“Sure.” After a few minutes of relative silence, aside from Kalpana’s gum smacking, the girls find an Indian pop song and they blast it through the car speakers. I turn it down. Sukmaya turns it up. “Why, sister?”
“It hurts my ears! This is loud enough.”
“Oh, okay.” They laugh. “We like it loud.”
My passengers settle into the drive and I reflect on how happy I am to have made this invitation and to give them a chance to enjoy an unusual day out of their regular routine. They sing, tell jokes, and gently tease me. They feel like family, and remind me of my homestay family back in Nepal, where I spent a semester in college thirty years ago. About half an hour into the drive, Sukmaya needs to pee. I offer to stop the car so she can pee in a field or behind a tree. This starts a round of laughter that is so loud and long that I open my window release let out some of the sound.
“Sister, we are not in Nepal.”
“Do you have to pee or don’t you?”
We stop at a gas station to get some Mountain Dew and Hot Doritos, use the bathroom, and everyone chats with Sonam, the Nepali guy who is working at the cash register. I wonder how he feels about spending his time in a gas station in the Adirondacks. As usual, we share our phone numbers with him but he never calls. We drive on to the trailhead and battle a half a dozen cars for parking spaces. I gather everyone in our group for a headcount but some people have started up already and others are changing their shoes and taking pictures in the parking lot. I remind the remaining people in our group not to throw any garbage on the ground.
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