No Magic Helicopter. Carol PhD Masheter
of divorced people for my research as a university professor, I never knew quite what to say in social situations. I’m sorry? Congratulations? Mike said the divorce was sad but amicable. Trying to sound reassuring, I said being married must be difficult for a mountain guide because of all the time apart. From the look on Mike’s face, it was not the right thing to say. I’m batting a thousand today, I thought ruefully. Mike and I finished breakfast while talking about cameras and photography in the mountains, a safer topic, as he is a terrific photographer.
After breakfast I left the hotel on foot, saying “no thanks” to several rickshaw and taxi guys. Though the smog was worse than anything I had experienced at home and pedestrians must be nimble to avoid being run over, I wanted to walk. I exchanged U.S. dollars for Nepalese rupees, bought bottled water at the Blue Bird grocery store, and found an Internet place to send email to my sister and friends.
On my walk back to the hotel two boys in their school uniforms fell into step along side me and chatted me up in good English. Though this was fun, I knew what was coming from previous trips to Kathmandu. They chattered, “We don’t want money, Misses. Money make people crazy. You like children, Misses? Children need milk. Buy us milk, Mama.” Though it sounded innocent enough, it worked like this. The boys would take tourists to the grocery store, the tourists would buy them a carton of milk at an inflated price, after the tourist and boys would part company, the boys would take the unopened carton back to the store and get a cut of the profits. I replied, “No, thanks. You guys speak really good English. Keep studying in school and you will do well.” When they saw I was not going to buy any milk for them, they drifted back into the throngs of pedestrians, no doubt looking for more gullible -- or more generous -- tourists. I felt a mixture of shame and annoyance, shame that I was too stingy to buy the kids milk, even if they were scamming me, and annoyance about being treated like a bottomless wallet instead of a human being. Walking the streets of Kathmandu sometimes felt like being bitten to death by ducks, ducks who are just trying to survive.
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