double music Travel Forum

In October of 2000, I went over to Nepal to work/volunteer in a small village called Nangi.
It was for Industrial placement at University and I organised it with the village, which is situated North West of Kathmandu at an elevation of around 3000 metres.
Most chilly evenings (-10) I would eat at one of the villagers houses which had a fire place, inside of the hut. Most of these evenings we would start with a drink the Nepali's brewed called Rahksi, which is made from fermented millet seed. Pretty potent stuff, and then we would progress onto a massive meal.
Since the meals were Dahl Bhat ( Rice/lentil soup), they were enormous, and it was mainly a vegetarian diet.
This usually resulted in me going home not too long after the meals, as they would get the bowels moving, and I would rather use the western style of utilities they had set up at my own house.
Most evenings I would help them with there english studies as a way to help pay back for the meals and we would sit and chat. One chilly evening they had a dozen or so family and friends there and we had, had a very large meal and a few drinks and as usual I was feeling pretty bloated.
They were asking me about Australia, it's places and people etc: When one of the villagers asked me if what sort of musical instruments they play in Austrlia, I said pretty much the same as here.
Though the Indigenous people the Aborigines used a hollowed out stick called a didgeridoo to make music. They then asked me to demonstrate it, so looking around the room I spotted the fire starter/blowing piece of Bamboo they use to get the fire going agian without raising to much ash. It's basically a hollowed out long piece of bamboo.
Using this as my instument I proceed to imitate a Didgeridoo, which had all the villagers laughing and fascinated at the same time. After a while they all started to quieten down and were listening to my mediocre performance, when all of a sudden before I could stop it a huge fart came out of my bowels just as I was blowing into the tube.
I stopped playing thinking I might have offended someone as everyone was quiet for a second, then they all burst out laughing. After a second I joined in with them when one of the villagers wive's yelled out for me to play my double music again for them, and they all started laughing again.
Not surprisingly by the next evening all the villagers knew about my double music woodwind skills, and a few even asked me to give demonstrations to backpackers when they came through the village. Saying I was a very good double music player, which would then inspire the backpacker to ask what double music was, much to my embarassment.
But looking back on the friendly and happy people of the village, it is one of the most treasured memories I have.
Cheers
luke fletcher

Posted By luke fletcher on Saturday 21st January 2006 @ 10:34:00

Updated : Saturday 21st January 2006 @ 10:34:00 | Words : 514 | Views : 115 | Comments : 0

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