The family rise before sunrise and get about their chores. SuAs’s aunt and the oldest girl (8 years old) go into the fields. His mother starts preparing food for the day. All over the mountain you can hear people getting about. I go for a walk and there are men ploughing fields with their oxen. A machine would not be able to get from one field to another because of the change in elevation from one layer to the next. Animals are the only way. Oxen pull a single tyne through the dirt weighted and controlled by the farmer. I’ve only seen men do this. The women will carry extraordinary loads in baskets from their heads. Sometimes it’s manure from their animals for fertilizer. The crops look very healthy and strong so they clearly know what they are doing. Millet and wheat are coming to the end of their cycle and are close to being harvested. It’s common to see cereals being cleverly grown with legumes, which provide nitrogen. Now maize is being planted. Potatoes are another popular crop. Water flows freely everywhere, cutesy of the mountains and those mysterious aquifers.
SuAs makes me breakfast of eggs and black tea. I get some nice photos of the family. The two older girls get ready for school and around 9am there are kids from all directions making their way to classes.
SuAs and I leave around 10am to make our way down the mountain to the village to catch a bus. We arrive back into the bus park at Kathmandu around 2.30pm and I walk back to the hotel. Raju is pleased to see me because I hadn’t intended to be away overnight. He’s busy with hotel renovations so I’m being moved from one room to another.
angusmccoll 