I found a little piece of heaven and didn't want to come down

I didn’t want to leave

After my time in Chitwan I ventured off to Pokhara to figure out what my next adventure would be. I met Natalie on couchsurfing.com and we planed to do a trek together after she wwoofed on a organic coffee farm in the mountains near Begnas Lake. Well after she got there she wouldn’t come down to go trekking with me so I decided to go up the mountain to meet her and figure out what this paradise was all about.

I did some sketchy bank transactions in Pokhara and then left early one morning for Bignas Lake on September 5th. From Bignas I took another bus to Bhanjayang where I then climbed the mountain for about an hour asking for Surya’s house. Natalie met me about ¾ of the way to the home and I could tell by her persona it was going to be a great 10 days. I met Elise, a 19 year old aussie who was also staying there and ama and bua (mom and dad).

Nothing I can say will really sum up ama and bua but they have the most wonderful essence about them. Their philosophy is that they are your parents away from home and they love to laugh. All the factors combined made for a perfect experience. The first day was just a preview to how good it was going to get: ama took Natalie into the woods, showed her a broken TV and mosquito net and then without warning squatted down and peed. It caught Natalie by much surprise, but ama just said she was giving nitrogen to the tree. This was followed by hoots of laughter and ama telling us not to tell bua. “Ama urine” continues to be a joke. So after that we had an amazing meal crafted by ama followed by some after dinner “dessert” and a baby buffalo being born! It was a day full of surprises and I felt like I had already been there for weeks.

Now I’ve stayed in small villages before but I’ve always been alone. It’s always been okay, but it isn’t always easy leaving the conveniences (like toilets and showers) of more developed places. Plus on top of it you have to adapt to an entire different culture and way of life. So, what I’m trying to say is that this has been by far one of my best village stay experiences because I was able to share it with 3 other amazing girls.

Wait. Three? Yeah, Danielle trekked up the mountain on my third afternoon on the farm. She’s 24 and resides in Portland. She sold her car so she could travel for about eight months (cool girl). She became my roommate (which I was delighted about because the rats didn’t make for perfect company) and the four of us were like peas in a pod.

Ama left on my forth day at the farm to travel to Bangalore, India for a sustainable organic farming conference. It was her first time on a plane and we were all so excited for her. That left bua to the cooking. I think we began to realize on the third or forth day that bua only knows how to cook four things: rice, dal, zucchini, and bitters. So needless to say, we got a little tired of eating the same things and were very glad when ama came back after six long days. Also, there was a bit of a hang-up as ama normally milks the buffalo twice a day. Bua tried doing this in her absence but the buffalo refused to give milk. So, a lady neighbor (who we also called ama) came by twice a day, put on ama’s saree and shawl and went undercover as ama so the buffalo would give milk…only in Nepal.

During the day we read and played a lot of games. We did some work to with the two other amas who work for ama and bua. (Now if you think there are too many amas to keep straight, imagine how they called all of us girls “sister.”) These amas –that we dubbed “hardcore ama” and little ama” are two wonderful and hard working women. We helped them till one day, weed another, and pick out all the worms from the compost. (Yes we picked out worms from a huge pile of dirt. And throughout the monotony I thought about all my friends who would never do it.) The scenery for weeding and tilling were phenomenal and we got to take them in several times while the ama’s had their cig break.

Ama arrived from Banglore on my last night at the farm. She had many exciting things to tell and give to us. We got many sweets out of the deal! She wanted to save the best for last, so after dinner she broke out some organic sweets they were selling at the conference. They were about dark brown one inch by one inch blocks of pure sugar with a molasses flavor. When we were handed them Natalie made comment on how they looked like what she feed her horses, but nothing more was really said. Then we started sucking on them and it was pretty nasty and we were all sure if we were to eat the whole thing we would be up all night long, maybe even running up and down the mountainside because of all the sugar. Finally, it might have been ama or a combination of all of us who agreed what we were sucking on was pretty nasty. Ama apologized by saying she didn’t really know what she was buying when she bought them she just knew they were advertised as organic sweets and everyone was buying three or four bags. Then I think it was Elise who picked up the package and started reading. It never explicitly said, but we’re pretty sure we were eating animal treats. We all had a good laugh and dumped the rest of our sugar cubes into the buffalo’s scrap bucket. And still, some of us were up into the wee hours of the morning…either because of the sugar high or rats…

The last day I was there I stayed for the first meal of the day because ama was cooking and I was ready for variety. She blew us out of the water and it made me want to stay even more than I did before…but I had to descend the mountain to write the final report for the Reading and Reflection project that was due Sept. 14th.

The girls came down to visit, take showers, eat different food, shop, etc. two days after I left. They stayed for two days and we had a really great time together…I’ll be sad to see them leave but I’m happy that Natalie is coming to Kathmandu with me!