Three boys at a swing

Three boys at a swing
Tupche, 2000

Near a tributary to the Trishuli river, stood this swing where small boys took turns swinging. Swings are often built especially for the Dasain festival (celebrating Rama’s victory over evil spirits) but this swing may be there year round (I’ll check on my next visit). Usually Dasain swings are huge things about thirty feet tall. Made of four tall pieces of bamboo, they are arranged in a large square and tied together at the top. 

The tributary here is quite beautiful, running through large rounded stones. Crossing is by means of several rickety wooden bridges with an occasional small hop if you’re feeling especially adventurous.

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One such wooden footbridge.

Mother with baby and son on porch

Mother with baby and son on porch
Tupche 2000

In a house above a small shop, a proud mother feeds her youngest son.

Down below people may be sharing news, buying white plastic bags of cooking oil, large bricks of Puja soap. If not helping in the fields, girls may be skipping rope, boys playing Carrom board, small children trailing empty plastic bags behind them like kites.

Although it lies just across a suspension bridge from Betrawati, I didn't get to Tupche more than a few times. It's a spread of terraced rice fields with a few clumps of houses and shops peppered here and there. To get from here to there you zigzag your way on the raised dike/walls that separate the fields. After the rice has been harvested children can play in the dry stubbly fields.

When I revisited Tupche two years later I walked by the house and the father, who I had not met previously, stopped me to thank me for this photo.

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I had been kneeling down on the porch to take the first photo; when I turned around I took this second photo.

Shezan and Binod

Shezan and Binod
Tupche 2002

Across the river from Betrawati the tiny village of Tupche butts up against a steep wooded hill.
On one of my trips across the cable bridge I took this photo of two friends.

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