“trekking” and the process of forming a healthy resistance to metonymic thinking

it’s hard to know where to start this one, mostly because admitting failure is, frankly, such a bitch.

so, for the dasain holiday week, i made plans to go trekking with my friend, annie. after a few changes in plan, we finally settled on helambu, a mild (?) seven-day trek that you can actually begin and end in the kathmandu valley (a major advantage when your other option is getting up at 4:30am to battle hundreds of nepalis trying to go home for the holidays for a couple seats on the crowded roof of a bus).

on the one hand, going into this, i definitely had some reasonable doubts. annie is from colorado and hikes at least once a week. i, however, have spent pretty much my entire life at sea level, and have not, so far as i can remember, been on a trek, hike, or even gently uphill walk that extended beyond a single day. camping has always seemed like some sort of perverse, bourgeois exercise in bug-infested masochism (or as i’ve also heard it put, “white people—what the f*ck?”). my instincts? not those of a sportswoman, per se. it’s a bad sign when you’re debating what to leave out of your pack so that you can include some light reading. Infinite Jest or 20th Century Land Ownership in Nepal, perhaps. in general, i exercise dutifully, at best.

on the other hand, while i refuse to feign actual relish in a lack of plumbing, i really do enjoy being outdoors. although i don’t think i project it, i AM the kind of person who goes for long walks in the woods to clear her head. i’ve even done some things that people would call “hikes” before, some of them even NOT on junior high school field trips. even though, between work and nepali lessons, i’ve pretty much been riding a desk for a month, i was working out before i moved here; now, i walk everywhere, and i do it briskly, even in the pollution of kathmandu. my coworker even told me i’ve lost weight, although i’m “still very fat” (more on what might be considered that rather remarkable statement, later). and i had been looking forward to seeing what all the fuss was about--why people come half way around the world literally just to walk up and down hills. and not just foreigners, either. i mean, you don’t catch nepalis trekking just for “fun” (as far as i can tell), but every nepali who i told about the plans was happy that i was getting out of the city and going to see “real nepal.” (in theory, that line is as odd to me as it is consistently expressed. i happen to like kathmandu, right down to the pollution and the traffic, but i get what they mean. i desperately want to see how the 90% of the population in non-urban areas lives here; it’s the whole reason i’m here, after all). at the end of the day, i pretty much operated as i always do when faced with the prospect of something new and mildly scary: i focus on minutiae and logistics--iodine tablets or chlorine drops for water purification?--and try to keep the big picture only in the proverbial corner of my eye.

anyway, bags packed, route picked, guide acquired, we took a taxi to the base of the trail. i chatted away in nepali with our guide and the taxi driver, and annie and i made plans to spoil ourselves with mud packs and sushi after we got back. the city bustle (and smog) dissipated, and the hills became visible above the startlingly bright green rice terracing. The landscape was punctuated by the ivory spire of a small buddhist stupa here, and the gold embellishment on a crimson hindu temple, there. at a store by the side of the road, a little girl mimicked the dance of a bollywood chanteuse playing on a small grainy TV. “this is going to be AWESOME,” i thought. now i know better. now i think: “hey, false confidence-reinforcing bilingual good cheer and insanely bucolic scenery? yeah, you. screw you.”

i probably should have sensed trouble when i realized that our guide’s description of the trail as “ukaalo,” far more so than my nepali-english dictionary would suggest, means “STEEP SO VERY VERY STEEP OH SWEET JESUS.” within 15 minutes, i was sucking wind and dripping sweat, although annie was plowing ahead with great enthusiasm. “mm,” i thought, gamely, “this is, ah, bracing.” a little while later, i paused to let an old woman with a mattress lashed to her forehead and back breeze by me. as i took the opportunity to grab some water, our guide reassured me, “it’s ok, we can keep going slowly, slowly.” this would have been a more effective platitude if i had actually been aware that he considered this a leisurely pace. he kept an increasingly concerned eye on me as we went, and, when, a little while later, he insisted on switching his lighter pack for mine, i finally expressed to the rest of the small party, grudgingly and between gasps, my growing doubts about the wisdom of the whole adventure. after a brief discussion, we decided that i could figure it out when we got to chisopani, the first overnight stop, in a few hours. well before that, though, my doubts were becoming cemented into serious regret.

at the entrance to the conservation zone, annie looked at me doubtfully. it was, so to speak, the point of no return. if i decided to turn back, it was a short walk back to buses and taxis to kathmandu. if not…well, there was a week ahead, the first three days of which at least, i had been reassured earlier, were pretty much “ukaalo” as well. “i really want you to come,” annie said, “but i don’t want you to be miserable. do you really want to keep going?” at that point, trekking buddy, guide, and handsome conservation zone checkpoint guard waiting expectantly, i had to admit that i didn’t. in fact, beyond not wanting to, was simply not going to physically be able to. “but i told everyone i was going…” i said plaintively. but, when it comes down to it, pride isn’t really a sufficient reason to make myself and two other people miserable for a whole week. i waived my two erstwhile companions off, and set off back down the trail. quickly, though, i found myself needing to sit down to catch my breath, this time, not from exertion, but from panic. slowly getting control, i had to figure what it was about this that meant that not doing it, literally, knocked the wind out of me.

i put the pieces together on my only slightly more dignified descent, as i passed chain-smoking old men on their way up, and got trod upon by a herd of goats (my only consolation, in my bitterness, was the fate awaiting the goats during dasain. they are such important traditional sacrifices that a shortage in kathmandu this year inspired a national radio campaign urging farmers to sell their stocks to traders in the city). the issues are myriad, i think.

pride, certainly, is a factor. failure to accomplish something one starts is, as i said, a total bitch, and not just considered in the eyes of others. for me, not known for my tendency towards moderation or gradualism, being unable to just dive into what i (think i) want to do is like a serious personal affront.

but, more than that, i think my panic and shame results from the metonymic role i had allowed this trip to play in my understanding of my professional and personal accomplishments in nepal.

much like my long neglected interest in learning about wines, on some level i DO want to be one of those people who actually really enjoys trekking and other such rugged athletic expressions of personal health and vigor. it feels like some sort of serious character deficit that i don’t. i wanted to come back from this week not only having DONE it, but LOVING it, my opinions on trekking/camping completely reformed. it’s not like the perverse pride i felt in going to florence and not seeing the david. it’s just so hammered into you that trekking is an integral, if not most important, part of being in nepal. it feel wasteful and shameful not to be gung-ho about it. what am i even doing here? do i even have the right to say i like it here if i don’t trek?

more practically, i viewed this as a dry run for field trips I’ll be making for work to MUCH more remote parts of the country. so much of what i love about the organization i work for is their deeply community and field-based (dare i say ethnographic) orientation. it’s the kind of thing i would feel good about doing for the rest of my life. just like speaking nepali, though, how can i possibly contribute if i can’t do this sort of thing? and, by extension, how much does this abortive excursion cast doubt on my ability make a career in a field-based area like development or anthropology?

and, because no bout with self-doubt would be complete without a dose of class-based guilt, i realized, as i sat, a white face conspicuously alone in a van whose counterparts were filled to the brim, that being so spectacularly out of shape while wearing such spectacularly expensive hiking shoes, is a profound statement on privilege. as a young man chatting with me said as we walked around boudha stupa this morning on my way to meet annie, “you’re from america, right? everyone gets an education there. and you get to go international. you are very lucky.”

in an effort to be philosophical about this, i know this wound to my pride and self-concept as intrepid traveler will heal. i’m not willing to write off trekking just yet. i’ll just have to take a more gradualist approach, doing shorter, milder hikes that are more my current speed, and work up to being able to do what i feel like i need to do. you know, training… like, oh, normal people with well-managed expectations of themselves do. and, at the end of the day, if i still can’t find the joy in trekking, and feel like shlepping up and down hills is still just a way to get to my field sites, then so be it. that doesn’t make me a bad person or less capable (or deserving) of appreciating the beauty of the places and people around me. this week, i’ll enjoy my vacation, do some of those hikes around the valley, and maybe go to pokhara and do some yoga. i’ll build on strengths, and practice nepali and do some work. i’ll tweak my veggie momo recipe and play with the dogs where i’m housesitting.

anyway, enough of that nonsense. as everyone knows, you should wash a wound before it heals, and i’m off to wash this particular wound with a hot shower, and a stiff whiskey/isley brothers combo.