Unlike the cooked potato, the raw potato does
not go well with hot sauce or anything else I can think of. To
avoid a second helping, which without doubt would have brought up
the first, I pleaded being full from lunch. Dawa, being sensitive
to my needs, concurred and provided both parties a face saving way
out. Still, for my size, they thought I ate very little. I owe
Dawa one! When dinner was over, I was offered ears of cold, baked
corn on the cob. The kernels are broken off by using one’s hand
and then eaten like candy. They are chewy and bland. Popcorn it
is not. The ears of corn are small and only partially kernelled.
As a special treat Dawa’s sister has made "soda pop". Made with
whole egg, water, butter, salt, and milk and served warm, it is
similar to Tibetan tea but without the tea and is quite tasty.
This was my first adventure with peasant food that had not been
tailored to Western tastes, and if it did not improve, I could
very well starve to death before any virus nailed my hide to the
wall.
Dawa’s brother-in-law, wanting to go along to our first major
destination, Lukla, carried Dawa’s pack. Dawa than carried
mine, as we headed for Dawa’s ancestral village of Pangkangma. It
was a relief not to carry any weight, but I felt uncomfortable
with having someone else do my work for me. I feel uneasy in the
role of Bwana.
We
went straight up on narrow trails that merged and split from other
narrow trails. The terraced fields crowding the path are small,
measured in feet rather then acreage. The fields are so small that
the water buffalos pulling in tandem the wooden plow find it
difficult to negotiate the tight turns.
