Monday, October 20, 2014

Oct. 20, 2014. A strange thing happened today....

was walking around town this AM, around noon.  I had just stopped at a coffee shop and had a piece of apple pie and a mocha.


I walked past a back alley, on the lower part of town, and saw an alley that led to a little square - I had been inside the small square a day or two before  - and women were drying rice in the sun there.

I walked in and there were several older women and a cute young woman spreading rice with shovels on tarps - so the rice could dry in the midday sun.


I stood and watched both the older women in traditional clothing and the young woman in western clothes - as they dumped bags of rice then methodically spread the rice with a shovel.  Most Nepali household physical labor is done by women.   Most Nepali men just sit around, drink tea and talk.

All of a sudden, a man, Nepali, about 35, rapidly approached me from the rear.   He was jabbering in Nepali and pointing at both me and the women at work.    I listened, smiled.  He then touched me in a way I have not experienced in Nepal - not in a rough, mean, agressive manner - but in an uncomfortable manner.  He kept yelling at me. 

I said "English, I only speak English".  

He then came very close to me - non Nepali close - and I smelled alcohol.

He steped back a few feet and started to go into a Bruce Lee karate impersonation - he bent down low to the ground, spread his feet, slowly waved his hands in a karate motion and started moving very slowly around me.

I smiled.

He then took his forefinger and thumb and made a gun symbol and pointed his hand gun at his head, acting like he was shooting himself.

I again smiled.  I offered a namaste and slowly, deliberately, confidently, walked away, without looking at him or the women.


Maybe it was his sister?  Or his mother?

Maybe he thought I was staring at his sister's cute little Nepali butt in those tight western jeans too long, which I just might possibly have been doing.  

Maybe he was just drunk.  

Who knows??

It was atypical behavior...the first time I have witnessed any agession by a Nepali.  

I hardly ever hear children cry in Nepal.






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