I walk in, I notice my packed bag sitting in the kitchen, waiting for tomorrow’s departure. I can’t sleep, so I go to the roof to look over sleeping Ranighat.

I can’t look in any direction without remembering encounters with people, street food I ate, places I went and others I didn’t, the houses of kids I knew. They will not see me again, and soon I won’t remember many of them.

The next morning, I get in a jeep headed to the airport. After a few moments, we are outside of Birganj and passing through places like Parwanipur, Jitpur, and finally Simra.

This may or may not have happened.

I may not see the clock tower and think, This is a last. I may not notice the Bollywood movie posters that used to catch my eye.

This part of my life is over (or rather ending very soon), and I will never live again in this city full of contradictions—and that makes me sad. Very.

But a new chapter in my life is opening, and I’m turning the page, anxious for a new beginning.

But the best that I could do, after two months of Peace Corps’ astounding language training, was to tell them, Ma yad garchhu, I remember.

And what do I remember now? Have I changed after two years in this wonderful and flawed organization? Am I better? Did I climb Mount Everest? Did I build a bridge with cave-dwelling, sun-fearing villagers? Wasn’t I supposed to be sick constantly? And what about the United States?

Aren’t I supposed to realize that, at heart, I am a cave-dwelling, sun-fearing villager who could never live like I had before?

I thought I was a PCV. I thought I was the alpha male, able to adapt to anything, pick up a language on the way, and figure out how to be successful in seemingly ‘difficult’ circumstances.

To me, the adjustment after Peace Corps seems a lot like being a PCV a second time. Once in Nepal and then again in the US. Hopefully it’ll be as much fun the second time around.

I’m trying to figure out exactly how right the Peace Corps shrinks will be at forecasting hard times. They told me I’d be sick, which I really wasn’t. I mean, not any more than I would have been if I’d stayed in the US.

Yes, I did have diarrhea, but I’d had that in the US, too. I didn’t need Nepal to get indigestion. Plus, I never got ill enough to really complain about it. Except that one time during the monsoon when it was well over 110° F and the power went out for over a day.

Which was awful.

While I can’t really start to look back at my Peace Corps experience and the very strange and interesting culture that surrounds it quite yet, I can say that for me, my experience as a PCV was completely unlike what I had preconceived.

In a country of mud huts with thatch roofs, I never lived in one.

In a country of sprawling rice fields, I never commuted through one.

In a country of extreme poverty, I never really experienced it.

Sure I saw it. I passed pale corpses dead from the previous night’s freeze. I watched one morning as a set of tractors demolished shanties I used to see from my kitchen window. I fingered bullet holes in the waiting room of the airport. I heard bombs. I saw the muzzle flashes from weapons in the distance before going to bed. I taught shoeless children and paid half-naked rickshaw drivers. I was mugged and robbed.

But I never really experienced the things that gave Birganj its edge. I was always safe, far removed from the real things that change people.

Even when I rode in the backseat of an army captain’s car while he had a Browning 9mm shoved down the front of his pants, explaining how not a month ago the Maoists had attack him at this very spot and killed several of his men, I was safe.

And I can’t think why.

I’m in Dharan, and I’m finishing the training that the ANNISU-R said I couldn’t finish a month earlier because they were trying to keep eastern Nepal closed for some reason, to prove some point to someone somewhere.

I’m here, and I’m thinking about where I’m going to be, what I’m going to be doing, at some point in the future. Sometimes I think about April, when I finish as a PCV. Other times, I think about two years ahead. Future hazy, check back later, as the Magic 8 Ball used to say.

The one thing that I want to do, though, is have one last breath of what I loved about Nepal, outside of what I can get in Birganj. I want to see Birtamod and remember all the crazy people who flock to Andrew, the PCV who lives there.

I want to walk the quiet, dying streets of Rajbiraj and remember dogs, Christmases, and paan. I want to pass along the quieter parts of the East-West Highway, remembering that not all the trees have been cut down yet.

I want to jump off the bus as it pulls into the Birganj bus park with rickshaws swarming about, remembering that in such a place, I can be happy.

I remember Moser’s songs about unrequited love. I remember Andrew’s long hair, which looked awful. I remember Liz being shy, even though we were close, and I guarded one of her secrets—and a hilarious secret at that.

I remember being on Laurel and Kara’s patio, drinking coffee and eating André’s dry biscuits. I remember waking up in Yvette’s living room even before the sun has risen and then making that dusty, cold walk to catch a bus going somewhere.

I remember the apples in Mustang, drinking hot chocolate with Beth in a place she (for some strange reason) thought was nice.

I remember drinking jar at 8 a.m. with my host family in Gaidankot, then telling my language teacher, in Nepali, that I was drunk, which they always thought was a joke since it was 8 a.m. and I was speaking Nepali.

And I remember sinking that damn boat in Fewa Lake, laughing all the while.

I remember the first walk through the Birganj bazaar, not sure if I was in an Indiana Jones or a Mad Max movie, but knowing I was going to be OK.

I remember my first night in Birganj, staying in such a bad hotel that I even surprised myself. I remember being woken numerous times in a shady hotel in Thailand by roaches crawling over my body. And that had become a vacation.

I need to go to Jhapa and see the green, lowland tea fields one more time. I need to stay a night in Rajbiraj one last time, because I didn’t know that my last visit there was going to be my last visit there.

I need one more cold Coke from a wet glass bottle on a hot, sticky day in the Itahari bus park.

I want more foggy mornings spent over coffee and newspapers at Himanchal Cabin in Birganj.

I have to see more smiling faces of eager students—and teachers.

I have to experience everything again, so I can remember.

And yet there’s no time.

On many levels.

I paused, then composed a haiku.

   I gave this country
     education for the poor,
       and they stole my bike.

So there it is. Nothing else. Moving along, moving ahead.

I’d now like to write about some of the odd Birganj-wallahs that have crossed my path since coming to this town. These folks are recurring points of conversation with my other Birganj friends.

Here are some of my favorites.

Burning Man

He was the first blatantly mentally troubled person I crossed paths with in Birganj. He’s hard to miss. He always wears shorts, the ones with the fake dollar bill sewn onto a pocket, and has a stripped polo shirt that is, oddly, moderately clean.

Sometimes, fires must be lit.

He’s the guy who digs in the garbage and takes out the things that other people throw away. Like pieces of cardboard or posterboard.

What he does then is take some charcoal from a nearby garbage fire that’s cooled and draws some sort of symmetrical design on it. I’ve seen one and it looked like arrangements of the crop circles people in the US are familiar with.

Come to your own conclusions. He draws and scribbles and draws and erases and finally produces something of an odd design. He then produces and cigarette, which he smokes with much satisfaction, as he burns his drawing the street. And the moves on.

One time I asked a local from Birganj, a friend, what the guy’s story was.

Oh, him? He is crazy, he told me while twirling his finger around his ear to further drive the point.

No one seems to know anything about him. I’ve never seen him going into the local shops asking for money. Instead I see him sitting quite quietly outside of the Ganesh temple doing a whole lot of nothing.

And then he’s off . . . to burn something.

Burning Man is really the quintessential lunatic. He’s non-violent and does things that are interesting but that don’t in any way disturb others. Contrary to what you may think, setting fires street-side downtown is not odd.

I’ve never seen Burning Man yell or scream or make any sudden movements. I’ve occasionally caught him sitting outside of the shops that sell TVs watching whatever happens to be broadcasting, but no one seems to mind. Or notice. Or care.

What I’ve learned from Burning Man is that Birganj is like the Phoenix. It is rising from the ashes of the fire consuming it. During the monsoon it does feel like the place is on fire.

And with so much sun baking my brain, Burning Man’s antics seem a lot more . . . significant. He constantly smokes cigarettes, too, just to burn something, I imagine.

Screaming Man

The anti-Burning Man character of Birganj is Screaming Man. Screaming Man is violent and very, very threatening. But not in a dangerous way, if that makes sense.

His presence is unnerving, yet inviting because he is so completely unaware of a world outside of him. He’s gotten his name because, well, he screams a lot. He also collects sticks that he carries with him.

Birganj main street alive with people.

Once there was a small program including a debate-off being held downtown on sanitation and a community’s responsibilities. The boring speeches had finished and the debates had begun.

The debaters were all students from local schools, both private and public. A girl won from one of my feeder schools. I was pleased. Anyhow, while the students were debating I did a little walking around to take some photographs.

At the other end of the platform where the students were speaking, Screaming Man was there. He was also wearing the new Birganj youth club T-shirt. God knows how he got that.

Anyhow, he was standing there, facing the debaters and screaming and screaming and screaming and having a bundle of sticks and screaming.

There was the girl, berating the audience about their duty not to throw trash in the street, and there was Screaming Man, wearing the damn YCC T-shirt, yelling about the color green.

The first time I met Screaming Man was quite, well, personal. I had just walked outside of Himanchal Cabin when I came face-to-face with Screaming Man. He was screaming. He was also wearing one of those short lungees, which he lifted up to expose himself.

He then began wagging his penis around with his hands on his hips as if he was doing something resembling the jitterbug. He’d placed his bundle of sticks on the ground next to him.

Birganj, all of it.

And then one time I saw him standing in the middle of Ghantaghar. He was screaming. He had a bundle of sticks. He was standing with a bundle of sticks and screaming in the busiest intersection in town.

A rickshaw was trying to ply the traffic when he bumped Screaming Man, who, if he not already been screaming, would have started.

Actually what he did was stop screaming and grab on of his sticks out of his bundle. He took three steps back and then suddenly lunged forward throwing the stick javelin-style at the rickshaw wallah.

His aim was true and the stick struck the rickshaw driver in the middle of his back, which seemed quite painful, because the rickshaw wallah then fell of his rickshaw and writhed around on the ground for a bit.

Screaming Man began screaming.

The Master

The Master is extraordinary. A dumb thing to say, but still, there are too few superlatives that I can use with a man with as much skill, poise, and incomprehensibility as The Master. Besides just calling him ‘The Master.’

The clocktower lit up one night in Birganj.

The Master is a barber. No. That’s not right. That’s not enough. The Master is an artist. Wait. Not enough. The Master is a genius. Not right. It’s an insult to the man, to the man who takes an hour and a half to give a normal shave and trim to a guy like me.

Most barbers can sit you down, give you a shave, trim your eyebrows, and pummel your head and shoulders (usually referred to as a ‘massage’) within 20 minutes. The Master takes just under two hours.

Knowledge of The Master was given to me by Luke Shors, who is dead.

(He’s not really dead but when he left Birganj in April 2002, we began using past tenses when speaking of him that suggested he had died. Luke would have liked that, I told Ashish one time, seeing a star chart he’d found at the Peace Corps library. Yeah, I know, but he’s in a better place now, Ashish said, comforting me.)

Anyhow, dead Luke Shors once told me of The Master. I went. I saw. The Master’s hands touched my face and afterwards, somehow, I was a better person.

His razor graced my face with the precision of a stealth bomber’s sub-atomic warhead gracefully wafting through the window of a family’s mud hut in Afghanistan. It was so astounding that it was frightening.

Suddenly, Birganj didn’t seem so bad.

This hell of a city had given me something wonderful. The beauty of it made me compose haiku and even reconsider ugly, like the pigs near my house feasting on the semi-decomposed carcass of a street dog. Its wonderment made me write a haiku after seeing the family of pigs feasting on that semi-decomposed street dog carcass:

   This little piggy
     finally had a hot breakfast—
       of some dead street dog

   Snap crackle and pop,
     its pungent carcass eyeless
       yet looking at me.

If The Master started a cult I would join—just for the shaves. If you’ve never had an elderly Nepali man shave you, at that a shave that takes one and a half hours, then you have no idea what I’m talking about.

For the sake of science, I will explain, in order, exactly what happens when you go for an appointment with The Master:

1. You approach the door and The Master looks at you, silently
2. The Master tells you where to sit (You cannot sit before this since there are six chairs and you just don’t know which one)
3. The Master remains seated, watching 1960s Hindi movies on a black and white TV that you helped pay for (You pay 50% more than others)
4. The Master takes a sheet, which he begins wildly whipping (You didn’t expect such virility and strength in The Master since he looks over 60, but he is wearing a muscle T-shirt)
5. The Master puts the sheet over you, tucks in your collar, which takes 10 minutes to perfect He pauses, watching the commercials
6. The Master then collects a variety of odd, steel instruments (You do not question)
7. As if he is also a ninja master, suddenly he grabs your head from behind and slams it against the headrest of the chair, nearly decapitating you (Yet you are still relaxed, maybe from the incense, maybe from the half-naked pin-up of Hindi star that you are now gazing at)
8. The Master looks you in the eyes and further into your soul, but only through the mirror you face, of course
9. He asks you, Everything good? (You have been there 20 minutes thusfar)
10. You answer, Everything’s good
11. He then takes a handful of water into his palm and slaps you across the face, which turns into something of a massage
12. He takes the brush and lotion and begins lathering your face
13. He stops and walks outside, spitting up what sounds to be the largest throatal phlegm known to man
14. He finishes lathering—Again, he looks into your soul and ask, What do you want?
15. And as if he was a lumberjack, he chops at your face with the razor, gauging perfect pressure and angle (You know he is The Master; you do not worry that he may be drunk)
16. Tea arrives and everything pauses
17. He finishes shaving you, including trimming around the backsides of your ears and around the back of your neck
18. More water, more beating about the face (You must tolerate this, it is purifying you)
19. The then produces a polished rock, somewhat coarse, that he rubs aggressively into your face, which hurts
20. He stops, goes outsides and spits again
21. The Master returns reinvigorated and maliciously rubs many balms, creams, and lotions with high amounts of alcohol that scortches your skin inside out
22. Your face is burning as if it has been dunked in sulfuric acid, yet you are still being Zen
23. The Master beings the head massage, which, let’s face it, consists of being punching in the back of the head
24. You remind yourself for the hundredth time to say, Shave, no massage
25. The Master takes his scissors and comb and begins trimming your facial hair, which is a meticulous process
26. You watch in the mirror as he singles out hairs, considers each, then trims accordingly
27. He finishes trimming and takes the sheet off you and outside, which he whips wildly
28. More water, another slap, something like a massage
29. He reexamines your face, uses the razor to touch up
30. More balms, lotions, tonics, and some baby powder
31. The Master then takes a towel and wraps it completely around your head and begins drying you off (You consider this is what it would feel like if your head was chopped off and put into a dryer)
32. The Master combs your hair and asks you again, Everything good?

Honestly, I haven’t been back to The Master in months. While his shaves are extraordinary—unlike any other shave I’ve gotten in Nepal—the other places are, well, gentler.

And these days in Nepal we could all use a little gentleness.

Pardon me while I wax nostalgic, but a year ago I was living in a different house in Birganj and I had another flat in Kathmandu. Now I’m squatting with an Australian working with a Birganj NGO and Peace Corps kicked us out of our places in Kathmandu.

I’ve since become a fixture at the Hotel Ambassador and Kate’s kitchen.

Tihar candles on my balcony at the flat in Raniganj.

This year I was staying in Birganj. All the other PCVs had left during the holiday, just as I had done a year ago, and I was half looking forward to settling back into a rut in Birganj after not having been here continually for very long.

Since returning from the US I’d only manage to spend around 10 days, maybe two weeks, continually in town before leaving. Since getting back from the States I’d been to Kathmandu (of course), Pokhara, Hile, Ilam, Karkarbhitta, and Rajbiraj. And then back to Kathmandu.

I had been feeling somewhat lost of late. Like not sure where I was going with work or whether or not I was actually welcome in Nepal. Just before Tihar the Maoists had sent a notice to the newspapers and government that it was making steps to change its policies.

No longer would they be targeting infrastructure or low-level personnel of the army and police. Instead, they’d be targeting US imperialists. Or those associated and funded by US imperialists. Or who knows what this means.

Even during training when we could hear the crackle of gunfire in the distance as we ate daal bhaat we knew that we were safe. Really.

And even when the police (or was it the Maoists?) came and kidnapped a trainee’s host-brother, tied him to the back of motorcycle and drove off into the Chitwan jungle, we felt safe.

Even when the Maoists (apparently, it might have as easily of been the police) came and burned down a trainee’s neighbor’s house by cover of darkness, we felt safe. But this is different. This could be personal.

Mira knits at her tea stand in Murli Gardens, Birganj.

Sadly, the only way to gauge to what extent of danger there is we must wait and see. It’s a gamble. It’s (pardon the metaphor) like playing Russian roulette. In Birganj I’ll be fine. I’ve got bigger considerations, like my new landlord.

He’s a weaselly man that I don’t trust farther than I can throw him. One morning the family came knocking on my door to ask if I’d left my phone off the hook. While I don’t usually use it at all, the miserly bastard decided to disconnect my phone and then lie to me to my face about it.

He said he had three phone lines in his house and mine was ‘disturbed.’ It was such an out-and-out lie that I couldn’t even call him on it. It wouldn’t have mattered.

And the same morning I’d received a phone call on the disturbed phone line (in his house), did I get a visit from my old landlord, an equally niggardly man.

He’d been sitting in my living room telling my friend how I owed him money for a phone bill I’d forgotten to pay before I left.

While true enough, it was a minor amount of money and our understanding that such outstanding bills would be considered paid in full as I’d given him my old bed and another previous PCV‘s bed, both worth far more than the phone bill.

I’d also agreed to leave him my gas cylinder as well as a fan, a bookshelf, a couple chairs, et cetera. And here he was, sitting in my living room, moaning about money and complaining about my tea.

For some reason, I wasn’t feeling terribly welcome in Birganj—or even Nepal.

When Tihar began, though, things took a turn for the better. My bastard of a landlord’s younger brother asked me over to his place for dinner. My first landlord, perhaps the only honest man in this town, also asked me over. And so did Mira, my local tea stand operator.

I decided to go to Mira’s and then finish off the evening at my neighbor’s (the nice one, the younger brother) in a hope create some ties with the better half of the family. In the manner of Tihar we’d lit some candles and decorated the front door with a malla.

At Mira’s we ate and talked, but we couldn’t stay long because we had to run back to my place. We had some puri sabji and ate some sweets, looked at photos, and were the first people that Mira’s younger sister, Asha, and friends played their dialo for.

Soon, though, we left in a hurry to get back to my place. As we were ascending the stairway the Indian family living below me quickly came out to ask if I’d take some photos for them of their children.

I complied and soon I was burning nearly an entire roll of film of kids touching this idol, that idol, in this room, in that room. The film wasn’t a problem, but I was late.

The family asked if I’d go to the roof with them and set off some firecrackers, also a Tihar tradition. I was beaten and said, Sure.

On the roof the father began lighting off some sparklers and what not.

Fireworks on the roof of the apartment with the downstairs neighbors.

Soon, though, he had a sparkler in each hand and was lighting roman candles that he’d propped up on the side of the house. I felt like I was in Baghdad. I ducked under a fountain sprayer sparks across the roof and bid my farewell, promising prints in the future.

When I finally got to my neighbor’s house the food was on the table and they were waiting for me. I was more than daunted when I saw the family was expecting me to eat an small mountain of daal bhaat. They were smiling and asking me to sit, eat.

So I did. I guess I should say I tried since there was no way I could eat all of the food without vomiting and even thought I might do that halfway through the plate.

Finally I apologized and said I couldn’t eat any more. We chatted for a while, but soon it was the family’s bedtime and I thanked them again and left.

As I walked around the balcony back to my place I noticed that the candles I’d put out had gone out. Even though it was still a bit windy I went ahead and lit the candles again. The bad man’s daughter came by and said I should position my candles closer together.

I told her I had about thirty left in my room and would do so the next night, the second night of Tihar. In my room I sat on my bed and listened to my stomach complain about the food to me. After a moment I decided to turn off the light and sleep off my stomach cramps.

A moment later I heard the stingy man’s wife and daughter talking outside of my window.

The candles have all gone out, the mother said.

The American inside, the girl replied, He says he has many more.

I hope I do. I hope I can make these days last longer.

Bandhas in Birganj are typically not observed, and most shops remain open; however, most transportation pauses since traveling requires passing through areas more closely watched by the Maoists. But the bandha have a more human cost. Let us look closer.

1. 17 Sep. 2003

   Day before three-day bandha

   1. 1600: Met Kate at Himanchal Cabin. She had a bhoj she had to attend so we had coffee and discussed what food we’d need to buy for the three-day bandha. Accidentally knocked over a kid carrying apples while riding to the bazaar, which was bedlam.
   2. 1800: Finished shopping. Bought a couple kilos of tomatoes, potatoes, onions, okra, and bananas. Also bought spaghetti, baked beans, eggs, and bread. The bazaar was crowded with people and I felt like it was Y2K all over again, except this time the shops really wouldn’t be open the next day.

2. 19 Sep. 2003

   Day 1

   1. 08:00 Woke up late to phone call. Last night Kate and I stayed up late since we knew we had no where to go the next day. Usually we both get up around 7 o’clock. After my phone call, went back to sleep.
   2. 11:00 Kate and I sat in the kitchen silently for half an hour, trying to think of what to do with our day. Came up with the following ideas:
      • Clean
      • Plan up-coming three-day work week
      • Cook something
      • Write letters
      • Study Nepali
      • Have some more coffee
   3. 11:05 Made the coffee and drank it while trying to come up with some better ideas.
   4. 12:00 Jittery from the coffee. Kate and I chatted, relating our situation to being snowed inside a cabin in the mountains. Contemplated whether I would or would not eat Kate if an emergency arose. Decided I would not eat Kate.
   5. 13:30 Sat on the porch and thought about Thailand. Noticed the semi-blind shop keep had opened his store. Stroked my beard.
   6. 14:30 After zero customers, the semi-blind shop keeper clumsily closed his shop and tripped on the stairs down. Crazy from cabin fever, I laughed so hard the shop keeper looked in my direction. Wondered if he saw me. I mean, heard me. Whatever. Decided to go back inside and stare at the wall.
   7. 19:00 Cooked pasta with sauce for Kate and myself. Over dinner, we talked about steak. Depressed, we stopped and silently finished our pasta.

3. 19 Sep. 2003

   Day 2

   1. 08:00 More coffee. Beard starting to itch. Started to regret not getting a shave at a barber before the bandha since I don’t have any razors.
   2. 11:00 Kate and I went a short walk around Ranighat. Found the nearby river, which is mostly used by locals and a garbage pit and toilet. Found a sketchy daal bhaat place overlooking the cesspool and made plans to come back for our evening meal. Yum.
   3. 14:00 The boss’ daughter from the NGO where Kate works came over. Played Uno. Kate went insane and began a full-on assault against me. I mean, three pick-up four cards in a row? Really. Reconsidered if I’d eat her.
   4. 14:10 Stopped playing Uno as I was about to strangle Kate. Maybe it’s the coffee. Remind myself to get decaf while in Thailand.
   5. 18:30 Went to the sketchy daal bhaat place.
   6. 23:00 Started raining very hard. Water began pouring into my room from the porch under my door. After half an hour of torrential rain, my room had around 2 ½ inches of standing water on my floor. Laughed. Tried to block the flow of water but to no avail. Moved things off the floor and went back to sleep, water gushing in from outside.

4. 20 Sep. 2003

   Day 3

   1. 10:00 Finished pushing out the remaining water from my room. After using the squeegee, my floor looks reasonably clean. Drank coffee.
   2. 1200 Kate made breakfast/brunch/lunch: fried tomatoes with onions, baked beans, and fried eggs. Had another cup of coffee.
   3. 14:00 Taped some photos to the wall in my bedroom.
   4. 14:10 Photos fell off the wall. Decided not to put them back up.
   5. 15:00 Kate left to go to my old deraa to make a phone call to Australia. Finally, the place to myself.
   6. 15:50 Began making a list of questions to ask Kate when she gets back, including:
      • When was the last time you were stuck without anything to do for three days?
      • What did you do for those three days?
      • Do you think it’s strange to sit and do nothing for, let’s say, three hours?
   7. 16:30 Went to the roof to watch the sunset. And for Kate to get back. Translated the aforementioned questions in Nepali, in writing, for no apparent reason.
   8. 17:00 Kate returned, unable to make her phone call. She began cooking and I watched very attentively. Just before asking, I realized how insane my questions were. Went back to room and threw away the paper where I’d translated questions in Nepali to Piglatin. Swore off coffee.
   9. 23:30 Checked my email using Kate’s NGO‘s Internet connection at home, somewhat under false pretenses. Read The Onion and strangely didn’t find it funny. Need to shave my beard.

5. 21 Sep. 2003

   Day after bandha

   1. 07:30 Got up. Had coffee. Wondered what to do with my day.
   2. 08:00 Had another cup of coffee. Is there rehab for cabin fever?

One, however, was located not far from Shripur.

I can’t remember when exactly, but last monsoon I woke up one night to the sound of something going, Kah-boom!

I sat up in the bed and thought, Oh, my. Bomb, and then fell back asleep.

The next day I asked around. Apparently there had been a collision on the road just near my house.

I wonder if falling back asleep was the proper reaction.

Bomb blasts rock Birgunj

Birgunj, September 15, 2003—Three serial blasts in Birgunj Sunday evening damaged property worth millions of rupees injuring an 8-year-old child, Radio Nepal said.

The blasts took place at Zonal Labor Office, Guthi Sansthan and regional office of Nepal Oil Corporation. They were located at Sripur, Gahaba and Pratima Chowk of the city.

An 8-year-old child playing outside the Oil Corporation Office was injured. He is undergoing treatment at a local hospital, police said. There were no reports of any deaths or further injuries from the blasts.

© 2003 NepalNews.com

In other strange but unrelated news:

Children hooked on to war games

By Tularam Pandey

Kalikot, September 15, 2003—Traditional childhood games are losing their popularity and charm among the children of Manma, the headquarters of remote Kalikot district in far-west Nepal and its neighbouring VDCs. Children in this region are more interested in guerrilla warfare that has deeply vexed their guardians.

Children of this insurgency-hit district no longer play with dolls, hide and seek and other games which most children are occupied with. Guerrilla war involving the Maoist rebels and security personnel has become their favourite time pass for the past few years.

Wood structures resembling guns, rifles, wireless phones and bombs have become inevitable playthings for children and they spend every minute of their free time enjoying the insurgency game, according to sources.

After school, Nabin Kumar Shahi, the seven- year-old son of Kamal Kumar Shahi, a merchant in the Khandachakra bazaar in Manma VDC, calls out to his friends to start the insurgency game.

Soon a group of his mates including Meena, Binod and Ramesh assemble at the nearby open space and start their childish warfare in the image of the Maoist insurgency.

War, bombs, ambush, Maoist guerrilla, police, army are some common terms that children frequently use during their war game.

On seeing other children carrying toy guns, my son always bothers me to get him one, lamented Radhika Shahi, a Maoist-victim taking refuge in the bazaar from Syuna VDC.

My five-year-old daughter, Bimala, utters words like Rozer Saab on her wooden wireless phone, said Bir Bahadur Bista, a local. I had no option but to get one for her after she insisted a lot.

Level of anxiety is growing among guardians along with the growing inclination of their children on insurgency. Many complained that their children often get hurt during their playtime. Sometimes my children return wounded after playing, said Mani Chandra Chaulagain, a hotel owner in Khandachakra bazaar.

Schoolteachers also complain that students are preoccupied with warfare and have lost interest in their studies.

Despite our instructions, students are found playing the war game during lunch break, said Tej Bahadur Shahi, the head-master of Janajivan Lower Secondary School in Manma VDC.

While teaching, the students appear drowsy. However, topics on war arouses their interests, said a school teacher, Insurgency has remained a topic of gossip among the students.

© 2003 The Kathmandu Post

Funny, isn’t it? Actually, no, it isn’t.

Stories of how the insurrection are affecting and changing peoples’ lives are quite moving.

People will freely talk on the streets about how the current problems with the CPN (Maoists).

Everyone hopes it will end soon, and Nepal will return to being a peaceful place. When, however, is another question.

First of all, I had been away from the ‘Ganj for nearly six weeks. I remember when Rob had been gone from Birganj for nearly two months people starting appearing every where to ask me, Where is Rob? Where is Rob?

The mess that is the Kathmandu Domestic Airport.

Some suffered from Rob-withdrawal, as I had more than a couple people assume that I was Rob (as if in some magical way I had become him). I never understood that.

To my right on the plane sat a man who occasionally glanced over at me, giggling like an adolescent girl. I’d glance over my newspaper and catch him staring at me followed by, Hee hee hee hee haaawww, with a slight snort at the end. I didn’t understand that either.

As we began our ascent over the hills surrounding the Kathmandu Valley, the sky turned dark and the ride got bumpy. Directly in front of me sat a woman, perhaps 35, who was clutching her husbands hand to her chest while she rocked back and forth in her seat in the cramped Twin Otter.

Her husband sat to her left across the isle and spoke on his cell phone for the duration of the flight. The flight attendant didn’t seem to mind and nor did anyone else notice. I read my paper.

As we climbed over the hills and into the dark clouds, the ride got bumpier. While flights in Nepal can be scary, this was not one of them. But the woman in front of me wasn’t in any mood for any of this until finally she began screaming.

She screamed the scream of someone who is about to die a painful death and is aware of it. I lifted my paper to protect myself from a sudden fit of vomiting, a reflex I developed riding the buses, but she was too busy screaming.

Finally the man next to me had something else to cackle about and he did so unabashedly. The man laughing next to me at the woman screaming at her imminent death while her daughter (an unexpected wild card) painted the row with vomit—I don’t understand any of these things.

The major surprise in Birganj was the return of the fair, the ramilo mela. Last year’s attraction was a Ferris wheel that Rob and I braved.

This year’s attraction was a giant inverted cone constructed out of cane and bamboo. A couple motorcycles and then a couple cars drove around in circles inside the cone, narrowly avoiding head-on collisions. Well, except for today.

Apparently, or so the witness told me, the professional drivers from Bihar had asked for a pay increase. The managers of the fair simply fired them and hired locals in Birganj to replace them.

The drivers were local bus drivers that the managers had hired the day before they were put on stage to perform. They were dead now, and the show had to go on. In fact, tomorrow’s is at 7 p.m.—if they can find some new drivers. I’m planning on going.

This is my first day in Birganj in six weeks. I’m home.

I guess what I want to say is that I decided some things while I was in the United States. I spent time with my family, which was great, and I got to see some friends. I had a cold beer in my old bar.

The waiting room at Simra Airport, near Birganj, was pretty good, actually.

I ate Tex-Mex at every meal for a week. Most importantly, what I want to do after Peace Corps was revealed to me. I decided a few things, like that I want to teach at an inner-city school, maybe with Teach for America.

When I walked into the Loophole, the bar where I used to tend in college, I had no idea what I was going to do after Peace Corps in nine months. Before I’d gotten three feet into the bar I was cheered by friends who I had thought would have long forgotten me.

I sat down with Dylan and Chris, two previous employees at the Loophole who had given up the service industry to teach at inner-city schools in Dallas. I left the bar knowing exactly what I wanted to do.

I realized this, I realized that, and all of this could change. I’m not satisfied, because I’m envisioning my future, just because I have something to work towards.

It’s a great feeling knowing that tomorrow at the fair if the bamboo breaks and a Mahendra hatchback flies out of the arena and smears my brains across the dirty of streets of Birganj, I’ll die knowing that there would have been a lot more adventures to look forward to.

Well, maybe I’ll skip the show.

So one evening Matt, Shana, and I joined the wedding procession and walked through Birganj carrying the wedding gifts, food, etc. We wandered past the Ghantaghar, the clock tower that is the emblem of Birganj, and meandered north towards Murli Gardens, a suburban area of Birganj where I live.

Roshani and her sister at home in Murli Gardens, Birganj.

We walked down my road, past my house, and ended at a house near the chowk south of my house.

That’s where I met Roshani. After her sister’s wedding we’d see each other in Murli or around town. Rob’s (a N/192) youth club (YCC) had employed her as some sort of coordinator.

I remember one of our first conversations after the wedding was on my birthday, a couple days before Christmas. Our paths began to cross more frequently and soon she and I were friends.

But it was a strange friendship, because young, unmarried Nepali girls usually don’t freely socialize with random, male foreigners who happen to lurk about in their neighborhood.

Just because of the proximity of where we lived, I got to know Roshani’s mother and father. I think that helped keep up appearances. Roshani really became my best friend in Birganj. She was always eager to practice her English with me or ask me questions about Nepal.

I remember after some plumbing problems in my home I went and asked Roshani who was liable for the cost of repair in such a situation in Nepal—the landowner or I. She gave all the volunteers in Birganj tickets to see a dance program at her college that she had helped organize.

It’s been difficult to assimilate in Birganj, mainly because there are so many other groups of people coming from all across Nepal and India trying to do the same thing. To say that people are wary of one another in Birganj is an understatement.

Yet Roshani and her family always made me feel included, accepted. She was my Nepali bhahini and her family was my own family.

One rainy day back in February, I left home without my umbrella on my walk to school. When I passed the YCC, Roshani yelled out at me from the second floor awning, Hey, where are you going?

I told her that I was going to school.

Can I come along? she asked and with a surprising amount of earnestness, waving an umbrella in the other hand.

She came along with me to school and as I had predicted, school was canceled because of the torrential downpour. (Few students come with it rains hard or through them morning, perhaps because the limited amount of clothing a student has, or maybe because of the threat of illness.)

So she observed as I quickly reviewed something I had taught the day before and assigned some quick homework. As we walked back to the YCC office, we started laughing at how wet I was from walking in the rain. I was drenched from top to bottom.

Roshani had been holding the umbrella while I tried to duck as much of my body underneath, before finally just giving up and walking in the rain.

She put down the umbrella and said, If you’re walking in the rain, I’ll walk in the rain, too.

So we did.

And slowly Roshani and I became close and talked almost every other day. I started feeling that maybe I was doing Roshani wrong by being her friend, because I didn’t want people to whisper in the street after I’d left Birganj.

I felt that we could both be happy with a friendship I didn’t want there to be any chance that she would want anything more from me—nothing.

I guess things started to fall apart a week ago. Some of the volunteers were going to a concert at the Town Hall in Birganj on Monday and Roshani was going, too. On Thursday I was invited to go to Itahari (in the east, south of Dharan and north of Biratnagar) to Yvette’s birthday party.

Itahari wasn’t far (about five hours by bus) and I hadn’t spent time there before so I said, Sure. Count me in.

On my way to the buspark on Friday I passed by Roshani’s house. Her mother was sitting in front of the shop that the family owns.

I stopped in and leaned against the counter and told Roshani’s mother to pass the word along that I was going to Itahari for a couple nights but would be back on Sunday or Monday in time for the concert.

She barely let me finish before she called upstairs for Roshani, ROSHNEEEE!

A moment later Roshani came barreling down the stairs and I told Roshani about my plans, assuring her I’d be back in town for the concert. She feigned a frown and told me that she was planning on inviting me to her house for dinner on Saturday night.

I was surprised. I’d been asked over to just eat with the family—nothing special. But this was a special request.

Her sadness in having to move it back a week came from having to reschedule buying this or that food. This was going to be a special dinner. But Roshani perked up when I told her I could come next Saturday.

Smiling again, she asked, So what will you bring me when you return?

Again, I was totally caught off guard and asked, What can I get you in Itahari that you can’t get in Birganj?

Not the point, apparently.

Roshani's sister's amazingly long hair gets combed over by her mother.

On the ride to Itahari, I started putting pieces together. Our relationship was going places I didn’t want it to go. I thought of one conversation I had previously forgotten.

About three weeks ago, Shailendra, my landlord, had told me that if I wanted to marry a Nepali girl he could arrange for ten Newari (the people who’d settled the Kathmandu Valley) girls for me to choose from.

I jokingly mentioned this over coffee one morning at Himanchal Cabin to some of the other volunteers. We laughed at the prospect of me choosing a wife like that and Roshani had blurted, Make sure I am one of the ten when this happens, or something to that effect.

I had just laughed not pausing to wonder if she was serious. I was starting to think she was.

In Itahari I talked to some of the other volunteers about my revelation. They just shook their heads, asking, You didn’t see this coming?

There wasn’t any real solution to this problem, since it would have been impossible to have just stopped being her friend with her living so close to me or working with Rob’s YCC project.

Could I just tell her explicitly, looking into her eyes, We will never marry. So just cut it out. OK?

Like that would work. I mulled it over without any real solution on the ride back to Birganj. We went to the concert with a group and I didn’t detect the hints and nudges that I had started to pick up before.

The next day I was at home when the phone rang. It was Roshani.

Roshani: Are you coming by tonight?

Me: Uhh, I can if you like.

Roshani: What time will you come?

Me: Umm, maybe at seven?

Roshani: OK. Seven. My father wants to talk to you.

Me: Errr . . . OK. See you at seven o’clock.

Seven o’clock came and I walked to Roshani’s thinking all sorts of terrible thoughts. The father was going to ask me to marry his daughter with the entire family present. Gifts might be presented. They would give me a tikka.

Maybe they would ask me to chop off the head of a goat to celebrate the coming union. I had walked myself in font of a firing squad and was going to have to talk my way out of things—in Nepali.

I started forming basic sentences in my head like, I would marry your daughter, but . . . .

Roshani’s father was sitting outside the shop wearing sunglasses at sunset. I first walked to the counter and spoke a bit to Roshani’s mother and younger sister, Ruby, before I sat next to ‘Dad.’ Sigh.

Anyhow, I started talking with him and we chatted about the weather and my trip to Itahari. A few minutes later Roshani stepped off a rickshaw.

We exchanged greetings and Roshani looked gravely at her father, asking if he spoken with me yet. The father looked tired, looked away and said, Not yet.

I looked at Roshani and asked in Nepali, Spoken to me about what?

The father looked at me and said, Come upstairs. Look at my knives.

We went upstairs and Roshani brought out an assortment of Nepali khukuri.

I indifferently turned them over in my hands, impressed by the carving of the scabbard but wondering if I was about to be propositioned to marry Roshani by her father (who was, incidentally, wielding a knife at the moment).

Roshani brought her father and I some chiye and then sat down across from us. I drank my chiye and glanced up when Roshani spoke to her father, Well, go ahead, ask him.

Oh Jesus, I thought, No, please don’t.

Pops cleared his throat and stared into the distance, How much does a plane ticket to the US cost?

So Roshani’s brother in Katmandu won a DV to the US, and they had some questions to ask, like how much a ticket would cost, when the paperwork was due, if a work permit would be separate, et cetera.

Lots of questions and very few answers. I tried to explain that I’d never had to get a US visa before and that I knew very little about it. If they needed a visa for Nepal, I could have helped.

After I offered what help I could, Roshani gave me cornflakes in hot milk and we looked through her family photo album.

She showed me photos of her brother, Bishnu, who is living out the family dream of living in the US in Dallas, Texas, my old hometown. When I come to the United States in the next few weeks, I’m going to bring a package from Roshani to Bishnu.

I felt a little hurt, since the visa conversation is so threatening to me. My friend Andrew summed up how I feel about the visa issue.

Your author should apologize for having been clearly lecherous.

In Jhapa, he befriend a guy name Nissam, whose best friend, a Nepali, had gotten a Canadian visa and was studying in Toronto, Canada. Nissam used to remark to Andrew about how he really wanted to go to Canada or the United States.

One day when Nissam is going on about how much he wanted to leave Nepal, Andrew asked, Why don’t you just ask your friend how you can get a visa so you can go?

Nissam told Andrew, Well, he is my friend, and I wouldn’t want to offend him.

The next week when Andrew stopped by Nissam’s sunglass shop Nissam pointedly asked, Andrew, will you give me a Visa so I can go to the United States? So Andrew realized that he wasn’t the friend to Nissam that he had thought he’d been, which was disappointing.

With social and language barriers to leap, developing a good friendship here takes a little work.

But I felt that Roshani was just asking for help, not for a handout. And why shouldn’t I help her? That’s what friends do.

For the next year I’ll be working with primary English teachers, helping them to develop their teaching and English skills. At the moment this requires lots of visits to my cluster of schools, roughly 26 in the urban parts of Birganj.

So far it’s been a tour of the bizarre. I’m not seeing things through a cracked looking-glass, but through one that’s so old the glass is beginning to run. The schools really aren’t that old.

I think the oldest is around 42 years old. But Birganj is not a gentle place and the schools are beginning to show their ages. At one school, I saw a classroom that had collapsed into the sewer below.

But it’s really the people who have made the school visits interesting. With three trips to the training site, three weeks in India, a week in Kathmandu for a workshop, and all the travel time in between, I really hadn’t been in Birganj for more than a few days straight for almost two months.

One day back when I was sitting and having tea and talking with the tea didi about how I was a truly terrible person since I’d never given her photos of myself I was accosted by a very strange, very articulate man: RK Yadav.

He sat down across from me smiling broadly and asked me for my ‘good’ name. He asked me if I knew John. RK told me about how he and John had worked together in a small village a ways north of Birganj called Chhotaily for two years. He began telling me about how he and John had started an eco club at a nearby secondary school.

Theaters in Birganj had hand-painted film posters, like this one for Andaaz.

It sounded like the ghost of a previous PCV and it was. I’ve heard of this happening to other volunteers—almost always in small village settings—but it’d never happened in Birganj before.

I was surprised and interested to learn about this guy who’d been in Birganj who I’d never heard of before.

There are two major ghosts of volunteers in Birganj: Martha and Randall. I know about Randall because a current PCV in Birganj taught at the same school for a year.

I feel like I know Martha a little better because I used to live with the fellow she worked with while she was in Nepal, Rajesh. Rajesh had photos of his family together with Martha in the same room where I ate with them.

And then there was John. RK‘s English was archaic and sometimes spoken like a single line of an EE Cummings poem. Actually, RK himself was a poet.

He was in Birganj because he’d just had a collection of children’s poems in English published and had come to check on the order. His plan was to take the books to primary schools and help the teachers use them in teaching English.

Chhotaily was an excessively earnest guy. I couldn’t really get a clear picture of this John character, mainly because RK remembrances of him were so bizarrely inflated that it was impossible to figure out what was and what wasn’t.

Apparently, John had taught English, founded conservation projects, wrestled tigers to the ground, and built a few schools, as well as a hospital.

It was dizzying. Then RK pulled out of his shirt pocket a crumpled envelope.

He said, I have received this letter from John.

While slightly exhibitionistic, I couldn’t help but take the letter from RK, who was still smiling. When I finished reading the letter, I put it back into the envelope and collected my thoughts.

Theaters in Birganj had hand-painted film posters, like this one for Andaaz.

The letter was a single typed page. The envelope was dated June 2001 and was soft and slightly discolored. I could feel the oil from hands opening it, holding it, reading it, refolding it, again and again.

RK wore his topi and tikka, both symbols of the Hindu Kingdom (which is Nepal), and smiled at me proudly.

In his letter, John told RK that he was at seminary and suggested to RK that he read the Bible, pray to Jesus, and become a Christian in order to save himself for eternal damnation in hell for his pagan ungodly beliefs.

RK then went on to tell me about how once he and John had to spend the night together in the jungle of the Parsa Wildlife Refuge.

There was only one sleeping bag and John refused to let RK walk back to his home because it required a trip through a dangerous area (probably something to do with the Maoists, I thought).

John enticed RK into staying by giving him his sleeping bag. And what did John do? He slept only in his clothes the night through.

Sadly, I don’t know much else about the story. RK told me that John had only sent the single, proselytizing letter sine he left Nepal around four years before.

I think about what sort of character RK painted John to be, but when I think of the singular letter that may well have been a form letter from the How to Convert Heathens manual, it just doesn’t add up. It’s fascinating.

Anyhow, maybe I’ll see RK again and he’ll sing more glories of John. But let me sing of RK‘s glories, through his own poems.

First, an excerpt from the poem Means of Transportation:

Trucks carry heavy load,
Buses bring passengers;
Careless driving
Is very danger
Flying plane…………

Actually, there’s no clever tie-in between that excerpt and what I wrote about the mysterious John or RK himself, who is probably an excellent teacher; however, it is our duty to recognize the humorous in everything. From SEASONS:

Rainy uncle is dangerous.
Bring landslide and flood
Crops grows very fast
Parasites Suck the blood.

While RK‘s poetry showed me that he was really interested in contributing to the schools, to the community, to my amusement, John’s prose forced me to answer difficult questions that RK asked me about a man I’d never meet

Who was I defending? And why? Rainy uncle is dangerous, I guess.

Biha Bhayo?

It’s the question I’m asked the most. Well, I’m probably asked about US visas more often. Anyhow, I get asked if I’m married a lot. Every day, probably.

Adult films weren't shown in Birganj, but they were in nearby Raxual.

Every day. Every single day. The same question. Constantly. But this is life and I have fun with it. Some days I’m a widower, some days I am waiting for my elder brother to be married, etc.

But I didn’t have a clever response when the headmiss of JP Primary asked. I just told her that I wasn’t married, that perhaps when I returned to the US I’d get married.

She was a hefty woman. She was, in fact, enormous. She was a big, fat, jolly woman who strongly suggested that she find me a wife. I explained that almost no-one in the US had arranged marriages.

When love comes, I said in Nepali, we marry.

She looked at me, confused. (I do speak Nepali terribly.)

She then told me about how Mike had married a Nepali woman. I didn’t quite understand, so I asked again. Yes, she arranged a wife for Mike.

Who’s this Mike?

Mike was an English volunteer who had worked in Birganj some time ago for some NGO or INGO. I read in the school’s ledger where Mike had written an entry after awarding a student a prize for a drawing contest.

So the headmiss would have me believe that one day an English-speaking aid worker came to JP Primary, awarded a prize for a Birganj-wide drawing contest, and then entered into a marriage the headmiss had arranged. The day before.

Then I asked the headmiss, Can you find me a nice wife? I asked again and again.

Mike’s wife was from Hetauda, a city about two hours north of Birganj, and had been found by the headmiss.

Basically she had discredited everything I had ever said about how ‘my people’ don’t have arranged marriages.

She was quiet for a moment, waiting for me to concede that (a) I needed to get married immediately, and (b) she was the only qualified person in Birganj to find a white man a nice Nepali girl to marry. It was my lucky day.

My head was spinning. Never before had been stumped like this by a Nepali. Usually I’m the one saying strange things, but an Englishman distributing prizes for an art contest in Birganj and then asking the headmiss, Find me a wife, please, was a lot to understand at one moment.

Was this woman kidding? She told me that they met at their wedding and then went back to England together about a week later.

Anything’s possible in Birganj. While the headmiss waited for my concession, I considered—for a minute—having her arrange maybe half a dozen candidates for me to look over, like troops presenting arms for inspection.

It was a rather misogynistic daydream, but after keeping company in a patriarchal society for so long, the idea didn’t immediately strike me as inherently evil.

The endless number of bicycles in Birganj can be a bit boggling.

After a moment, the headmiss then said something I’ve heard more than once. Look at you. You’re white. White is beautiful, she said.

I told her that I thought Nepalis were some of most beautiful people I’d ever seen, which she quickly dismissed, We’re black. Black is ugly. Look at me, she said pinching her forearm before turning to mine, You’re white. Very nice.

I found my loophole. I asked, So why do you want me to marry a Nepali woman if you think they are ugly?

She didn’t even hesitate, You are white. Your Nepali bride will be black. You children’s color will be very beautiful.

Her logic was a bit cloudy to me, but I didn’t press for more answers. I was uncomfortable discussing this woman’s hatred of her own skin color, let alone her admiration for mine.

It’s been strange times since coming back to Birganj after my month long hiatus, filled with poets, matchmakers, and the strange, mysterious bideshis that made all of this relative to me.

And to add to the dynamic, the two new N/196 PCVs just showed up in town yesterday.

I wonder what stories they’ll hear of me when I’m gone.