Foothills

 

 

 

We carried day packs with nothing more than a change of clothes, toothbrushes, and a ton of water. Up into the foothills above Pokhara.

Nepalese women cooed quietly at our heels, passed by smiling; huge loads of wood and canned goods held tightly against their backs. A tiny tot would peek around mum's waist and watch your laborious steps as she drew inexorably away.

Late afternoon coming into the summit village the light was languid honey with monsoon clouds hovering.

Shower? The answer passed slowly back along a line of teenagers crowding the guesthouse doorway.

Three stone walls no taller than my head, no roof, it clung to the valley wall at the back door. A plastic bucket floated half submerged in a 44-gallon drum.

Stripped to battered shorts I threw a first bucket over my head, and buckled in half at the cold. As I scooped a refill the lights went out, cloud suddenly so low and dark it seeped in at the open window in the outer wall. Lightning sheeted the valley, on and off, over and over, showing snapshots of the sudden waterfalls running white streamers down the bare hills and away to Pokhara.

The thunder would roar even before the lightning was done, so loud it would answer itself up and down the valley and hide the giggles of the children peeking around the corner at the skinny man with his head thrown back to the rain, no need for the bucket anymore.