October 2002

A Trip Down Memory Lane
Back to our old home town, Surkhet, Nepal

Last month we took a short trip back to Surkhet. The group consisted of Scott, Tim, Hilary, Anne and Joe (two teachers from Woodstock), and me. We left Friday afternoon, caught a train from Dehradun to Lucknow, which arrived three hours late, at 11:00 a.m. We went "Three Tier a/c" which is not luxury but very comfortable. Three bunks face three bunks in one separate alcove and as there were six of us we did not have to be polite to others. This is the same trip we used to do to visit Kelli and Daniel but in reverse.

We decided to get one taxi (that was not so comfortable). Heavily laden with bottles of drinking water, we set of in a taxi-cum-sauna to the Nepal border town of Rupaydia, a five-hour trip. We stopped after three hours for lunch, now 3:00 p.m. The tin-roofed restaurant (which now has a toilet) was too hot to sit inside of so we sat in a little grass-roofed hut, which was much more pleasant. Narad was waiting for us at the border taxi stop. He worked for the Surkhet Project and now is project director of Sahakarmi, which is an NGO started by the staff when the project in Surkhet closed. It is quite a success story and we are proud of Narad and the others that are doing a great job of community organizing.

We were surprised with a shorts-and-T-shirt-clad officer who said we were very late. He had started his even drinking and found it very difficult to write or count the sixty days that we could have in Nepal (we needed two). Narad ended up doing the writing and his assistant found the right stamp. Even so, Joe got his visa upside down! It was another hour or so before we piled into the jeep Narad had rented for us. It was 8.30 p.m. There was a curfew at 9:00 because of the Maoists, and no one dares to be out. We went to a four-story hotel where we had a room for all of us, with a very loud fan which promptly went off. We woke to the old familiar sight of the middle hills of Nepal. The Surkhet valley was another three hours into the hills. Next to the hotel were fields with water buffaloes and a few cows. We had our breakfast on the roof. The jeep ride was uneventful but slowed by new army check posts, where we had to get out and walk across while the car was searched for guns, etc.

We stayed in the best hotel in town. The first thing we did was see Father Jack, who is still working with people with mental problems. We went and had momos at Takalis. He remembered our names!

One of the main reasons to go, was to see our household helpers, Purna and Sita. We found Sita's house and Sita working in the garden. She did not know we were coming and was so happy! She seemed healthy and proud of her house and garden with its nice vegetables. Her house was full of "our" things. Tim and Hil's beds, sheets and mirrors and all sorts of little things. Made me feel at home. Her husband is fixing sewing machines in another town, living in a tiny room, so she chooses to stay in her own house. Purna was even more ecstatic and could not stop hanging on to Timothy and saying how big he was. Hilary was taken off by her friends. We walked past our old house to Namraj's gumpty where we sat and drank tea and talked about the old days. At 6:00 p.m. we went to the Sunday evening house group. It was in the same house that we went to on our first trip to Surkhet 11 years ago. There was no one there we knew, most families have left. We had to hurry to be back at the hotel by the 8:00 p.m. curfew. Again we ate on the roof where they had decorated the bamboo with little colored lights. Namraj came and spent the night getting reacquainted with Tim. His school was next door and it started at 6:00 a.m.! That night we could hear gun shots in the hills around the valley.

We only had this one day to do all we wanted to. We had several visitors, including Margaret, who was the receptionist, and Surender, who worked for us in the garden for several years. It was really good to find out their news and to feel in touch. Margaret brought some dried meat that Hilary loves. We walked through the main bazaar street, (buying a Chinese thermos not available in India). We managed to lose Hilary and were a little concerned after 45 minutes. She was on the roof back at the hotel.

A quick trip to the ruins of an ancient temple in Queens Forest was amazing. They have started rebuilding it and have laid out and numbered the carved rocks around center. It reminded us of Stonehenge, how did these rocks get there? It was very hot, and luckily we planned a cooling activity and rushed off to the Bheri River, our old picnic spot. It was wonderful, clear water, a rock to jump off and warm sun to dry in.

We had an appointment at Purna's house to eat some rice pudding. She insisted Tim sit on her lap. Lots of laughter outside her very small mud house. I tried to get a few minutes alone to ask her how things really were. We only just had time to swing by Sita's, she was sad we could not stay but the curfew was scaring us.

We left the next morning at 6:00 a.m. and retraced our journey back to Lucknow and Mussoorie. In the never-ending taxi ride back I promised myself I would not do this trip again. I think I was either suffering from heat stroke or petrol fumes, I had a bad headache and was dizzy. So that was our trip.

Reflections and questions

• What is our responsibility to household employees who helped keep the family going for eight years? They are like family.
• The foreigners in Surkhet have to decide if it is safe to live there with their families. How do missions/ families decide what is safe enough?
• How can I help Timothy keep a relationship with Namraj, whom he played with every day for years, beginning when he was three?
• What did we achieve the years we lived there, friendships we can not keep up?

Melanie Smith

The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, page 154