“The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours – it is an amazing journey – and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.”
Though I could have spent weeks exploring other villages throughout the area (I didn’t want to impose any longer in the one I loved), I felt that it had been the perfect experience, and that I was ready to spend a week idly walking around, reading, and writing. I headed back down to the terai, the flat plains of Nepal, where I rented a room at a small “hotel” for four days. I spent most of my time reading and finished six or seven books (almost two thousand pages). I wandered around a bit, but, once again, was slightly put off by the inordinate amount of attention I received, so I spent most of my time on the roof of my hotel.
Typical houses of the region. There are often four or five to a dozen clumped together to form a little community.
The principle who had found me before I headed into the hills found me again, and asked me to visit his school. I was shocked to find out it was an English medium school, that even here in the middle of nowhere many schools are still in English. I spoke with the students who were all very polite and excitedly exclaimed I was the first foreigner they had talked to, and once again, was offered a teaching post at the school. I then took the long and uncomfortable bus back to Kathmandu in order to spend one more week with the children at Hopeful Home.
