Dear Friends,
This evening our guide, Jawane Tamang, invited us
all -- Karma, Donna, Maisie, Sky, Dick, and me -- to his home for dinner.
His home is a 15-minute walk from our hotel in the Lazimpat district of
Kathmandu. We were looking forward to meeting his wife and to see his son
Bishal and daughter Benita again. Both speak English well and attend private
schools, listen to Metallica, and are Facebook devotees.
We walked out of the hotel compound and turned right,
away from downtown, on busy Lazimpat Road, and then right again into their
neighborhood. The closer we got to the 4-story building where his family
occupies the 3rd floor, the narrower and more potholed the dirt roads became.
It reminded me of the bumpy, dusty drive to our safari guide Chris
Samuel's home in Arusha, Tanzania -- but there the roads were wider and the
dirt was red and there were fewer shops = a more suburban environment.
But I digress . . . when we arrived we climbed a narrow,
dark cement stairway to the 3rd floor and entered his home along a narrow
unadorned hallway littered with maybe a dozen pairs of shoes and sandals and
then through a decorated cloth door cover like the ones that separated the
rooms in his flat. We were exempted from the customary shoe removal and
seated in front of low tables on two beds and a couple of chairs in a room that
also housed the family TV, a computer, and a sewing machine.
Jawane does not drink, but had stocked up on bottles
of cold Tuborg for his beer-loving guests. Bishal was sporting a
new, post-trek haircut -- as was my helper Dorje who was sous chef for the
evening -- and receiving calls and texts on his mobile phone. Benita came
in to met Maisie and Sky and settled into a chair next to me. She had
trekked with her dad into the Solukhumbu region south of Everest to visit her
grandmother, so I showed her some of the pony caravan video I had on my iPhone.
She then patiently and politely looked at my whole collection of trek
photos. She is a sweet and patient girl.
Benita waits for us
near one of the Shiva temples at Pashupatinath.
The first treats to arrive were French fries followed
by meat-filled momos, the ubiquitous national "empanada/pot
sticker-style" food of Nepal. Momos can be steamed or deep-fried as
were ours that arrived very HOT. Next were some pink crunchy "chips."
All these delicacies were accompanied by offers of more beer and murmurs
of pleasure from us as we ate enthusiastically.
Then the low tables were cleared and Jawane brought in
the actual dinner of Dal Bhat on deep brass plates. In a brass "wine
glass" shaped cup is the dal, a lentil "soup" that can vary in
thickness from watery (at the Parkside Hotel) to rich and flavorful Chez
Jawane. On the plate was the bhat = rice, a piece of chicken -- which is
expensive and unusual in this dish, and cauliflower. There also must have the
usual fiery orange paste and pickled something-or-other, but I had already --
trying to be polite as well as enjoying the food -- eaten so much that my eyes
felt crossed and the accuracy of my culinary reporting declined in proportion
to my over-consumption.
During the meal the rotating electrical blackout that
is part of life in Kathmandu (unless you have a generator as many hotels do)
arrived at Jawane's home, so he lit some candles which made the dining atmosphere
even more intimate. However, the “romantic” atmosphere made taking the
commemorative after dinner photograph challenging = everyone had to be still
for 60 LONG seconds. Oh well, both Dick and Karma are Photoshop Pros. Karma
asked Benita if she did her homework by candle light, and she answered
"Yes." Yikes!
Before we said our goodbyes, Jawane and his wife gave
each of us a pale gold, light silk kadha scarf that we received around our
necks with our heads bowed. That was a very kind Buddhist honorific gesture
that topped off a extraordinary evening. Jawane called two taxis and gave
the drivers directions to deliver us back to the Hotel Manaslu. A true
urbanite, he does not have his own car.
You might just be wondering, "Who -- beyond being
our trek guide -- is Jawane Tamang?" Karma met Jawane about 20
years ago when he was cooking on a trek lead by Karma's friend Nyima.
Last year Jawane contacted Karma to let him know that he now has a
trekking guide license and offered his services to arrange a visit to Nepal.
Thanks to karma’s Nepali language skills, during our trek we learned some
of the details of his life.
Jawane is one of four sons of a rural family that
lives a two-day trek from the end of the road in the Solu -- or southern and
lower elevation area -- of the Solukhumbu, part of the Everest Region.
There was not a school in his village when he was growing up. His
job was to care for the family's several very valuable water buffalos, which is
a big responsibility. I guess it became obvious to him that his family's
farm could not support all the brothers and their families, so at 19 he moved
to Kathmandu where he knew no one. He took a course for trek kitchen workers,
which seems a lot more desirable than being a porter in the trekking business.
He also took a three-month English class -- English would be his fifth
language after Tamang and Nepali and 'some ' Tibetan and Sherpa – and which
involved a new alphabet. He also mentioned some courses in technical climbing
and many treks into the Everest Base Camp, the Annapurna Circuit, Mustang,
Tibet, and other remote areas. Jawane is the consummate self-made man.
A note about his last name: Like many Nepalis,
Jawane took as his last name the name of the ethnic group to which his family
belongs, the Tamang. In Ghandruk where the Gurungs live, the staff roster
at the Annapurna Conservation Area Project visitor center features many people whose
last names are . . . you guessed it, Gurung. We were interested when
Jawane told us that Tibetan refugees are catching on that if they use Gurung as
their "last name" they can increase their chances of being able to
register as citizens of Nepal, a right otherwise unavailable to them.)
Like Chris Samuel, our Tanzanian guide, Jawane has his
own business now called "Free Fun Treks" with its web site (http://freefuntreks.com) where you
can learn more about him than I learned sitting with him and Dick in the dining
rooms of the lodges before dinner. He is a great guy, and I would trek
with him anywhere my knees could carry me. :-)
Donna and Karma left today for home via Seoul and San Francisco
and a visit to their granddaughters. We miss them!
Tomorrow we catch our Thai Airlines ride home via LA
and San Francisco and Calistoga where we will see Dean and his family.
Sending love from KTM,
Marian
P. S. Want to go to fabulous Tanzania? Chris is also a gem and can arrange a safari at any level from tents and your own chef to five star lodges. Find him at http://idreamofafrica.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment