An Odd Episode (21 February 2010)

An old man carrying an eight-foot, roughly shaped wooden pole approached me in the dirt lot outside of school as I made my exit from a game of volleyball.  He was quite animated and was trying to communicate something to me in Nepali.  I tried my best, but as usual I could only catch one or two words out of every ten, enough to speculate as to the meaning but not sufficient to take any action.  I offered my apologies, told him in Nepali that I didn’t understand and walked home.  Fifteen minutes later I was preparing for a short hike to see the sunset and there he was in my front yard, still carrying the pole.  He insisted I sit down and seemed adamant in his attempts to communicate.  Some of the words that I was able to catch lead me to believe that he could be a relative of Meng and Buwa, or possibly that he was waiting for a child to join us with whom I would then speak English.  I checked my watch, determined that there was enough time to wait ten or fifteen minutes, and decided to give him the benefit of the doubt.  But he was not content with waiting, he kept on talking, making a speech as if he hoped that some combination of words would unlock my stubborn mind and I would suddenly speak Nepali.  He stood close to me and gestured wildly, at which time I became aware of the smell of raksi on his breath.  I became less polite at this point, interrupting him again and again telling him that I didn’t understand, “Ma butsdina. Ma butsdina.  Ma butsdina.”  But I still thought maybe someone would come along to solve our problems.  Surely he didn’t want me to wait in order to engage me in conversation.  That would be insane.  But the more he blew raksi fumes in my face the more likely it seemed that this guy was just drunk and possibly also batshit crazy and noting the sunset approaching, I finally took my leave of him.  “Namaste.  Jan chu. (Salutations. I’m leaving.)”  He tried to grab my arm but I kept walking.  When I got back an hour later he was still there, still babbling, but Meng and Buwa were home now, notably ignoring him, and he was now standing outside the stone fence.  He didn’t stay too long.  I’ll never know what he wanted.