‘Numb buns.’\u00a0 I dare you to say it ten times fast.\u00a0 So, besides being an excellent tongue twister, it is also what happens when you sit on the back of a motorbike for 90 minutes getting transported toward the Nepali border for a visit to the last of the three girls’ schools:\u00a0 Babuan.\u00a0\u00a0And I do mean border – on one side of the road is India; the other, Nepal.<\/p>\n
My trip to Babuan is a day early, and I have advance notice of only half an hour; I get a knock on my door at 7 am, and the intrepid Dheeraj is standing there, sheepishly saying, “We go to Babuan.”\u00a0 I peer back at him quizzically, and say, “Uh, today is Saturday.\u00a0 Babuan we go to on Sunday.”\u00a0 “Yes,”\u00a0he replies, “But my mother is sick and I have to go to hospital with her tomorrow, so we go Babuan aaj (today).\u00a0 Abhi (now).”\u00a0 Well okay then.\u00a0 I grab my stuff, put it into my backpack, and we’re off.\u00a0 But I have forgotten something very important…<\/p>\n
Other than its location, Babuan resembles the hundreds of small villages I have seen, and the ride there yesterday was remarkable only in the long stretches of open road that connected the otherwise isolated communities.\u00a0 It does seem that this area is a little more prosperous than others I have seen:\u00a0 many more livestock (cattle, water buffalo, goats, chickens; ducks); semi-advanced farming techniques (somewhat large scale hoop-and-tarp shelters\u00a0for seedlings); more brick buildings, though\u00a0thatch\u00a0still the predominant building material.\u00a0\u00a0However, this area has been\u00a0especially hard hit by monsoons, and there is water everywhere.\u00a0 Several times, we had to motor across streams or one foot deep mud ‘puddles’.<\/p>\n
On the way to Babuan, I yell at Dheeraj (so as to be heard from the back of the motorbike), “I need to get water.”\u00a0 He yells back, “Not possible.”\u00a0 Not possible?\u00a0 Are you kidding me?\u00a0 The plan is to be in Babuan for the entire day and teach two two-hour long classes.\u00a0 “No,” I say, “I must get water.”\u00a0 I didn’t have time in the morning to boil my water for the day, of course.\u00a0 The beautiful green countryside lulls my panic into a dull pit.\u00a0 But everytime we come to a village, I anxiously scan the little shops to see if they sell water.\u00a0 We are so far out, and foreigners don’t come out here, there is no need or profit in selling bottled water.\u00a0 Village after village passes, farther and farther out from the ‘convenience’ of Forbesgunge.\u00a0 About an hour into the ride, I spy water in a stall.\u00a0 “Pani! (water!),” I yell.\u00a0 We stop and I get a liter.\u00a0 This is my second mistake.<\/p>\n
So, we finally arrive at Babuan.\u00a0 It is 9:30 in the morning, and children are in school.\u00a0 I learn later that they start school on Saturday mornings at 6:30.\u00a0 My presence causes the usual disruption until I motion all of them back to their classes with a stern, “School!”\u00a0 They laugh and smile, and with many backward\u00a0glances, head back to\u00a0their classrooms.\u00a0 I meet the principal of the school (no English) and a teacher (little English).\u00a0 I check out the schoolyard where class will be held:\u00a0 a\u00a0pile of the ubiquitous red bricks used in this area covers a large portion of the\u00a0yard; mud\u00a0takes up most of the remainder.\u00a0 Oy.\u00a0 I scout around, but this is it.\u00a0 I will have to make do.<\/p>\n
I am then introduced to a teacher, Ritu,\u00a0and we\u00a0go for\u00a0a little walk to her house just down the road.\u00a0\u00a0The odor of cow is strong; there are three\u00a0of them standing in a small pen just off to the side of the main entrance to the family compound.\u00a0\u00a0Ritu is from a large family, and most of them live in a\u00a0complex warren of single room dwellings.\u00a0 I am asked to sit down, and I meet everyone, including her grandmother and grandfather, who are remarkably savvy and humble.\u00a0 The grandfather can read English\u00a0(which he did when I\u00a0handed\u00a0out a U. S. dollar bill to show).\u00a0\u00a0In their presence,\u00a0these people were so, I don’t know, it is hard to explain.\u00a0 They were curious without being judgemental, maybe?\u00a0 I liked them immensely almost\u00a0immediately.\u00a0 That’s all I know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
‘Numb buns.’\u00a0 I dare you to say it ten times fast.\u00a0 So, besides being an excellent tongue twister, it is also what happens when you sit on the back of a motorbike for 90 minutes getting transported toward the Nepali border for a visit to the last of the three girls’ schools:\u00a0 Babuan.\u00a0\u00a0And I do […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":192,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions\/192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.greentaraproject.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}