When I was small, I had a poster hanging in my room that read "Home is Where the Heart Lies." (Although the picture accompanying that saying was a kitten sleeping in a potted plant, I think the words are what is useful here.) The one house in which I grew up, complete with loving parents, a fireplace, pets, and my own room, will forever be the home with which all other places of inhabitance will have to compete. We all have that one place that is not just where we reside, but is our real home. In that home we can always feel comfortable and find comfort. We know where the cozy blankets are kept, which cupboard the dishes go in, and which toilet handle needs an extra jiggle. But eventually we grow up and leave our homes, and if we are lucky, we may again find a place where we can lay down our hearts. You cannot choose this new home so when you realize you have found one, it may surprise you. For me, it happened in Nepal.
Nepal is quite literally on the opposite side of the Earth and about as different as you can find from my original home. This is a country of contradictions. The cities are polluted and heaving with traffic, but the villages are quiet and made by hand. The biggest mountains in the world are a snow capped definition of majestic, but the trek to see them is a bone-jarring test of will power. The holiest river in the Hindu world is a trash filled stream with a smell that can turn your stomach on a hot, muggy day.
In Nepal, people will stare at you, ask astonishingly personal questions within the first moments of meeting you, comment on the oh-so taboo subject of your apparently daily weight gain or loss, and absolutely crush our western ideal of physical boundaries. And at the same time, they are the most generous hosts to any guest and as affectionate as your own family.
Public transportation requires that you be a contortionist as you jam your too long legs under some bus seat that is made for only two but is shared by at least three adults along with the occasional child that you might very well be expected to hold. You eat rice twice a day, everyday, and in proportions that you didn't imagine yourself capable of. "Pugio" – or I'm full – actually means give me another plate full. A shopping trip can be a single stop at the local tiny store front shop that produces an endless spectrum of items from unseen back rooms, corners, and shelves. Or, you can end up on a day long quest depending on which deliveries are late, which vegetables are in season, which shop is closed for a family wedding, or which festival happens to be tomorrow. The language contains sounds that a foreign tongue can hardly hope to produce. With numerous indistinguishable words, getting on the correct bus or ending up in the right place can be as impossible as a hole-in-one.
You also learn that this is a country where a person will have no need for schedules and day planners. If you arrive on time to anything, you will most likely be the first one in the room. Guests will show up unannounced or two hours late. Work will be called off tomorrow for a national holiday that was just announced or an expected day off disappears when you are told to work through the weekend, which is only one day to start with. And let's not forget about the strikes, the threat of strikes, the cancelling of strikes, the postponement of strikes, or the extension of strikes. The perpetually squabbling government parties really love their strikes.
After living in this seemingly upside-down world, I have learned that this chaos only exists in the eyes of a foreigner. With some time and patience, the extraordinary becomes just plain ordinary. The polluted city gives way to the tree covered hills. The curious stares become the smiling eyes of friends. The eventful, crowded bus rides become unremarkable. You begin to recognize the cows in the middle of the street and are given credit at the local store.
Recently, I returned to Nepal after just a four day trip to India. I immediately found myself on the local Kathmandu bus. The previously undecipherable yelling of the bus runner (which could rival a good ol' fashioned country auctioneer) clearly reached my ears with my intended destination. I crammed onto a seat at the front of the bus with three other people. The music was blaring and the horn honking constant. At the next stop, a family piled into the already full bus. I was handed a small boy as the mother openly nursed a baby while sitting at my feet. A familiar song came on the radio, and we were all hanging onto our seats as the driver seemed to be in some kind of race with the bus in front of us. In that moment, I realized I was not caught in some snapshot image of 3rd world chaos that tourists love to share with their friends. This moment was so much more than that. It was an ordinary moment being shared amongst the very real lives of ordinary people. It was the moment when I knew I was happy to be HOME. The sights, smells, and sounds were all familiar. I felt content, relaxed, and hungry for a heaping plate of rice.
I love Nepal, and even more I love its people. I have laid my heart here, but I am not the worse for it. The pieces I will leave behind in Nepal have already been replaced with all the love that has been given to me. Home is where the heart lies, and I was lucky enough to find mine in this tiny, complex enchanting country buried at the feet of the giant Himalayas.
