I'm back from what was quite a different world as life live in a village on the side of a mountain does breed some strange experiences. We visited 4 rural villages in a total of 10 days. Met a lot of villagers and did a lot of hiking, my estimation is about 32 hours of hiking total. It was Me and Shem (ex-trek guide who has evagalized the areas we were going into). In 2 of the villages we stayed in the church. 2 of the villages we stayed in peoples homes.
The Good
The best thing for sure was the people we were visiting. Mostly very poor and very hospitable. Having almost nothing but sharing everything they got. Most of our travels were with 2 of the young men looking after one of the churches out their. I Spoke at the church during the Saturday service we had their. We went visiting and praying with most of the believers in the villages we were at. Though their were a lot of clouds the scenery was amazing. Overall the trip went really great i was really encouraged and i think a lot of the people were as well.
The Strange
The women get married very young out there, 13 or 14 years old. It was strange as i was speeking at the church and their was a girl who could not have been older than 15 breast feeding her kid who looked about 1 1/2 years old. Average is about 6 kids per house hold.
One man we visited had 13 kids, here is the crazy part about the guy. His first first 4 kids have "normal" names. Kid 5 on onward are named for there number born. Child five is names Five and so on all the way up to 13.
The food was strange, pictured is a typical sting needle and corn mush with berrys that numbed the mouth (we would later use the same berry to rub on our shoes to fight land leaches) meal . They eat a lot of potatoes and corn. Millet was a strange food i ate, its a seed that they make into a powder then add water and make into a much much like the corn mush. Though at several of the homes they did kill a chicken for us which really is a pretty big sacrifice for them. They said i was the only white man to ever eat eat mountain food with them most people from urban Nepal dont even want to eat their food. I think we were all happy to eat together.
The Ugly
So this is monsoon season in Nepal and it did rain everyday we were on the mountain. Many times as we were hiking. There were so many land leaches. They hang off of branches and grass and grab on you as you walk by as well as fall out of trees onto you. Their like big inch worms. I pulled probably about 60 off of my clothes and about 8 that started sucking my blood. The leaches were bad but the worst by far were the fleas. Most of the places we went had fleas. Their were not many good nights of sleep on the mountain due to fleas. By the end of the trip most of my body especially torso looks like it got a really bad outbreak of acne, flea bites all over and their still itchy.
Their are more things i could put in all these category's but there are the main things. And its nice to be back in Kathmandu and be flea free.
