The Adventure of a Lifetime: Part Two
A chance encounter with a carpenter and his family in Hunza constructs an abiding connection.
THIS FIRST PART OF OUR TRIP climaxed with a stay in the verdant Hunza Valley, in the guesthouse of the mir of Hunza. Enchanted as I was by the solid rock homes, threading canals, and bright pink and white pear, apple and apricot blooms we found in Hunza, I was moved most by an impromptu encounter on an afternoon when I chose to wander around town on my own.
I was returning to the mir’s palace when I saw a man in his back yard crafting a beautiful wooden door. He was working slowly and carefully, and seemed so entirely absorbed that there was no separation between him and the wood he was shaping. Suddenly he noticed me admiring his work and beckoned me to join him. I slid down a small hill to his home. He grinned. I grinned. I gestured that the door was very beautiful. He called out something, and presently a gorgeous young girl shyly walked up to me bearing a plate of apricots.
The apricots were sweet and delicious and I tried to say so. Then I pulled out some postcards of San Francisco and tried to communicate that it was where I came from. Finally I pulled out some pictures of my family and asked if I could take a picture of his family to bring home to show to my family.
His eyes lit up, and he called out something, and his family appeared – wife, teen-age daughter, one baby, second baby, mother-in-law – peering from inside the house. I asked if I could take their picture and he enthusiastically motioned me into the house.
It was too dark and I didn’t have a flash, but I did have a chance to see the inside of a traditional Hunza house: We entered into the living room, which had a carpet and window at one end, a door leading into what I took to be a bedroom in another wall, a fireplace in the wall opposite the carpet and a hole in the ceiling above the fireplace, the perimeter of which had been blackened by smoke. Curtains of some rough cloth framed the window, but otherwise there was almost no ornamentation, nothing on the walls and no furniture save for one low chair.
After I had taken a photo inside, I asked if I might take their picture outside as well. They posed patiently and sweetly – the babies taking turns crying, drooling, and cooing – and when we had finished, the carpenter said something, and after a few minutes his elder daughter brought a bulging plastic bag full of dried apricots and kernels.
These are for your family, he said, pointing to my pictures. I thanked him as profusely as I could, and handed him two of the San Francisco postcards I had brought. Please hang these on your wall, I said. He said thank you, then asked to have one of the pictures of my family as well. I hesitated for a while – I didn’t know what situation might arise where I would need those precious pictures – but he was so kind and so friendly, I relented and gave him his choice.
He chose a Christmas picture of my wife, our daughter and me standing in front of a brightly decorated tree and told me that he would hang it proudly on his wall between the two postcards of San Francisco. He then clasped my hand warmly and said two words that I later found out meant “family” and “brothers.”
In Part Three: Stranded between avalanches, the author undertakes a short walk on the Karakoram Highway
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