The other residents of this homestay are a Tibetan couple from China who carry a small sign saying ‘Dear sir or madam, I am sorry but I do not speak English or Nepali. Please give me a three month visa’. It appears to have worked, for here they are. We communicate through smiles and gestures. They have visitors in the evening – I came downstairs from dinner to find the living room filled with monks eating away and felt slightly uncomfortable as the shared sink at which I had to brush my teeth was right in the middle of it. But there it is, I brushed my teeth surrounded by feasting monks, and went to bed.
Upstairs lives the lady of the house, a very sweet young woman who I think assumes I am her age (she must be about 25). She has a square, attractive face and exudes both determination and humour. She has two young daughters, one two and one five, of whom the two-year old is currently down with a fever but when feeling well calls me ‘aunty’ and plays peekaboo. My hostess is, fortunately, a good cook and I have even enjoyed the daal bhaat she makes, particularly a variation in which the daal was filled with what I thought were dried wild mushrooms but what I think my hostess explained was actually a sort of dried vegetable paste.
Her husband works at a hotel in Thamel and is there only every other day; he kindly took a bag of washing for me to get laundered.
Finally, there are her parents-in-law. A small, quiet smiling man in a Dhaka cap who seems to live on the topmost rooftop, and a large, sturdy woman who laughs loudly whenever she sees me and urges me, in sign language, to drink hot water for my persistent cough.