No, not that kind of grass! (Although we declined plenty of offers for “smoke” in Kathmandu). We’re talking about buffalo food.
When Hari, our home stay dad, told us we were going to “the up” to move some freshly cut firewood, we were very excited. First, for the the change from weed pulling and second, because “the up” was a bit of a mystery to us and we really wanted to see where this work was and how it was being done.
We had an early breakfast and left at about 7:45 taking the road up the hill. We’d been “up” before, but just as nosy tourists. Not long after, we found the wood that Hari had cut on the weekend. We helped to consolidate that into piles so it could be picked up by a truck later.
The real fun began when Hari said he’d be cutting some branches for “grass” for the buffalo. We headed toward the edge of a ravine and watched as Hari doffed his flip-flops, stabbed his sickle into the tree and used it to pull himself into a position - barefoot - to reach the first branch - about 10 feet up.
Skillfully, he began to chop branches from the tree as we dragged them to a staging area. After we’d accumulated a significant pile, Hari came down. Amma, his mother, who had been gathering leaves for bedding for the Buffalo, joined us.
Hari retrieved a length of drinking straw diameter bamboo stick and proceed to split it using “local technology” to make a rope to tie the branches into a bundle. We watched as he and Amma deftly used their sickles to cut the branches and bundle them. After wrapping them in the bamboo ‘ropes’, he attached a “head strap” so we could carry them down to the house.
After a snack break, we loaded up and headed down the jagged road. We felt so happy to have this experience and we were one step closer to “fitting right in”.
