It was our day of
rest from hiking Today. We weren’t sure what we were going to do and had
nothing planned but fellowship at church that night.
We slept in, until
8:30 a.m. or so when Samuel brought the morning tea, then had breakfast the
usual hour later. We knew we wanted to try to use the internet if possible and
I wanted to find the post office. I had 2 letters and 5 post cards I wanted to
mail home.
After breakfast,
Samuel asks who wanted to go to the post office with him, I did. He said only
one could go because he was taking his bike. I get ready on the spot to leave,
throw on some appropriate clothing and grab my mail and wallet.
We walk up the
stairs to the street and he jumps on his bike and puts on his helmet. I just
stand there wondering how I am going to ride on the bike with this 21 year old.
In India, the back passengers would just sit halfway on the back of the bike
without swinging their leg over the other side. I hadn’t seen how they ride
here.
So I ask him and he
tells me to swing my leg over. I try to figure out how to hold on too. I didn’t
think it would be appropriate to wrap my arms around our translator or this
young Nepali guy I met a few days ago, but I asked anyway and he says, ”
If you want, you can hold on to me, if you don’t want, then… I think you
understand.” And with this, I find handles on the side of my seat and grab
those.
We ride up and down
the streets of the foothills of the Himalayas for 20 minutes. We pass a few
towns, but follow a mighty rushing river the whole time. We finally stop at
some market and get off the bike. We just leave it there, walk across the
street, down some stairs, up some stairs, over a bridge, down some more stairs,
around the corner, and into some building. No one is there, but it’s apparently
their post office.
Samuel says,
“No one is here because it’s Nepal.” So we wait. Then some guy walks
in and sits down. I need a special envelope to fit my post card and letters in
and the post office has no envelopes, so we walk next door to a store. They
don’t have any either. So Samuel tells me to sit in the Post Office and wait
for him to go to another town to find envelopes. “You want me to sit here
with some guy I have never met before while I wait for you…” And with
that, we go back to his bike.
Then we walk into
the store his bike is in front of and it’s his aunts store. His cousin and two
aunts are sitting in the store and thier house is also behind the store. So, we
go up 3 floors and his cousin and I sit in their tv room while he goes to
another town to look for an envelope. She is actually better at English than
him, so we make small talk. She turns the tv to Fashion TV, asking if I like
it… “sure, why not.” We also watch VH1 and a Hindi music station.
Samuel comes back
later without any envelopes, but says
it’s okay because he can make one. He leaves again for a brief moment and comes
back with copy paper and a Fanta for me. He begins to fold it and supposedly knows how to make one and made
them in school. So, we make the envelope and go back to the post office for
glue.
Third time over the
bridge… The post man get some bottle out with supposed glue. So Samuel was
glueing the envelope together and says, “What kind of glue is this… it’s
not glueing.” But we continued anyway and it still wasn’t working.
Finally the post
office man brought out some tape and we taped it up, addressed the sucker, put
the mail inside, and stamped it. He put 4 stamps on the front of the envelope,
which is supposedly what they do here.
So, I am praying for
the homemade envelope to make it to the states.
If you couldn’t tell
by this story, Samuel is a funny guy.
