Reminiscings from the Roof of the World
Ilam Tea Gardens
The day after Christmas began very early for our team and with the dawn came some wonderful surprises. Daniel G (the Lion Tamer), who had stayed behind in Kathmandu because his family was ill, had arrived in the predawn hours. And, I discovered that not only had Leona sent a birthday cake for Robby but there was one for me as well. And so, before breakfast the morning following Robby’s celebration of his fiftieth birthday, I celebrated my fiftieth birthday with marvelous friends and chocolate cake transported all the way from Kathmandu. I was truly surprised and felt wonderfully blessed. What an amazing birthday it was!
At eight am, after breakfast and Nepali milk tea, the Nepali team and American guys headed northeast from Damak to Ilam tea gardens bordered on the east by Darjeeling, India, also known for tea production. The 79 kilometers (49 miles) is a two-hour drive. Mr. G, the driver, returned for us ladies and Robby at noon.
As we approached the tea-bush covered hills the scenery was verdant and stunning. Tea gardens are incredibly beautiful, lushly green and meticulously manicured with randomly spaced trees providing just the needed mix of sun and shade for the bushes to thrive. At the entrance to the tea growing area there was a lovely park where we stopped and met up with the men.
We ladies hopped out of the vehicle and, as you might guess, looked for the rest room. What we found was the most terrifying toilet I have ever, ever seen. But we had no choice. It is pretty easy for men to find a place to go, but for us girls this was the only option. Our toilet consisted of a huge, open-air pit which was several feet deep and at least ten feet in diameter, dug in the ground, and surrounded on three sides by flimsy bamboo “walls.” Lying across the center of the pit about six-inches apart were two strips of four bamboo poles each tied together with hemp rope. The required process involved carefully walking to the middle of the pit, one foot on each of the bamboo strips. Once well over the cesspool below, the idea is to squat and then somehow relax enough to do your business. We girls deliberated for quite some time about whether there might be another option and, after nixing that hope, about whether we could hold it. But anticipation of the two-hour trek ahead negated that idea as well. So we did what we had to do. We formed a wall of women on the open side of the toilet for privacy and one by one took a deep breath and tenaciously ventured out trying not to visualize the very real possibility of where we could end up. Quickly we discovered that not only were the poles round but they were incredibly slippery due to all the previous visitors who had missed. Finally the last person successfully made it back to solid ground and we were all relieved physically as well as emotionally.
It was a lovely two-hour walk. Along the trail we occasionally passed a house where there would be a wooden bench thoughtfully provided beside the trail for weary travelers to sit and rest for a few minutes. At last we arrived at the house where we would stay. Our host family was the first Christian family in the area. They were friendly, hospitable, and seemed genuinely thrilled to entertain this huge group. Their small two-story house was clean and nice with a metal roof indicating a level of affluence (most rural homes have thatched roofs). Goats, chickens, and cows roamed freely and there was even a fish pond. In addition to the house for sleeping there was a cooking house and an outhouse toilet. Lacking electrical service as well as lanterns the only lights were small oil lamps. It was a lovely family and they hosted us like royalty.
That evening they presented us with a delicious Nepali feast. We ate sitting on logs facing the cooking fires. All of the neighbors had come to observe the foreigners. They stood with the family in a line behind the cooking fires. The children were very amazed. They adults were saying, “How do they live? They eat like birds!” We were saying, “I feel like we are at the theater and the movie is us!” It was a wonderfully hilarious experience!
After dark we all sat around the fire worshipping and sharing the Word together, hopefully bringing encouraging fellowship to the local believers. Full of the love and joy shared together that night we all prepared for bed. The men found places to sleep outside and in the cooking house. The female family members as well as Songita and Rebekah from the Nepali team slept in the upstairs room. We American girls had the privilege of the downstairs room. There were enough handcrafted wooden, single beds for all but two of us. So Katie, Abbie, and I shared a bed which brings us to one more comical story for the day. We laid out our sleeping bags onto the bed, then Katie and five-year-old Abbie bedded down with their heads at one end, Abbie next to the wall and Katie on the outer edge. I crawled in between them with my head at their feet. It was tight. As we wiggled around getting comfortable Katie’s sleeping bag slipped off the bed sending her crashing to the wooden plank floor and the whole room into uproarious laughter. Hearing the ruckus, Deepak came running in to see what had happened. Horrified at the sight of Katie on the floor he tried to pull the bed away from the wall thinking that would give us more room. However the bed was nailed to the wall. So he starting trying to knock it loose. Horrified that he might damage the bed or the wall, we finally convinced him to let it be, that we could make it work and would be just fine now. And with that we settled in, thoroughly exhausted after a long but thoroughly amazing day, and having no idea what the morrow would hold we were immediately sound asleep.
Coffee, Tea, and Reverie 
💗
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Once again, I am impressed with your experience, and had a good laugh over the “restroom” description. Never in my life would I have thought of doing the same thing! Besides my knees don’t squat anymore.
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