A sharp alarm. An icy cold shower. A slice of peanut butter toast downed with a hot cup of Nepali milk tea.
And we’re off!…
…to Ratna Park, ready to begin our adventure, as haphazardly pieced together as my luggage.
I work for a small Nepal NGO called INFO Nepal. They arrange placements all over Nepal for foreigners who come here to volunteer. My duty that morning, as thrown upon me by my boss the day before, was to bring a volunteer to our newest placement – a school in the little village of Mude, in Solokhumbu.
With only this piece of information in hand, I boarded the bus to Jiri.
At the beginning of a journey, there’s always a hint of excitement in the air. Had I known the great journey to come, perhaps that excitement would have been tinted with nervousness, apprehension, and fear as well.
A bright clear morning spent on the roof of the buss turned into a rainy and stuffy afternoon inside the bus – packed like sardines with all the locals taking cover from the rain. Jiri couldn’t have arrived too soon.
That evening, sitting in the common room of the lodge, sipping on cup after cup of amazingly aromatic tea, we met two Englishmen (both named Richard) beginning a trek to Everest Base Camp the next day.
Where were we going, they asked.
“Mude,” I replied.
“Where’s that?”
“Ummmm….. I don’t exactly know.”
Thus began the tast of the evening – finding Mude – made no less complcated by the fact that in that area of Nepal are no less than 3 “Mude”s. One we had passed on the bus to Jiri – so it couldn’t be that one we were looking for. The other was at least a 10 day walk away – I HOPED it wouldn’t be that one.
After a heated debate with Jiri’s locals (as well as impressing the Richards with our organizational skills), who all isisnted this “10 day away” Mude was the Mude, we decided to ignore them and leave the next day in search of our Mude, which my boss had told me was a 3-5 day walk from Jiri.
The next morning, after accidentally waking up an hour early and arguing amongst ourselves over what time it really was, our group (which now encompassed myself, Andrea (our volunteer), Kamal (staff member), Tenzin (friend along for the ride), the two Richards, and two porters) finally embarked upon our trek to find Mude.
The first two days, I was feeling great. My bike rides and basketball practices had obviously come in handy as I now found myself in much better shape than the time I’d tried to trek to Guandruk only nine months earlier. 
The rest of my crew, however, were not having my luck – knee problems, pulled groins, and sore calves disrupted the moods of my co-trekkers. The only thing they all seemed to be looking forward to was lunch and the evening – in other words, the only moments they weren’t walking!
In fact, though, lunches and evenings were quite fun! We would sit down around noon, after having walked up and down steep and muddy hills for four hours, down a few cups of tea and swigs of water, and wait for daal bhaat, our appetites growing by the second! We’d talk about the difficult parts of the trek, and look in Richard’s guidebooks to see what type of trek was to come. In the evenings, after having washed the day’s sweat off ourselves and our clothes (believe me, there was a LOT of it!), we would all sit around the fire at relax. One Richard (nicknamed Doc because he’s an acupuncturist) would be busy heeling his body with various forms of Chinese medicine, while the other Richard was with Andrea over their new age-type philosophy on life. The four Nepali boys would chat away in Nepali as I soaked it all in.
We were becoming quite the family, which is one amazing, and I think inevitable, side effect of trekking. We all supported each other, helping out those who were having pain or feeling tired and goofing around with those keeping pace with us as we trekked up and down those endless “hills” (more like mini mountains I’d say).
Besides minor aches and pains, all was going too well to be true (especially for me, who had yet to experience even sore muscles!).
Until the 4th morning… 
I woke up that morning in Lamjurala, 120m lower than the highest point in our trek (3500m). It had rained all night and I had slept very poorly and I was feeling generally unwell. At first I thought that perhaps I was simply experiencing altitude sickness, especially as each step higher became more and more difficult. But once we began our descent and my illness didn’t go away, my instinct was confirmed – I had come down with the flu.
Looking back, the next six hours have a dreamlike quality similar to what limbo must be like. Putting one foot in front of the other was my only focus – and believe me, it was difficult. There were times when I wanted to give up, when I fell upon the ground in tears and begged the others to go on without me. I could have curled up on the muddy, rocky ground and been perfectly content. Even sitting took too much energy – how was I supposed to walk up and down slippery, muddy moutains?
After visiting the school, we went to visit the host family. They live a half hour from the school in a traditional Nepali village home – no shower, no electricity, no toilet. Yet, the house was clean, the food tasty, and the family nice. I felt good about leaving our volunteer with them.The next morning we had to say goodbye to our volunteer Andrea. I gave her a hug, wished her luck, and told her to call if she needed anything. She seemed a bit nervous that we were leaving her in this village in the middle of nowhere with no other foreigners or English speakers… I would have been nervous too…. But she’s a strong lady and I am positive she is doing just fine.
