6. Nepal: Baseri

One and half days of our trek was spent in a little village called Baseri. Being an agricultural area the village actually quite spread out. But the people know each other, they drop by each other's place without calling and often walk away without saying good-bye. So it feels small.

Baseri is where Tika and Gopal are from. Their parents still live and work here. Many of their relatives still live here. They are predominantly farmers and they usually own some livestock - a couple of cows, a couple of (water) buffalos and a few goats. A day in the farm earns them Rs 50. A liter of kerosene costs Rs 60. One dollar gets you Rs 70. Once harvested, the produce must be transported on their back to Arughat Bazaar - a four hour walk and an elevation change of two thousand feet. There is no electricity or plumbing. The pit toilets are detached from the house, shabbily constructed and very poorly lit. The school is only until the seventh grade and the classes are held in some very ramshackle buildings. Beyond that, the kids have to be sent away to Kathmandu to study at very high cost. Life, in short, is not easy and the future, bleak.

The day we spent in Baseri was an auspicious day in the Hindu calendar. On this day the sister treats the brother to some goodies and the brother promises to protect her - financially and otherwise. In the evening people form groups and go around the village dancing and singing.

We had a rather large group of our own. We did a lot of dancing too. But we noticed that it was mostly the seven of us that were dancing. It was pretty clear that they wanted us to dance. It is still not very clear what they thought of us. At times we felt like performing monkeys. At other times I could see that they were just very happy to see a bunch of foreigners who didn't mind performing the local rituals (while laughing at themselves).

In a village where there are innumerable relatives, the social strings are often quite intricately tied. It appeared that we were expected to visit many of the relatives and neighbors. Once it got dark we had to be very diplomatic and let Tika know that we would not be visiting all the people - even if it meant we did not heed the tug of some of those strings.