#nalma

The bees came in a swarm from the mountains. Shanti and Katrin were picking potatoes behind the house and the bees flew right over their heads. Now there was a constant hum about the place as the incumbents tried to fight off the invaders. They wrestled outside the hive above the kitchen before rolling down the tiled roof and onto the paved courtyard, just as we tried to step between those that had already fallen. The bees came a day after those other things, like maggots with long wings that Baba says hatch from the soil when the rains are coming. They settled on the table and in the kitchen and in our rooms before writhing around until their wings fell off and they died. Their wings covered the ground. Now it was bees.

We struggled with the steps that day, trying this rock and that rock, and still not finding it secure. There was always a wobble, or an overhang or some other issue that made us piece it all together in new ways. But those rocks are heavy and soon we were sweating, our backs aching, our fingers cut. Later I carried a basket of the remaining stone fragments back from the dumping ground in the village centre. I placed the rope around my forehead and let the basket rest on my back just as I had seen the women do. It was my neck that felt the strain, my head pulled backwards, my hands desperately trying to relieve some of the weight. I’m not sure I had it quite right. I heard the great grandmother chuckling at my efforts from her perch above the courtyard.

We knew the rocks were heavy because we had helped to collect them someway down the track towards Besisahar. We watched as a group of men stood halfway up the cliff and drove a pole into the basalt beneath them causing all shapes and sizes to become dislodged and career towards us. I worried for their safety and thought of the many years they had been doing this, the strain on their bodies. Soph and Tess came too but were told they couldn’t help. Instead we had several boys lending a hand, passing us rocks to lift into the trailer, or just lobbing them straight in which caused an almighty crash and often split the rocks into pieces. That evening they came to collect payment from Baba and I wondered if child labour is always as clear-cut as we’re told.

The kids of Nalma would always call to us in the garden. “Namaste! What is your name? What is your father’s name?” They knew the answers, we had told them 100 times before, and anyway we were too engrossed in the garden to pay them much attention. Soph called us all over at one point, to her weeding spot. Between the onions and the fig tree and the tomatoes hung by string was a dead branch. In amongst the flaking bark was a lizard, its head erect, attentive and expectant. Its colour changed as we looked, maybe as camouflage or to regulate its temperature. Or maybe in greeting. I felt at one with that lizard. It tilted its head in my direction and came forward a few steps but then I lost the peace and got scared it would jump in my face. I went back to the house and read a bit more of The Secret Life of Plants. It talks of the extra-sensory channels of human-plant interaction. Six months before I’d have been sceptical. Not anymore.

Our final days in Nalma were never dull. We followed Ama through the jungle checking on some distant cardamom plants and sharing tea in a worker’s hut where the land opened up into a swathe of terraces ready for the next round of rice. We followed Baba through the village, walking the stone paths between the health clinic and the community hall, between workshops and goat sheds, between little window shops and the house which still has the traditional millstones in its porch, one for millet, one for rice. Rabindra returned from Kathmandu and made us pizza in the clay oven. He showed us more of the garden too, and talked of his grand plans for the future.

Some days I feel the scorch of the sun on my head. We sit in amongst patches of turned soil and wonder what to do next. There is the manure to mix, seeds to plant, walls and steps to fix. Or we talk about consciousness. Or child development. Some days we watch angry clouds pushing up the valley. Forks of lightning illuminate the heavy sky and we wait for the deep rolls of thunder that follow. As the first drops fall we move inside to the comfort of the straw-floored room that used to be for buffalos but now has a low table at its centre. One day we are too late, caught in plummeting hail stones as we return from a walk along the hillsides. We’re careful not to bang our heads as we shuffle in next to the others and shed our wet clothes. There is a guitar propped up in the corner and a drum that Ben likes to play. There are playing cards scattered over the table and shelves full of books and information that have been added over the years. Books about permaculture and cobb-building, about teaching English, about Nepal and Nepali.

Baba is our teacher here. Every morning he greets us and corrects our response. “Suba pra ba d” or something like that, always finishing with the soft “d” that doesn’t know when to finish. Baba is always busy in the morning. It’s an especially good time for filling things with water before the tap splutters and spits and finally runs dry. There are 48 taps in Nalma, installed by the Gurkha Welfare Service and each now readily linked to this or that hose pipe that leads to this or that person’s house. Baba also has 17 goats to tend to. It might have been 18 but a new born was lost in amongst the straw of the goat shed. Baba found it in the morning, a tiny, cold bundle with just a hint of a heartbeat. He washed it, covered it in sawdust, and left it in the sun. We kept it alive for two days, teaching its mother to offer her teat, naïvely celebrating as it learned to stand. Then it got cold again and Baba told us it died. “Keygannie?” What to do?

In the mornings we prepare for school, flicking through textbooks for English and Social Studies, bemoaning the lack of structure, the mistakes, the questionable examples; whether or not we should beat our little sister when she cries, whether ‘fat boy’ should be preceded by ‘a’ or ‘an’. We’re greeted by classes of 10 or so children, their noses snotty, their smiles charming. Most lessons turn into a sing-song about where different animals live or what clothes we like to wear or what jobs our neighbours do. Or I get angry and move someone to the front for talking too much and everything turns a little sour. At the end of the day the kids line up in the playground and stamp their feet as the Principal calls military instructions. Some children have been at school for nine hours. “Attention!” The sun beats down. “About turn!” They’re finally sent on their way.

Baba takes his goats to the jungle in the day. We never quite know where that is but I like to imagine it’s towards the peaks of Annapurna or Manaslu that rise up behind us, their snowy outline most visible on mornings after rainfall. I think Baba likes the time on his own, the sense of purpose. He talks of it being his duty. He leaves Ama to feed us, to bring us tea, to manage Babu and his sudden tantrums. Sometimes Babu is sent to school, to sit in with the youngest class, but he soon returns, teary and destructive. He grabs at whatever we are doing, hits us, steals my glasses. His father is based with the army in Kathmandu, his mother doesn’t get too involved. It’s left to Baba and Ama, his paternal grandparents, to try and teach him the goods from the bads. And to Shanti, their striking daughter, when she’s not busy teaching or cooking or washing plates or clothes.