David Krest Journal Master, Section 2, v.1

Continued, April-December 2004


Journal Entry April 6, 2004

Early this morning at about 7am Stuart and I went down into our village to get eggs for Tingu-dog when we noticed a gathering of village people outside one of the homes.
Harish, who was standing on the stoop-entrance bid that I come inside. He indicated that someone might have died. Upon entering the filled with people room I saw a man of about 40 lying on a mat and fully clothed. From what I was told he worked all day yesterday, had dinner, slept and arose this morning to urinate outside and drink some water. Upon returning he lay down, closed his eyes and became motionless. It may have been that one of his children was crawling on him and his wife noticed something awry. I don't know. His body was still warm and flexible, I felt a flutter of a heartbeat, then nothing. I could not give a definite. The children were curious and the wife wept. I then went outside and Stuart, a formally educated man had concerns about so many people being in the room was possibly infringing on the man’s breathing if he were still among living.

We discussed this issue and agreed in that the man being on the floor there would be plenty of air__Plus all those in the room were village people and family, thus adding good energy to the living, transitioning, or dead body.

After a half hour or so I returned to check again on the mans condition. There is a fine line between life and death as there can be no sign of life through pulses and yet a short time later there could be. No pulse.

.I left when I was no longer required. About an hour later the village men were building the pier of bamboo, which the body would be laid upon along with his clothes and other belongings. The body was then taken to the riverside where it was burned. The wife and children are totally cared for by the community for the 13 days of mourning, during which the family eats only rice and dhal. The wife eats but one meal per day for the duration. What a contrast to the bazaar medical, legal and burial intrusions of the modern world. When I described the western approach to my Nepalese family they were astounded.

Upon meeting with Dinesh (another Dinesh) who had completed his 13 days of mourning (with the traditional shaved head) we decided to move to his riverside, mountainside nursery and begin our medicine plant training. I suggested to Dinesh that we have a one-month trial to decide our relationship.

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Stuart was impressed with Kalpana’s description of her life. She is sitting on my bed and just completed her ABCs on one side of he black board and is now printing the Hindi alphabet on the other side.

Journal Entry April 7, 2004

This morning Dosh and Nanda left for the nursery to find a location for our tent to be and to find out if a tent is in fact available. If the requirements meet their satisfaction they might actually erect the tent in place. I, on the other hand meandered through gardens and dead end paths until I found myself at a roadside smelting tent where men were hammering red to white-hot pieces of steel into sickles and adzes. One man operated the small hand bellows while another held, by prongs a piece of iron over an anvil while striking it with a small sledge and turning the tool to be. Meanwhile another man stood over the anvil striking the hot iron rhythmically between the beats of the first man.

I was then invited across the road where 6-8 men young and old sat on benches and tin containers awaiting my presence. I was offered chai and bidee and we went through the ritual of communicating age, children, names, and finally about medicine plants and gardens. One of the older men offered me a ball of about the size of a marble. I thought it was incense and when he recognized my ignorance he told me it was hashish. I asked if we could also share it--- there was a harmonious ‘no’. I then indicated to their approval that I would go into the jungle, sit and smoke.

Two young men, Papu and Sanji took me for a hike through the jungle to the community garden where numerous trees ready to bear fruit in June and July stood. Two types of apricot, one hard the other soft are both to be sweet. Apple, plum and two others I was not able to identify, maybe peach. They also showed me several edible wild plants and I tasted the sweet cold spring water, which was meandering through the valley and where a cobra of about 10 ft. long and 10 inches in diameter supposedly resides. Next we saw a burial pier of a cremated local 80-year-old woman__Only her steel tea glass remained.