Elephant Breeding Center, Nepal

Incredibly cute!

They have the longest gestation period of any land animal, 22 months.

 Their caretakers make little nutritious food packets for the elephants which are useful treats during training.

Treated well, they can live into their 70's.

At about 5 years of age, they are separated from their mothers and their training begins.

Some of the young were not chained because they rarely wander far from their mothers.

It is difficult to watch the training process because you can see that the elephants are struck squarely on their heads with a fat stick if they misbehave.

The elephants are strong enough to drag a three ton tree, so it is important that the trainers have control over the elephants at all times.  Sometimes the elephants will unexpectedly lose their minds and become completely unmanageable.  After the elephant breeding center, we walked 2 miles into town to see if there was a cybercafe so that we could let people know that we might have some difficulties returning during the strike.  Halfway to town we saw roughly 20 people standing in the street keeping their eyes on a large elephant from a distance.  We continued to walk confidently toward the crowd and the elephant.  Fortunately, one man stopped us.  "The elephant is mad.  He has already killed two men.  We are waiting for the mahout to come and get him."  We thanked the man and quickly retreated.

Night Life in the Jungle

After a long day of hunting rhino and not finding any...

we stopped to relax at Sunset Beach...

and borrowed money from our escort so that we could split a beer.  I didn't take money into the jungle again after my former fiasco, Honesty and Poverty.

Dinner was buffet style with loads of yummy vegetables similar to Indian style cooking.

They were still working on the Maruni Sanctuary Lodge.  I can imagine a roaring fire here in the winter.  It will be spectacular.

They have a cultural program after dinner.  These Tharu boys are dancing traditional dances.  Again, I have the ghostly orbs floating through my photos, but not every photo.

It is inappropriate for the village girls to be out after dark so they are unable to participate in these dances.  However, they do have a dance that is traditionally preformed by a boy wearing a dress.

The boys are really expert at twirling their sticks.  Remember that we were on our jungle walk with two men carrying sticks.  I believe that they would have been quite capable of frightening off many wild creatures with the sticks, but I am still glad that we didn't run into an old hungry tiger.  On one of my visits we walked past a place where a woman had been eaten only two weeks before.  She was walking on a well used path through the jungle, alone.

After our lovely day in the jungle we received some very distressing news.  It was the very thing that I fear the most when I travel to Nepal.  A strike was called in the Terrai for the following day.  Strikes can be violent, but not always.  My biggest concern was that I had only one more day to finish all of my business in Kathmandu.  I had made promises to finalize orders and pay several craftspeople.  They day after that, we were supposed to leave Nepal.  If the strike continued, we would miss our flights home.  This was the very reason that I skipped my trip to Nepal several years in a row.

Climbing to Tatopani

About 2 hours from Dunche, and 9 hours from Kathmandu, we finally reached a place where vehicles could no longer travel. Ahead of us were rocky treeless mountains and beyond the mountains the radiant snow covered peaks of Tibet.

From the road a dusty path took us to a hanging bridge that must have been very recently created. I have been across bridges that had no netting and wooden slats rotted through. Where there were holes, a flat rock bridged the gap. This bridge however was very sturdy. At this time of the year animals could be herded through the river below, but in the rainy season, the bridge would be the only access to trade with civilization.

Just beyond the bridge we encountered an old chorten. It was inscribed with prayers for the deceased. The proper way to show respect is to pass the chorten to the left circumambulating clockwise just as you would travel around a stupa.

Suddenly, the path took a sharp, steep turn to the right and we began to climb the rocky steps. It wasn't too difficult at first. I took my time placing my feet carefully so that I wouldn't slip. But soon I felt unstable in my knees and ankles. Even though I was carrying nothing but a walking stick, the climb was very difficult for me. I am at least 40 pounds overweight, which everyone in Nepal generously offered to cure with vegetables, herbs, work and yoga. I stopped often and about a half hour into the climb I decided to take my pulse. It was 170 beats per minute.

About 10 years before this journey, I broke my ankle in three places. I still have a metal plate with screws holding it all together. When I broke my ankle, it was on a most ordinary hike in the Maryland woods, nothing like these gravel covered rocky steps clinging to the side of the mountain. A simple misstep and I had to have 4 people carry me out of the woods strapped to a board. "What would happen if I broke a leg up here?" I wondered out loud. JR told me that if I broke my leg on the mountainside that they could not help me in Dunche, they would have to take me all the way back to Kathmandu. He said that they would call for a helicopter. That would be fine for me, I thought, somehow we would figure out how to pay for the rescue, but what of the thousands of people who lived up in these hills?

I know that everyone was concerned about me. They never raced ahead even though I think it would have been easier for them to climb more quickly. They were especially worried when I began to feel dizzy, and they asked if I wanted to stay with one of the families living on the side of the hill. Could I do it? Could I climb all the way to the top? Yes... yes, I was doing it. One step was not too much to bear and what is a journey but one step at a time? JR sang folk tunes behind me and I focused on the glittering rocks and the beautiful terraces, and in that way we climbed. Although it was difficult and painful, the pain would be but a moment and the beauty would be just as fleeting. I was being honored by my extended family with this most precious gift of seeing a place that only a tiny fraction of the world will ever see first hand.

It takes a native 1 and 1/2 hours to climb that mountain. It takes a fit young American 2 hours to climb to the top. It took me 4 hours, but I did it. Life is not a competition, not even with ourselves, it is a journey made up of precious moments, each one to be savored as it is presented.

The village by the river at the center of the picture is where we began our climb.
By the time we arrived, it was already dark.

Kids and Leopards

Aama: 'Mother' This is the most esteemed matriarch of the Neupane family. She is a mother of 15 and has already out lived 8 of her children. Sitting here with her eldest son, I thought she looked most dignified. Although we could not speak directly to one another, I was honored by her presence and welcomed by her impeccably raised and generous family. Many, many thanks to Aama and to her family.
If you look to the left of Aama, you will see a rock. This is a pestle. The mortar is the stone beneath it. It is where Aama grinds her spices. We accidentally sat on the mortar, but we were forgiven.

After our meeting at the school, we were taken back to our host's home. Normally, I would offer to help in the kitchen, but in this case, I was exhausted and I allowed myself to be cared for. Uncle JR, an English teacher, and his wife worked on the dinner together. They picked spinach from their garden. At the edges of the garden were nettles which can be used for making cloth. We also saw marijuana weeds which grow all over Nepal.

We chatted and sipped milk tea while several people from the village stopped by. Aunts, uncles and cousins dropped in to say hello.

They had an out house with running water, it was cold, but you could still take a shower if you wanted. We met a young woman named Mary who was a doctor from Texas volunteering at the local hospital for a couple of months. She had come up the hill to the Neupane's home for a shower. Dr. Mary told us that the prevailing illnesses at the hospital were a mystery rash and parasitic dysentery. In Nepal, diarrhea is the leading cause of death for children under 5.

At the far end of the house was a stable for cows and goats.

The cow had just had a calf, so we had fresh milk for our tea and I was able to drink a cup of raw milk. I thought the cooked milk tasted a little sweeter.

Uncle JR's twelve year old son was home playing with the goat. My other adopted Nephew, Atit, came up from another school a few miles away. He has barely graduated from high school himself, but he is already teaching.

Our first course was boiled salted potatoes. We peeled them with our fingers and ate about 4 potatoes each.

JR's wife did a tremendous job of feeding so many guests. She spent a long time carefully picking through and cleaning the rice. We sampled a rice wine made by a neighbor, and we had stewed spinach. She made spicy potatoes with home made butter out of the left over potatoes from earlier. There were even a few cubes of spiced goat meat for everyone.

After dinner JR played the drum for us and sang. Belief and his cousin danced and we were well entertained until we could barely hold our heads up any longer.

Before we turned in, JR carried the kids (baby goats) and the calf inside a storage room, put them under baskets and barred the door. This was to keep the leopards from eating them at night. Apparently the leopards usually leave the larger animals alone. I made certain that the bar was down on our door before we turned out our lights and climbed into our sleeping bags, just in case.