Rachel in Nepal 5
Rachel opens herself,
and shares the intensity, complexity of her autumn in a world
on the other side of our world,
though fear and self-doubt can undercut her,
she still has given herself fully to Nepal for these last months,
to the people,
to the culture,
to the winning of sustenance from the land:
the corn, the rice, the animals,
all the food from the land
and from the animals who are carefully nurtured,
the animals who also give what they can,
now halfway through her time in this wonderful country,
cradled by the Himalayas,
she finds there is no ceiling to her learning,
to what she knows she wants
to experience and appreciate
and know as fully as a visitor can know,
her facility with Nepali helps her fit in more fully
with the people native to there,
as she conversed in this local language with their guide recently,
a neighboring diner offered a comment on her Nepali,
though correct, he contended that he'd never heard his language
spoken with an American accent,
and joked that she sounded like an A.I.. on TikTok,
they both laughed and knew the truth of the comment,
Rachel hoped that the authenticity of her self
differentiated her from the mindless computer program,
Rachel is of the best of us,
empathically throwing herself both physically and psychically
into people and place, so different from what she has known before,
and yet a world she increasingly knows and appreciates,
the magnificence of the Himalayas must be part of what drew her there,
yet what she has shared of her days
of trekking within those amazing mountains
is much more of the people and culture than of panoramas,
though she joyed in the exercise and the awe in the views,
the meals with her host family,
along with her visiting father and cousin,
made even more impact,
for those both new and older to her world
saw each other, and connected,
laughed and celebrated,
after the trek, the rice harvest was moving forward,
and it meant a lot to daughter and father to help out,
an aside, rice has four names in Nepali,
according to where it is in its life cycle,
one person laughed at the idea
that her father would come all the way from America
to carry rice bundles,
for Rachel, the laughs were appreciated,
yet the reality is that the totality of being there
is what it's all about for her,
when I described her as "holding it all,"
she replied: "Indeed, holding it all!"
by Henry H. Walker
October 25, ‘25
