The Gatlang Gang

Ahhhh how gooooood it feels to be clean again.... hot showers are no way overrated at this end of the world!! So, washed, scrubbed, shaved (bald again, sssssmooothh), eaten... time to tell some stories :)

The first is about my first impressions of Gatlang, a very remote village of 500 Nepalis, 1 hill away from China...

[For future reference - I won't copy my journal, I'll take the best bits and bobs. My back is still aching and these chairs are far from comfy]

[during lunch]
"Hygine is a concept that may never be brought to life in this part of the world. Example: I just witnessed in a puzzled state of horror how a mother pulled down the stockings of her 1-y/o child in the middle of the yard (after it had shat itself), and calmly let one of the dogs lick the shit off of the kids legs. Other than that the view from here is amazing. I can see Everest"

"Last night I fell asleep 'au naturel' for the first time since I've been here - albeit only because of my altitude sickness induced delirium which made the time take about an hour before I tasted my first minutes of sleep. Words in English, Dutch, Nepali and Spanish raced through my head, as did images of giant leeches, medicine men with faces painted white and black teeth... barking - because my mind put the noises of the dogs outside together with the images in my head, resulting in nightmarish scenes which made me feel scared, paranoid and finally suicidal"

"It was quite clowdy when we arrived yesterday, but it has cleared up now. I have a perfect view of the village because the guest house is higher up the hill. Trivia: I learned that there is no one in charge here (like a mayor) - the most influencial person is probably the headmaster: most intelligent and knowledgeable." [more on this later]

"I got bitten by a tiny little leech yesterday evening and it freaked me out. Out of nowhere this sonofabitch attaches itself to the skin under my armpit and somehow I manage to whack it off - but now it's on my finger. So I'm in this half-lit room, trying to shake this bug off, already bleeding where it got me the first 2! times, and figure I would rather burn it off. So I cool down, look for my zippo and torch the little bastard, burning my own finger in the process. Ironicly I don't even kill it - it gets stuck to the side of a water bottle"

"Finding the outdoors far more interesting than being inside, I asked for permission to light a small fire in the backyard, for campfire niceness purposes. There was a circle of burned up paper already so I figured it was normal. The old lady in charge, Didi, and some guy who came to use the phone (the only working one in town so we had many phone-tourists as I call them - people who come and use the phone and yell down it and share their most personal information...) helped me out by lighting a small fire in a shack, which I refer to as the outdoor kitchen. I borrowed some flaming bamboo because my zippo wasn't near enough, but I failed miserably. There was too much wind and the bark was still wet from the afternoon shower. I was determined, but I couldn't have lit a bonfire to save my life... and then when I got leeched on my forearm I called it a day and decided there were not going to be any fires. The dark was not my friend."

To be continued...