This morning, I am doing something I should have done a long time ago. I am inventing a fictitious family.
This has become necessary as a result of an encounter yesterday morning with Raj down at the river. Raj is a guide, he says, but he had no official badge or paperwork to prove that. At first, he wanted to take me on a guided walk but when I refused that, he offered to walk with me “free”. He had something much more lucrative in mind.
In the course of conversation, as always, marital status came up. Raj said he was divorced with a five-year-old son and an ex-wife who doesn’t understand him. I was shocked I tell you, shocked! And then the outpouring of how none of his friends and family understand his wish to live free (perhaps die young…which just may happen if he isn’t careful…)
Out of the blue, the suggestion that we should start a relationship. Not to have babies or anything, just to be together so as not to be lonely. Travel together, eat breakfast together, eat lunch together, eat dinner together (I am bloated and suffocating just thinking of all that eating and togetherness). He went to great lengths to explain in a roundabout way that he wasn’t talking about sex but he couldn’t quite find the words. It was funny to watch him dance around the subject. What he didn’t mention of course because it is a given is that I would pay…
I know that most Nepali people cannot understand the concept of being alone to drink coffee, let alone travel across the world. Many just assume I have no friends, which I find incredibly sweet and funny. But this latest was so damn blatant…he seriously expected me to consider it and kept pressing the issue.
I contained my annoyance (thank you Kopan) and got away as fast as I could, declining his suggestion that we have lunch, or coffee, or go for a bike ride. I have until the new year to perfect my fake family before I get to the big leagues…Mother India.
PS All was not lost as a result of that encounter. We saw a crocodile basking by the riverside and two rhinos, a baby feeding in a gully not 20 metres off the path and a big male, also feeding at the riverside. A little further along, several huge male elephants going off into the forest. I’ve not seen males out and about before; they are too ornery and unpredictable to give rides and are used mostly to patrol the park in search of poachers or to do animal counts. Scary beasts to meet on foot (and me dressed in red). One of them trumpeted at us but his mahout had control, for which I am deeply grateful.
