Namaste,
The incomplete yet fulfilled specific concrete hard red brick hammering echoed across a green Nepal valley.
It wasn't a hammer. It was a machete. A man chopped trees. His son trimmed branches. He severed sections into four-foot long pieces. His mother stacked them, wrapping them in bundles.
They collected wood all day. They rested at noon. They ate rice mixed with vegetables and potatoes. They shared expensive bananas. They drank water from a stream. They napped in shade. They carried the wood up mountains on their backs and home before dark.
Yellow eagles circled overhead. An infant cried in a brick home. Children in blue school uniforms wearing ties walked home along a red dirt road. Laughing.
They passed a small wooden tea shop overlooking a valley. A 20-year old girl worked at her sewing machine. She sewed large hearts into a white bed spread. The lace pillow cases with hearts were finished. Marriage bed dreams.
Her parents had an arranged marriage. Her father is an electrician. Her younger sister ran away. She married a boy from another caste. He is a cook in a tourist town. They had a baby. Her older brother studies hotel management in the city. Another brother is in high school.
I have a 1% chance of meeting a guy with a good heart, she said.
Metta.
Give her a sewing machine and she'll change the world.
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