[ Pokhara, Nepal ]
I’ve been posting a lot about the unhappy facts of my Nepali mom’s injury, and even more unhappy facts about the financial aftermath. In fact, I’ve spoken a lot about “my Nepali mom,” assuming most of you will know the story from my various social media posts over the last year. But that’s wrong. Many of you, perhaps most, don’t know: what do I even mean by “my Nepali mom?” How did I come to visit her village in the first place? What happened while I was there? I can’t answer all of that in this post, although this post is about stories–new stories, as-yet-unwritten stories–regarding my time in the little village of Kot. For you newcomers, the backstory is available here: how one trek and an innocent question led to my adoption by a family in a faraway jungle.
The rest will unfold over time, and (because at the moment I’ve had all the bad news I can handle, seriously) will focus on the light-hearted and humorous aspects of my stays with the Shrestha family.
*****
Instead of actual, depressing, unhappy news presented as-is, I thought I’d switch to a more entertaining sort of misfortune, schadenfreude: or pleasure derived from the misadventures of others. This device is the great motrix of Reality Television, a central characteristic of much great comedy, and the bread and butter of the modern Snark artiste.
Although most won’t admit it openly, I know a great many readers take mildly sadistic pleasure in the discomfort, ineptitude, and general embarrassment of a narrative’s principal agent. Or her pain. Fortunately for these readers (you know who you are), I have dozens of such untold stories from my year in the Himalayas–some brief, some otherwise–involving a great deal of ineptitude, embarrassment, pain, and discomfort. Typically my own. Since you deserve a bit of the old shadenfreude, and my Nepali mom needs help, I’d like to propose a deal:
For every $750 that makes it into the Ganesh Kumari Shrestha Medical Fund (via the PayPal button below), I will publish a new story on Transglobalist.com, most of them evoking directly my experiences with the Shrestha family in Nepal’s unspoiled East. Your need to laugh at the expense of others, namely me, will be sated.
Here are the first few stories I’ve chosen to relate, in no particular order:
The Transglobalist vs. The Chamber Pot (UPDATE: read the Completed Story here)
In rural Nepal, people lock themselves into their homes at night. Their toilets, however, are outdoors. Like every good Boy Scout, I was prepared for this situation (not). This is the “Golden” Tale of an old water bottle, a very full bladder, and what it means to take aim, Silence of the Lambs style, in the complete and utter darkness of one’s traditional Nepali bedroom.
The Transglobalist vs. Mousemageddon
Surely, like me, you’ve spent years pining away for a combined remake of Caddyshack and Armageddon, set deep in the Nepali rainforest, with me as Bill Murray-Bruce Willis and an evil Nepali mouse as the gopher-asteroid. Your wait is nearly over.
The Transglobalist vs. The Viking’s Serenade
A Cowboy, a Viking, and Bob Dylan walk into a bar. God exits quickly, before anyone starts telling jokes.
The Transglobalist vs. The Syncope
What do get when you combine excessive, high altitude physical exertion, the skeeviest, most remote dive bar in the Indian Himalayas, a protective hotel manager who collects pasta recipes, a gaggle of cyclists, and a trekker with enough charas to start his own cartel?
The Transglobalist vs. The Homicidal Hominid
One mid-sized monkey. One giant-sized brick. My head. ‘Nuff said.
The Transglobalist vs. The Horseman of Hing & The Jolly Lama of Phuk(i)tal
Stranded in a small village, three days’ walk from the nearest road, I find myself held hostage by an alcoholic horseman on a two-day bender. When he re-emerges, we push through a day-long, icy rainstorm, make camp at 4800 meters, and watch him completely lose his shit. And by “shit,” I mean horses. Enter my saviour, His Holiness, the Jolly Lama.
And that’s just for starters. So please consider contributing to the publicizing of my more embarrassing moments, and help the Shrestha Family at the same time. Just click on the link and give whatever you can. Every single penny (aside from PayPal’s 3.2%) goes to help save my friends’ traditional farm, and the centuries-old way of life that goes along with it.
Namaste Friends,
–jim
