Stand in the Traffic

Saunders Kate

Description

Kate is a thirty-something-year-old adventurer and single mother who sells her stateside business to go to Kathmandu, Nepal with her young son, Jack. Her intention is to adopt an orphaned toddler named Devi, a little girl she knows only from a photograph. The expedition ends up completely redirecting Kate's moral compass and forcing her to find peace within chaos. Stand in the Traffic is the story of Kate's year long journey through culture shock, paperwork delays, and revolution. As the days drift by, Kate struggles to connect with the stoic little girl whose charcoal eyes and visible scars betray her elusive past.
In Stand in the Traffic, Kate's fresh, engaging voice speaks to women's issues, parenting, politics, and adventure travel. Readers will be captivated by Kate and her family. Unlike other adoption retrospectives, this is not the dry, drawn out account of bureaucracy and childlessness, but rather a heart-pounding journey to the land of rickshaw wallahs and orange-clad saddhus, incense laden temples, and sly street dogs. As the months unfold, Kate finds herself contentedly immersed in Devi's vibrant culture, in spite of the revolution brewing just down the lane. Kate's story of immersion in a foreign culture leads readers into an enchanted dreamscape.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• Katmandú
• Buddhism
• Nepal
• Non-fiction
• Kathmandu
• Religion
• Nonfiction
• Katmandou

Informations

• Publié par: Madville Publishing
• Date de parution: 31 juillet 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781948692236
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2020 by Kate Saunders
All rights reserved. No part if this book may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, digital scanning, or other electronic or mechanical means, without prior written permission of the publisher. While all events of this memoir are true, individuals' names have been changed to protect their privacy.
FIRST EDITION Printed in the United States of America
Requests for permission to reprint material from this work should be sent to:
Permissions Madville Publishing P.O. Box 358 Lake Dallas, TX 75065
Front Cover Photograph: Kathmandu, Shutterstock Royalty-Free License. Cover Design: Jacqueline Davis Photos courtesy of: Kate Saunders
ISBN: 978-1-948692-22-9 paperback, 978-1-948692-23-6 ebook Library of Congress Control Number: 2019937659
For Dinesh and Leena
Contents
September
October
November
December
Photo Gallery
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
“Excuse me, madam … Excuse me.”
I wake to a flight attendant leaning over my sleeping son with a handful of forms.
“Please fi ll these out before we arrive in Kathmandu,” she says with smiling eyes and an Indian accent.
On the movie screen, a world map tracks the progress of our flight, only thirty miles to go. The plane drops and my stomach quivers as we descend into the Kathmandu Valley. Pressing my forehead against the porthole window, I expect to see saw-toothed ranges, but find billowing, cotton-ball clouds among rolling, velvet green mountains organized in a monsoonal waltz. The city is a hazy Legoland of ramshackle houses in yellows, blues, pinks and greens, hopscotched among traditional terracotta brick. I wonder how I’ll ever manage to navigate the jigsaw lanes that run haphazardly through the jumbled dwellings. Images I’ve memorized from the Lonely Planet guidebook I’ve studied relentlessly melt away.
“Look, Jack, this is where we’re going to live!” I grab my six-year-old son’s arm.
“I see Mount Everest!” he squeals, pointing to a nondescript ripple of a foothill. The passengers around us chuckle as the plane turns, sweeping closer to the city. I look for the airport, anticipating the brilliance and magnitude of other capital cities we’ve passed through—Los Angeles, Osaka, and Bangkok. Instead, I spot a small, one-story muddy brown building, presumably the airport.
As we touch down, I’m stunned by the scene: a nation at war. When the U.S. State Department issued travelers warnings, citing political unrest and terrorist activity by the Maoist rebels, I’d perceived the risk to an American within Kathmandu to be trivial. The excitement of meeting my adoptive daughter overshadowed any fear, so I’d shrugged it off. Now, looking down the runway littered with military jeeps and helicopters, I’m smacked by the reality of the warning. Armed soldiers surround our plane and stand guard at the end of the rickety metal staircase unceremoniously rolled up to the cabin door. Without a familiar jetway, I’m suddenly nervous and surprised by my need for the comfort of first-world airport amenities. As we wobble down the stairs to the steaming tarmac, the soldiers gaze toward invisible points in the distance, taking no notice of me, Jack, or the big pink bunny strapped to his backpack. He’d purchased the bunny for a dollar at a yard sale (quite a bargain in his eyes), as a gift for his new little sister.
Like good sheep, we follow the other passengers to a dismal, near empty building. I’m disoriented without the usual airport landmarks: no bustling food court, no newspaper stand, no indoor-outdoor carpeting. The red-brown brick is feebly decorated with travel office posters of the region. Jack is elated when we pass a large brass effigy staring down from a pillar. He recognizes the Hindu elephant god Ganesh, Remover of Obstacles, like the one on my desk at home.
A small, grouchy man stuffed into a shrunken, paper-bag-brown uniform directs us to the appropriate line. We wait, though I’m not sure what for, and I quickly become irritated by the chaotic line, impatience rising inside me. I glance at the brass elephant god, and remember why I’m here, then take a deep breath and let the irritation melt away.
“Mommy, I need to go to the bathroom,” Jack says.
“Well buddy, I think we have to get through this line first. Can you wait a little longer?” I look around for a restroom. “Is it number one or number two?” I whisper.
“I can wait. It’s just number one.” He sighs.
“This shouldn’t take too long,” I lie as I notice the sloth-like pace of the airport staff.
The queue inches forward until it’s finally our turn. I’m puzzled by the rapid-fire questions from the men behind the counter, so I shake my head and offer a friendly smile as I hand over our forms and passports. The men chatter among themselves, apparently looking for something I’m missing. The Grouch returns, hands on hips, clearly disgusted, and motions for us to follow him. I scramble to gather our bags and summon Jack, too paranoid to let him out of my sight in this sea of strangers. We’re led to a second counter where the Grouch snaps and snorts; his tone and gestures translate my shortcomings. As he turns to leave, the man behind counter number two smiles slightly and returns our passports. I ask him for a restroom, then bathroom, then toilet, and finally, he smiles brightly and directs us across the concrete building. As we turn to walk away, he says, “You very fortunate. You son is good luck.” I thank him, smile, and shuffle on.
In the doorway of the bathroom, we find a woman in a dull beige sari on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor. Her hair is pulled back into a shiny knot at the nape of her neck. As I motion for Jack to enter the men’s room, she glances up and I smile hesitantly. Her head drops back down as she continues to labor over the permanently stained tile. I think back to the chapter in my guidebook describing the caste system and try to wrap my mind around her status as an untouchable. Was this really her karmic lot in life? Or was it just bad luck? What cosmic circumstance had caused her to be down there and me to be up here?
Jack returns with a skip, visibly relieved, and we proceed down a flight of steps to collect our luggage. Unsure of what we would need for an undetermined amount of time in a foreign land, I’d continually added items to our luggage as I packed, so we are vastly overloaded. I search for where to collect our bags and spot some Buddhist monks from our flight. I assume they must know where to go, but then wonder, Do monks even have any baggage to collect?
I establish Jack in a safe location where I can see or pre-sumably hear him scream as he is being carried off by the child bandits my over-cautious mother believes roam the airport. I spot our suitcases marching their way out on the conveyer belt. I’m almost done loading them onto a cart when a man appears out of nowhere, elbowing me aside to load the last few pieces. Then, palm out, he asks for something, but I don’t understand. I hand him a few dollars, not really knowing why, and when he looks down at the bills, the look on his face tells me he doesn’t find my offer to be as generous as I had and demands more. When I don’t immediately comply, he loses his patience and begins violently pulling our bags off the cart. I hand him a couple more bills, and he stuffs them into his pocket, then gestures for us to follow. I stumble along, trying to keep up, calling over my shoulder to Jack as we step outside into the mob of waiting people.
“This is when we look for our name on a sign, right Mom?” Jack asks, clinging to my arm, a hint of panic in his tiny voice.
“Yeah, sweetie, you’re right! I’m sure our ride is here to pick us up,” I reply over-enthusiastically, but he frowns, seeing through my facade.
“Madam Saunders! Madam Saunders!” Out of the crowd comes a sparkling-clean, smiling, well-dressed man holding the coveted sign with our name on it. He hands me his Summit Hotel business card and explains that he has come to fetch us, then turns to Jack, and asks about our flight. I look around for the man with our bags, but he is nowhere to be seen. When we get to the van, our bags magically reappear and another man approaches demanding a tip. I look desperately to the gentleman from the hotel for guidance, but he casually glances the other way, deaf to my psychic plea.
“Hey, lady! You give tip! You give tip now!” The new porter yells, as he closes the space between us. Jack is already in the van, looking for a nonexistant seatbelt, so I acquiesce and offer up more cash, then quickly climb inside the van, ready to leave the chaos of the airport behind.
My romantic notions of resort-like beauty interspersed with temples and monks floating on enlightened clouds of bliss vanish as we drive through Kathmandu. We pass a shanty town of dirty shoeless children and mangy street dogs where vendors line the streets and seemingly abandoned construction abounds.
“Mommy! Look, there’s a cow in the road! Look! There’s another one!” Jack is nearly standing in his seat.
“Yeah, Jackie, the cows can go wherever they want here,” I say, recognizing this is new and exciting for him, not frightening. “Here, cows are sacred, like Gods, so no one will harm them, or try to eat them. In Nepal, killing a cow is illegal.”
“Wow! Cool!”
The hotel man chuckles while the driver dodges traffic, winding through endless roundabouts in a haphazard current of beeping taxis, motorbikes, and military trucks. I try not to watch as he turns directly into oncoming traffic to maneuver off the main thoroughfare. We drive up a winding corkscrew hill and pass another friendly plaster elephant, the doors of his cage open with marigolds blanketing his feet. The driver takes a sharp right turn into a tiny hidden drive where ferns peek out from between the cracks of moss-carpeted brick walls enclosing the puzzle-piece compound. I g