Generations of crews of stone masons must have worked most of their lives to ease the path up the mountain to the Peace Pagoda above the lake in Pokhara. The way is long and steep, but their are irregular granite stairs crammed into the trail for most of the stretches that dont imply relative flatness. Theres no real flatness anywhere, and merely the implication is rare, but still there are these artificial steps of varied heights and depths along the way, making places to walk and places to sit awhile. We carried plenty of water, gulped it down and bled it back through skin and clothes. My sweat has always had a healthy flow, so we were probably carrying much less weight at the top than we were at the start, and the boy doctor said he was carrying a first aid kit - not that anyone couldnt have carried one but at least he allegedly knew what to do with the various containers of things and strips of things and rolls of things. Arcane things, whose varied uses he spent years in medical school - as well as Boy Scouts for that matter - learning to negotiate. Its the lungs that get taxed going up, and the thighs coming down. So I sat on a shelf chipped away and embedded in the Earth by a team of skilled, dedicated pilgrims centuries ago and told myself to wait patiently for the thinning air to bring its relief. And down the hill comes this ancient fart, waving and cracking a bamboo walking stick and grinning toothlessly and plopping down between Boy Doc and me. Where from? He wants to know. America, I say. Ah, power, he says, all power. People I speak with all week here and along the way have come up with one-word summations for the places of the world. Switzerland is money. Germany is order. Japan is busy. Only China and India are too big and too close to be comprised by a word - possibly other than, I suppose, stress. Were power. I havent got any, I tell him, the Presidents got that. He nods with a reverence that belies the fact that hes just stood before an enormous statue of Buddha and he says in a voice suddenly deeper, Ah Obama. The name carries a distance and weight everywhere here that you dont hear at home. Its a lesson Gautama learned too, I hear. Almost there, the Fart says to the boy, ten minutes. Then he turns a head, looks me up and down, Fifteen you, and he whips up the bamboo stick and scurries further down the path. Actually it was closer to twenty.
Posted on: Fri, 25 Apr 2014 00:46:41 +0000
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