The Nepal Part of the Wedding

I'm the mother of the bride again. Last December, Sajal Sthapit's family came to Jeffersonville to celebrate the American half of his and my daughter Claire's round-the-world wedding. And next month, the night of July 3, we'll celebrate the Nepali wedding festivities. At the farmer's market this morning someone suggested blogging this adventure. So, with bags half packed and more errands to run, sure, why not write instead?

Tomorrow I fly to Minneapolis, then Amsterdam, then Delhi, where I will meet Santosh George of Cure International, who is hosting me for a day. After that, to Kathmandu, to stay with Claire three and a half weeks before the wedding. She says I'm going to take Nepali language lessons ("Namaste!"). We'll see how that goes ("Tapai sancai hunuhuncha?"). She also says we'll travel, go sari shopping, and eat dal bhat and drink lots of tea.

Later in the month we'll be joined by Claire's brother Ian with his fiance Leyla, and my spouse Don, as well as several other friends from the U.S. But for a while we'll simply, I'm told, live ordinary life in the tourist district in the middle of Kathmandu.

They've waited a long time. Claire and Sajal met as freshmen at Wooster, in 2001-2002. They have lived apart as long as together: first Claire in Nepal and Brazil while Sajal remained in Ohio; then Sajal in Nepal while Claire was in Jeffersonville; then Sajal in Maryland and D.C. while Claire stayed with us. Through all these changes they seem only to have grown closer and more content together. These last few weeks are their final separation before the festivities, with Claire in Kathmandu and Sajal at home in Pokhara.

When Claire was small, she had been nowhere unless I took her. Then she ventured on school trips to Tybee Island, to Toronto, to Greece, then around the world to Nepal and India, a world I know only secondhand, through her and Sajal's descriptions, through knowing Sajal's parents and sisters. People and their places are so intimately connected. I think I will begin to know more not only about the Sthapits but also about my own daughter.