I’ve been on the farm for ten days now, and the days have warped together into a long stream of tea picking and stomach illness.
A grassy path leads down a hill to the tea farm. Two buildings, a kitchen and bedrooms, sit behind a green grass lawn. It is the only grassy patch like this I have seen in this country. The buildings are made of a mixture of bamboo and thin wooden sheets, and all are a deep green. My room is upstairs, past a set of wildly angled and open-backed stairs.
To the left of the house (facing out from the porch) is a thick bamboo lattice with a ceiling of cucumber vines. The large fruit drop below and hand singularly in the air below. At the lattice’s base, a row of pink and red flowers form a natural wall. Some are perky, some wilted; lately the monsoon has not delivered as promised.
I wonder how many thousands of years these lands have been cultivated by humans. How many ears have those water buffalo yawns reached? How does it remain so fertile after so many souls have lived and died on the same ground? I have become so used to the noises here so that when I hear a new insect or bird, I can tell it does not belong to the usual cacophony. The constant layer of cricket chirps form a wonderful white noise, but one pesky bird calls in a most irritating fashion, and to my annoyance, has continued for the past half hour.
Mostly, I think about how monotonous life seems here, especially for the elderly. With only a family to interact with, and slow farm work, I can see that growing up here could be tough. But still, there are neighbors nearby, and goats and kittens for company. Nearby neighbors are playing a slow Nepali melody filled with violin and tenor male voices filled with longing.
The electricity has been out for nearly a week. A wretched thunderstorm destroyed the power box (what’s the name for this?) and the village must wait for a repair part to come from Kathmandu. Kushila only shrugs, and say sometimes the power is out for weeks or months. They are thankful for any electricity they do receive when it does work. In this kind of unreliable structure, they have learned not to depend on it. With all other lights out, flying insects surround my headlamp and ram into my forehead. I am reminded of the time on my first trek in this country when myself and some friends used our headlamps to herd the bugs on our ceiling into a corner for some internet-less entertainment.
A bat was in my room for the second time last night. The first was a few nights ago, maybe the first night of the sickness. I was afraid I was just seeing things, or it was simply a moth’s larger shadow in my headlamp. I quickly opened my doors and it disappeared completely. I had felt quite insane, but this time I am sure he was there. I saw him before I entered my room’ the door was open and he fluttered noiselessly inside. Fearfully I retreated to the hallway, unsure what to do, but he soon followed me out and into the dark, rainy night and vanished once more. I will take him as an omen. He came a week ago to bring me plague, and departed again when my illness is retreating.
I have been so restless here. My head wants to run and run but my body doesn’t agree. Nearly a week of stomach illness have left my body frustrated, weak, and confused. My mind keeps leaving Nepal and entering a worry filled land of my future in America.
At night, I am visited by visions of disembodied goat heads, eyes white and empty, staring intently and eternally into the dark.
