She only gets home to her own family once a year, because it takes a flight and then seven days on foot for her to reach her remote village of Jumla. At first it was very hard for me to understand English in class, but now it s easy. English is the shared language at the school where students come from so many linguistic regions and castes. Banka was born into a second-caste family. My mother is a farmer and she works in the fields of rice and maize.
Mother can t write in Nepali.
My father is a teacher of agriculture and he speaks English. She has a brother and sister, ages 8 and 6. She wants to visit other countries some day, a hope that her education makes plausible. Banka exudes the Nepali warmth that wins so many hearts for this desperately poor, but spiritually rich, country. Her warmth and her education are a winning combination.