Days in Nepal start early and finish late. Busy are the people here. Working, cooking, family, friends, no time for laziness. But some days are specials and this one filled my heart with beauty and happiness.
It’s five in the morning, I open my eyes to the sound of Belinda’s voice : « It’s time, they are coming ». We all get ready in silence, some minds are still sleepy in the house, five o’ clock it’s really early! Mornings are fresh now, winter is slowly coming and bring nice shivers, giving to my body a shot of energy, waking me up for the rest of the day.
Friends arrived, the motorbikes are ready, let’s have some adventure! Wind runs on my face, feeling the world : today we are going to the hill. « Rajā Rani » – King and Queen in Nepali – is the name of this place we are heading to. I repeat a few times this new words that just taught me Sanjay, my lovely driver but learning is difficult and I will forget a few seconds later, much more attentive of what’s going on around me. The view of the mountains, the light coming up, the colors of the fields, the shapes of the houses, the smiles on the faces. The sun rises and spreads its light on the valley, we stop on the way up to enjoy this few magical seconds : good morning Letang, good morning world.
At the top, we sit and have a tea before the walk. Around us people already started their daily duties. Girls are filling bottles, packed in the « straw bags » that they put on their head, boys are leading the buffalos to the fields. The guys talk together. I love watching them talking, trying to guess something in the body language more than in the unknown words . At some point their hands move and I understand that they are talking about the ride up, the rest stays mysterious. From here we walk, the paths traces its way between the trees and leads us to a little temple surrounded by lakes and flowers. Peaceful is probably the perfect word to describe this place. We arrive in time for the pujā and we are welcome to participate. We walk around the temple and watch curiously the monk starting the ceremony. Salt and colors are put on specific places, bells are shook, encents and candles are light. We can come inside and the boys give us some indications of what we have to do. Quickly and unsure we knee and pray, it’s time for a wish and then to receive the tika from the monk. On the way back I give a last look to the temple, I still don’t understand rituals but bells are still echoing in my head and a warm feeling fills my heart. Thanks to welcome me in your holy place, to give some new colors to my faith.
It’s still early but our busy friends have lots to do and after a snack at the tea house we climb one more time on the bikes and ride down the hill. Wind runs on my face, Letang is gorgeous. This is a special day, like yesterday, like tomorrow. Hey you! Open your eyes, five o’ clock is not so early to see the world and all its beauty!
Category Archives: Rangi-Changi Janatā
Rangi-Changi Janatā
Words are great, they are infinite. You can learn new ones every day, you can learn new languages and talk to people. You can play with them and make people laugh with. You can put them together and sometimes it become beautiful or philosophical sentences. Some of them will stay in your mind forever, will give a rhythm to your daily life. Some are difficult to remember or to pronounce ; some are soft, cute, funny, some other can be hard, sad, hurtful. With words you can be connected to people, luckily even the ones from the other part of the world. And most important, with words, in every languages, you can say « I love you ».
I love writing, I can express my feelings and ideas, sometimes boiling in my head. You can read them or ignore them, it doesn’t matter, this words just needed to go out of my mind, to taste to freedom, to travel and settle down for a while on this paper.
Today, my words tell a story, the story of the day where I choose the word « action ». I decided to change « I will be » , « I want to do » for « I’m » and « I’m doing ». It’s not easy to know what we want to do – and it’s probably why some times we are stuck in an endless talk – but I had a tiny idea : I wanted to help. « Help » is a good word and can be good act in many ways. It can be when I’m listening to you when you are sad or grumpy my friend ; it can be when I’m changing my own behaviors to respect myself or the others or it can simply be when I’m smiling to you, stranger in the street. The only law with « help » is that you have to give without expectation to have it back and it’s not that difficult! Helping is not -like we can say in french- « a drop in the ocean » because once you are starting to walk on this path, you are part of this path, you are completing this path. It’s not a drop in the ocean, it is the ocean. The simplest act of help fill your heart of knowledge. I know. I know that helping is not useless, even if it’s just a smile or just a word.
I so started my journey, my traveling-helping project. Life brought me here, in Nepal ; here in Letang where I’m giving some of my time for this organization who bring art and creativity to the children in the schools. Here I learnt many new words and one of the first ones have been « rangi-changi » : « colorful » because we believe that « Where there is color, there is hope », and because it express more than only « colors », it express « happiness », « fun » and « smile » too. We repeat this words every day at school and it was the perfect ones to describe the people that I love, the people that I meet, the people who give to this world and it’s the reason why it’s my personal project’s name.
Later on, I read again my last article. I wrote it to say « I love you »-(words as much important to perform that to say) – to my friends, to the people, to the world. Life is surprising and reading again this article, I found those words : « with all our colors we will do a beautiful painting » then I knew at this exact time that « Rangi-Changi » was meant to be. I was meant to be here, with WatersFromHeaven, in Letang to start this new journey.
Yesterday at school the kids were happy, playing, painting, drawing, laughing and shouting all together… « Rangi-Changi ». « Rangi-changi » are my words, are who I’m. And you? Who are you?
Where is Letang?
Where is Letang? A good question! At first I mixed it with Langtang (north east from Kathmandu) and I was a bit disappointed as I was thinking that the further away from Kathmandu I would be the more I could experience the »real » Nepal. I don’t know what is the »real » Nepal, I was not expecting anything but I wanted to travel there. And I don’t say that Kathmandu is fake or lost its culture, I’m just not a city person and not a good tourist either. So, when I knew that Letang (and not Langtang) was near the Indian border, far east Nepal, »somewhere here » told me Belinda, pointing a blank area on my guide’s map, I started to be really excited.
The bus was standing in front of us with its »Deluxe » inscription but before we go we had time for a last snack bought from the street seller. Happy to have some foreign customers he gave us many more spicy fried balls that I asked for and that my stomach could contain! No worries, food is a culture I don’t have problem at all to discover and to enjoy!
It’s time to go and it took us many hours to reach the border of Kathmandu Valley, finally leaving the never-ending noisy and colorful buzzing of the city. There was a time when a lake was standing there a friend told me while I was giving a last look to the capital…
The road turned behind the hill and the landscape changed completely, almost shocking! Green, green everywhere, ever green, my eyes couldn’t stop looking around, craving for this new places I could see, for this simplicity and purity of this wilderness. It’s where I’m feeling alive, where I have to be, where I have to go, Nepal I’m coming! The sun is going down and I tried to capture as much as I could during the day time ; but night time had its charm too. Sometimes you could guess the shapes of the mountains around, lightly drawn by the moon aura. And crossing the villages, the small houses looked like theater stages where daily life was happening but that your eyes couldn’t catch because of the speed of the bus. Indian music was loud in the bus but matched perfectly with traveling on this bumpy jumpy roads and with my joy to discover this country. I fell asleep but my eyes kept continuing to open at some time, wanting to know more about what is outside and where we are. Finally the light came up again, the music stopped and after a last ride through the mystic jungle we arrived in Letang, place of all our adventures. Thirteen hours trip, a mix between being tired and excited, we just needed a first tea to start this first day and a bit longer to realize : here we are!
The local friends are welcoming and they guided us to go to the guesthouse, on the way people looked at us with surprising eyes and smiles, who are they? Who are we? Tourist? Travelers? Helpers? Probably a bit of lots of things or nothing of it. Anyway let’s choose »neighbour » because we are going to stay here for a while and we are going to know you.
Still now, I don’t exactly know where is Letang but it doesn’t matter anymore because here we are far from the use of street names, maps and direction boards ; here you can only be close to people, you smile, you laugh making big gestures to describe what you want, you take your time and you go for it! Namaste Letang!
