Musings

After about a month and some change, I left the Farm House in Kapan on the second day of Tihar. I celebrated the holiday with my family and then afterwards I made the journey to my next destination in Kavre, to the village of Patlekhet.

Leaving Kapan was difficult. After spending a month I very much felt at home there. What's more, I really felt like a part of the family. Living, eating, and working alongside the people there really brought me close to them. And I could tell that they felt close to me too. Many foreigners and volunteers come and go through the Farm House, but perhaps because I am Nepali there was more of a frankness and an openness in our relationships. Whatever it was, by the end I felt completely a part of the ecology there, like the farm house had completely accepted me.

The funny thing is, this feeling really only felt solid the last couple of days. That's not to say that I didn't feel at home the rest of the time, rather I didn't realize how much the place was a home to me until the very end. At any given moment I was simply thinking about which plants needed water, or how many beds needed to be dug, or maybe how beautiful the sunset was (the sunsets at Kapan were soooo beautiful). And sometimes I couldn't help but focus on the more challenging aspects. It was only upon looking back that I realized how incredibly I adapted to the rhythms of the Farm House. I thought about how different things were compared to when I was just starting. How much more naturally I moved and worked, how much more sure my footfalls were. I realized how much I valued the presence of all the humans (and non-humans) there, and how much they had come to value mine.

Maybe that's what home is like: the kind of place where you fit in so naturally that you don't even realize it; you don't even conceive of yourself as separate. Maybe the feeling of truly being at home is the kind of thing that I can only feel looking back, only realizing after the fact how much a part of something I was.

I don't know. But anyway, I've said my farewells to Kapan and I am off to Patlekhet. Another post is coming soon but until then you check out the place I'm staying at here,

Goodbye Cancho Dai, Moto Dai, Parvati Didi, Ama, Sandip,
Bandi, Kesang, Yankila, and Mila