HAWKING IT UP IN CHITWAN ‘My name’s Jethro, as in Tull, and I’m a chronic alcoholic.’ The other fourteen volunteers splurted in chuckles or simpering acknowledgement of what must surely be a joke. ‘I’m from England, but I’ve been teaching in Japan this past year. I hope to learn some new methods of teaching, then finish my university course and start up my own language school. I love teaching young kids when their minds are still a clean slate.’ A teasing shocker by nature, Jethro proved to be a chronic smoker by choice and a drunk by mischance. That evening, following the banquet dinner replete with a performance of traditional Nepalese stick dancing - Denis tried not to dwell on the tele image from fifty years previously of a cherubic Benny Hill spoof on Morris Dancing – several volunteers made their way up to the roof garden terrace atop the Volunteers Guest House. The sparkling vista of the darkened city with pinprick incandescence was more memorable than the drab, gritty, in-your-face and up-your-nostrils daytime view, but Denis’ eyes were smarting nonetheless. In an attitude of quiet reverence, Dashiel, the American beanpole, was setting up his tripod and ultra-sophisticated digital camera in several trial-and-error vantage spots behind the parapets to shoot the shadowy murk of Mt Ganesh and the dull glow emanating from the gilded stupa, Swayambhunath, swelling like a bruised bump on the city skyline. Retiring early to his third-storey single room to recharge his tablet and laptop, Denis was startled by the shrieking party atmosphere still raging, the manic laughter intermingled with the lonesome howling of wild dogs that roamed on the derelict scrub behind the Guest House. Lying in bed after his cold shower, he wondered how many of the recruits would be fit enough on the morrow to face the challenge of an early start and long day’s sedentary travel. Following an early breakfast of omelette, toast and small pot of coffee, nine bubbly volunteers with luggage assembled in the laneway that wound down through rubbish and overgrown weeds to the main road, eager to get started. The half-dozen volunteers remaining based in Kathmandu were doing the rounds of hugging and exchanging phone numbers. ‘We’re still waiting for Jethro,’ said a frowning Ranesh, the normally hospitable co-ordinator, through pinched lips, checking his watch. ‘These long-distance buses to Pokhara and Chitwan can take longer than their allotted time of six and eight hours.’ As if suddenly emerging in the grey light of dawn, a shadowy profile of Jethro abutted from the corner of the side wall of the Guest House. ‘Jethro, you look like shit!’ cried Magsie shamelessly, one of the two volunteer nurses from New Zealand bound for Chitwan. Deb kept a discreet silence.