Kathmandu, Nepal - Finding my former sponsored child, Dil Kumar!!!
Today two of the hotel staff, Sunil and Ganesh, volunteered to help me find my former sponsored child in Nepal, Dil Kumar, who I first visited in Nepal when he was 12, but would now be 33-years of age. They hired a taxi for us to the bus station and then we took the local bus about 20-km outside of Kathmandu. They asked several locals and finally found someone who knew that Dil Kumar now owned a furniture factory and told us where it was. We found the factory and learned that Dil was not there at the moment, but they gave us his cell phone number. We tried it and got no answer and decided to have some lunch at a local eating place. We had some Nepali momos. These dumpling looking things packed with meat and spices were very delicious!
After lunch we dropped by the factory and they said he was in. Immediately on opening the office door I recognized him, as he did me, big smiles on both of our faces. Sunil and Ganesh helped in translating for us.
We exchanged memories of our last meeting twenty years earlier. I had taken him, his brother and another friend for his first trip outside of Kathmandu to Pokara. He was so nervous he got sick, throwing up on the side of the taxi, twenty minutes outside of his village. He recovered and we continued to Pokara. We went to a peaceful, calm lake and it took his brother and friend 30-minutes to convince Dil to get into a row boat to go out on the lake, but within a few minutes Dil was comfortable on the water and started having water fights with me and his friends. We also remembered playing cards. I taught them 21 and they taught me a Nepali card game.
On the way back from Pokara Dil remembered that I discovered that I had forgotten my wallet at a local eating place about 50-km back along the road. I asked the taxi driver to turn around and go back. The staff had the wallet waiting for us with my passport and the full amount of cash, equivalent to a year's wages in Nepali standards, inside.
After catching up a I bit, Dil took us back to the family house to meet his father, wife, daughter and son. He had gotten married 10-years ago. He mother had passed away a few years after my first visit with him.
His father and I recognized each other immediately as well. I will never forget that, a week after the trip to Pokara, his father showed up at the airport to bid me farewell and to tell me, with the help of a taxi driver acting as a translator, that the next time I came to Nepal, "You stay with me!". It was very touching and sincere.
I met his pretty wife and daughter for the first time and their infant son. His wife pulled a picture of me, from 20-years ago, out of one of their photo albums. We had some Nepali tea (tea with milk and sugar), some fried eggs and some apple slices. They showed me pictures of their wedding. I took some photos of his family and then had Sunil take a photo of us all together.
They invited me to stay overnight for an upcoming festival and I accepted. We worked out with Sunil and Ganesh that each of them would cover a shift so that we had a translator all of the time I stayed with them so we wouldn't miss any communications. I would come back with one of my hotel friends tomorrow afternoon and stay overnight.
Sunil, Ganesh and I returned to Kathmandu by local bus. I had prints made of the photos I took to bring with me for my visit with Dil and his family the next day.
Today two of the hotel staff, Sunil and Ganesh, volunteered to help me find my former sponsored child in Nepal, Dil Kumar, who I first visited in Nepal when he was 12, but would now be 33-years of age. They hired a taxi for us to the bus station and then we took the local bus about 20-km outside of Kathmandu. They asked several locals and finally found someone who knew that Dil Kumar now owned a furniture factory and told us where it was. We found the factory and learned that Dil was not there at the moment, but they gave us his cell phone number. We tried it and got no answer and decided to have some lunch at a local eating place. We had some Nepali momos. These dumpling looking things packed with meat and spices were very delicious!
After lunch we dropped by the factory and they said he was in. Immediately on opening the office door I recognized him, as he did me, big smiles on both of our faces. Sunil and Ganesh helped in translating for us.
We exchanged memories of our last meeting twenty years earlier. I had taken him, his brother and another friend for his first trip outside of Kathmandu to Pokara. He was so nervous he got sick, throwing up on the side of the taxi, twenty minutes outside of his village. He recovered and we continued to Pokara. We went to a peaceful, calm lake and it took his brother and friend 30-minutes to convince Dil to get into a row boat to go out on the lake, but within a few minutes Dil was comfortable on the water and started having water fights with me and his friends. We also remembered playing cards. I taught them 21 and they taught me a Nepali card game.
On the way back from Pokara Dil remembered that I discovered that I had forgotten my wallet at a local eating place about 50-km back along the road. I asked the taxi driver to turn around and go back. The staff had the wallet waiting for us with my passport and the full amount of cash, equivalent to a year's wages in Nepali standards, inside.
After catching up a I bit, Dil took us back to the family house to meet his father, wife, daughter and son. He had gotten married 10-years ago. He mother had passed away a few years after my first visit with him.
His father and I recognized each other immediately as well. I will never forget that, a week after the trip to Pokara, his father showed up at the airport to bid me farewell and to tell me, with the help of a taxi driver acting as a translator, that the next time I came to Nepal, "You stay with me!". It was very touching and sincere.
I met his pretty wife and daughter for the first time and their infant son. His wife pulled a picture of me, from 20-years ago, out of one of their photo albums. We had some Nepali tea (tea with milk and sugar), some fried eggs and some apple slices. They showed me pictures of their wedding. I took some photos of his family and then had Sunil take a photo of us all together.
They invited me to stay overnight for an upcoming festival and I accepted. We worked out with Sunil and Ganesh that each of them would cover a shift so that we had a translator all of the time I stayed with them so we wouldn't miss any communications. I would come back with one of my hotel friends tomorrow afternoon and stay overnight.
Sunil, Ganesh and I returned to Kathmandu by local bus. I had prints made of the photos I took to bring with me for my visit with Dil and his family the next day.
posted by Chris at 11:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home