I’ve been off the air for a month now, while I returned to my family and friends and got my knee repaired. When I left, the days were reasonably warm, the nights cold, the terrain dry and the insects friendly. I return to a Himalayan summer. Who’d have thought that it could be so hot on the roof of the world? The heat burns its way into our bedroom in the early hours of the morning, waking me long before even a farmer gets up. One morning this week, I took off up the hill behind our house just after breakfast. I was back by 10:30 but in those couple of hours managed to get an Ozi strength sunburn.
Rain spits during the day, but comes uninterrupted through the night, leaving the mountains glowing green, and the rice paddies all but hiding the first shoots. Unfortunately, the rain came late this year and the farmers are worried that the rice won’t have enough time to grow before the cold sets in again.
The downside to the change is that the rain brings an excess of little bitey things. Sandflies come right into the house and spend the night giving us presents in the form of lumpy skin, each lump crowned with a large spot of blood. Flies swarm in my study and copulate on my keyboard. They’re just one more incentive to get out into the mountains now that I can.