Twins

Namaste, 

In the street life of Bhaktapur is Pottery Square. 250 people from immediate families make clay, create pots, piggy banks, animals, bowls, living art, dolls, bells, oil lamp bases, and cooking containers. They dry them in the sun. They slow fire them using straw fuel in large kilns. 

"We live here as a family," said a girl, 12 with her twin sister. "My father makes piggy banks. My mother moves them into the sunlight." A potter uses a heavy staff to get his wheel turning, rotating faster and faster until it is a blur. He shapes a pot. 

Finished products are sold locally, throughout the Kathmandu valley and exported faster than light.

Metta.

Kid Fools

Namaste,

Said the young Nepalese girl carrying the world on her back.

Her world is a large plastic sack for collecting valuable garbage. She uses a piece of thin hooked metal to probe piles of refuse. She has children scavenger friends in Vietnam (bundled logs and firewood), Laos (twigs and firewood), Cambodia (trash, charcoal, plastic bottles) all singing and dancing under the weight. Down all the days of their youth.

The weight of childhood is heavy. Children are not fooled. No joke. 

The girl led a traveler to the national zoo. A huge magnificent orange and white striped Bengal tiger roared near the bars. Feed Me! He dragged raw red buffalo meat into the shade expanding canines, grinding flesh.

Two sad brown eyed crying Black Himalayan bears in a cramped cold cement cage with scraggly tree trunks pressed their noses through rusty bars whispering, Please open the cage and take us back to the mountains.

A Griffon's brown elegant wing span blocked the sun flying beneath wire limitations. Oh, it said, If only I could soar again on thermals. If only I could regain my dignity and freedom. 

I have seen many people in cages, said the girl.

Metta.

Draw water. Draw your dream.