Helen chuckles

Helen chuckles and says sweetly: "if I didn't know I was in the Kathmandu Valley, I could be in the Peruvian Andes." I return her smile and agree, surprised at how familiar the village footpaths feel after living beneath banana trees in Guatemala. Men and women who work like pack-horses to carry feed and grain and fuel up rocky trails, all the while smiling and looking radiant in colorful clothes. I have seen this before, in another time and place. Three year-olds walking the streets without a care -- negotiating the ebbs and flows of the day with peculiar confidence. And back in the city, wading through exhaust and the blaring traffic orchestra: the garbage smells and screech-owl sounds, the juxtaposed beauty and ugliness. Immaculate women walking and scrambling street children who hang on your arm and beg you for coins: this, too, familiar. But moments do not have to be novel in order to teach. The begging child opens a space in which to offer compassion and loving eyes: a firm, kind hand and a crayon drawing of a flower. "I know this isn't the money you ask for, love, but take a glimpse of color as a blessing. Maybe a whisper of beauty in the harshness you know?"