"Sophia. You really have 10 husbands?"

So, since Mr. Narayan couldn’t host me at his house, one of the female teachers, Sita, extended the invitation. Since I’d brought a small bag thinking I would be away for the night, I was all ready to go and hopped on the back of Sita’s motorbike after school to head to her home.

We had a quiet drive dodging goats, roosters and dogs along the bumpy, dusty road past children on their way home from school, rice and lentil fields, small huts and eventually into the more populated town of Bharatpur. After being quiet for about five minutes, and possibly stringing the words together appropriately to ask the prying question, Sita said in what I would notice was her way of stating my name and then asking a question. “Sophia.” “Yes?” “You have ten husbands?” What must they think of this loose, foreigner!?

When we arrived her forewarned “Very old” mother and father in law were there to greet us as well as her husband and 2 year old baby boy.

As I struggled to stay awake reading my book, Sita came into my room and said “Sophia. You come with me.” I was hoping she was taking me to a more comfortable bed, but as I stood up, she motioned that we were going outside. “I can wear this?” I asked, referring the hideosouly unflattering maxi dress she’d stuffed me into to cover as much of my skin as possible to ensure that I would properly swelter in my sleep. “Yes. Wait.” She snatched a towel that was hanging behind the door and wrapped it around my waist, tying the two ends together at my navel, and rolling it down so it would hold and give the whole maxi-look a new dynamic. We sat out on the porch as half the street walked by and stopped in for a chat and a chance to stare at the foreigner in the hideous dress.

After conversation inevitably turned to me and my single-ness, Sita told the story about me telling the kids I had 10 husbands. The crowd was amused, if a little confused and Sita retreated into the house only to return wit h10 red bangles that she tried to put on my large hand. After the first two cheap plastic circles broke, she fetched some grease and tried folding my fingers together like an accordian, eventually sliding the bangles onto my wrists; 5 on each side. “There, one for each husband!” I exclaimed (uproarious laughter from the crowd).

As I was sitting outside on the step, reading my book as I waited for Sita to prepare for school, I was summoned inside. “Sophia. You come here.” “Yes?” I wandered into my room where Sita was standing in front of the mirror with a tube of hooker-pink lipstick that should only be worn by ladies after 2am. She motioned for me to apply after she had smeared it onto her own face and was wiping away the enlarged clown-smile she had drawn on half her face.

“Ummm…hmmm, ya know I don’t usually wear lipstick.” She continued to hold the tube in front of me, clearly thinking that it was about time I start. “Okie dokie.” Why the hell not? Can I keep the maxi dress, too?

I asked if we could get a photo of the entire family and as I was waiting for everyone to assemble on the step, Sita’s father-in-law spoke to me in Nepali, gesturing with his hands and looking down the road like he was telling me to get the hell out of his house and never come back. One of the neighbours, a guy my age who spoke fairly good English, translated that “He says he wants you to come back again.” I’d learned the night before that this man who stood up and sat down with the agility of a 10 year old, was actually 85 and healthy as a horse, does his walking and exercises in the morning bright and early and eats properly and doesn’t smoke. I bet he gets into the whiskey when the time is right, though.