My goal is to visit students in their various field placements, and yesterday we set off for Tutung. After a gruelling jeep ride from Kathmandu through winding, bumpy, steep roads into Newakot District, we finally got stuck and abandoned the jeep because it could go no further. My partner in adventure, Shreya, and our poor driver Hira, headed on foot in the general direction of “up.” We walked along the edges of people’s terraced fields, up their footpaths through a winter landscape of green potato cultivation, onions, winter wheat, bright yellow mustard, and many fallow fields. We asked various school kids and people we encountered directions to Tutung, as we had done dozens of times from the jeep on the drive up. Tutung isn’t a town, or really even a village, but a tiny cluster of a few homes and a school on a bend of the hillside.  A very sweet family welcomed us, and went to fetch Nick and Shiloh from the local school where they were wrapping up teaching English to grades 4 and 5. We visited and toured around their place while the family cooked us a very welcome lunch of rice, dal, a sauerkraut-like pickle, and spicy potato and cauliflower, over which they drizzled warm ghee. This plus the welcoming cup of chai helped to restore us. We deliberated about staying overnight or heading back down. Since our driver was worried about the jeep we’d abandoned, we toured the school, said good-bye and headed down–a trip that went remarkably much faster than the walk up. Our drive back to Kathmandu took another four hours of tight, steep turns, honks, dust, bumps and motion sickness. Urgh.  

Nick and Shiloh seem to be thriving. The grandfather in their host home is a shaman, and people come by daily for healing and care. The students have been able to observe his different approaches, from herbal treatments to divination. Shiloh received a treatment from him. It was heartwarming to meet the kind, generous and good-humored family they are staying with. These two will stay at this placement for another week, and then come down to join us for a mid-session retreat.