February 18, 2001 Morning. Pride! Horrible uphill yesterday. Drank so much Chaang I was buzzed and lightheaded and that Bote cigarette did not help. I lucked out by finding a nice American Peace Corps Volunteer named Zack (or "Jack" - I can't tell) living in the house of a hospitable Tamang man named Suresh Lama (changed his name to fit in with Sherpa locals) who owns an English language boarding school called St. Mary's. An exceptionally beat Scottish Sue lives with them in the same house. Zack is "married" to another PVC named Trang. I made the mistake of leaving my backpack alone with a boy who stayed back at the house while sue and I want with Suresh to eat in St. Mary's cafeteria (the food quality made me think back to my junior high days but Sue wolfed it down with zeal). The boy evidently broke my Short-wave radio - serves me right for playing with my older brother Shar's stuff when I was a kid and breaking it! When we got back I watched the first two hours of a fun Hindi film on Suresh's VCR. Suresh told me during dinner that his personal "god" is Dr. Jillian Holsworth of London, Britan. Sounds like she mentored his move up from a regular guy to the contextually prosperous owner of a boarding school. Today I am stuck with the decision of how I am planning to get home to Kathmandu. Oh god, I almost said "home." It is 7 hours bus ride to Phidim (which Zack tells me is a dive) and then another 3 hours to Ilam. From there it is a 16-hour Odyssey to Kathmandu if I do it straight. Ugh. I need to break this up somehow. Night. Stayed the whole day in Taplejung (Zack and Trang are fun to be around and Suresh is very friendly). Had a great night of Tongba (hot fermented millet "beer"), Sequwa (deliciously marinated & charred skewers of Goat meat), and good conversation with Suresh, his spunky wife (GREAT romance story where he is Tamang, she Brahmin and he goes to her village called Hong Pong with Kung Fu num-chuks, kukuri knife, and a band of his toughest friends - all to steal his wife away against the wishes of her father. They walked at 2 at night across the deep valley to Gufa-Pokhori town and clandestinely sleeping in the middle of the Rhododendron forest to avoid detection from her pursuing kinsmen. Now her family of course loves the successful Suresh - some things are the same the world over). I also got great conversation from the other Peace Corps Volunteer Katharine, an intellectual type who has spent the last twelve years in Nepal on and off. Shang@moss.com.np - put her name on the address line. SEQUWA!

February 19, 2001 Gopetar - 1 Night. "Jaya Mashi" is how Nepali Christians greet one another. The truck I was riding on the back of (after 4 hours waiting in Taplejung for it to leave 'any moment') got stuck on the way to Phidim after a late start. I guess a bus broke down in the middle of the narrow mountain road and now is without a back axle. My truck was so slow once it even got going and every moment in the back was a dust-swallowing elbow-fight with Nepalis jockeying for space. I walked a steep uphill through surprised villages through the dark to this town. When I again joined the road about 30 minutes outside of town I was greeted by a party of men in the dark walking the same way. They asked me where I was coming from, where I am going, and how I got from Taplejung to the scene of the bus breakdown. They then asked me how the truck was that I took from Taplejung to the bus breakdown stoppage. I replied that it sucked, saying it was so slow and a pain every minute. They said "hey, we are from your same truck and this man here was your driver." Had a good laugh on my account. Entrapment. Now in town I am approached in the tavern by a Bob Marley lookalike named John (aka Bhddiman) who is Nepali, was of the untouchable class, and now is a Christian evangelist. He works for an organization called Human Development Committee and Service Bureau. He is very repetitive and his knowledge of scripture and Christian ideas seems thin. He is a furious talker and insists on sharing a room with me.