An Afternoon in Kathmandu

I had a small small talk with a short barista with a lovely huge smile in a cafe in Central Kathmandu yesterday. He asked me: “Chai, good?” I was quite in my own world, but I was pleasantly surprised by his big smile and his brave attempt to practice his English and I said, “Yes, absolutely. Amazing chai, brother.” He smiled yet again and expertly poured over the warm milk into three cappuccinos over the counter, as I was thinking to myself that I should’ve ordered myself one of these and that Nepali baristas are definetly starting to earn my faith. Before leaving I told him, “Next time, I’ll order a cappuccino too brother!” He smiled and apologized and bowed his head down a few times and said: “Sorry, sorry, bad English. You? Where you from?” “Israel,” I said assertively with tired eyes and zero expectations.

As an Israeli, you never know how the face and the gaze of the person in front of you will suddenly shift after you’ve revealed to him the following two revelations: one will be that they finally meet someone from the country they keep seeing on the news every day. And the second revelation is when I reveal to them that I am Israeli. Yes. Perhaps their perception of the nice person they’ve been chitchatting with has shifted. Sometimes they can’t help it, and I can see it in their eyes. It can get very obvious sometimes.

Mariette and I were in an Italian restaurant, and the waiter kept on smiling at us the whole evening. She poured us some wine and was very pleasant with us. Then, when we paid the bill and she asked me where I’m from, her lights just shut down, like an electricity cut in New York City. But some put on a big smile, yet most of them have the face of someone discovering a huge debt in their bank account. “Oh, wow.” “Ah… OK.”

Some locals I met in India were really excited because we and Indians share the same struggle of anti-terrorism (us from ISIS, Hizbollah, Hamas, Iran, Houthis, etc., and them from Pakistan). This group of young men I met in Hampi got very hyped up after I revealed my secret and asked to take a photo with me. I haven’t realy done anything, I keep saying to myself, yet I notice that in whatever strange situation I keep finding myself in, it’s hard to stay apathetic. I embraced their excitement and smiled and thought to myself how random this all was. How did I find myself in a situation where young men from Bangalore are taking selfies with me in the market of Hampi in Southern India. All I did was walk back from lunch to my apartment. But it’s way nicer, this positive encounter, than the ones I have with some cool people I meet and chitchat with from the West. When I discover my big secret of my origins, some give me the eyes of someone discovering that their pet has cancer for the first time. “Ah, oh..” But in that cafe in Kathmandu, my barista friend from the bar responded to me saying Israel with: “Oh oh oh, Iceland?!” “Oh, wow. Cool!” I smiled and said: “Yeah.”

“Israel, he’s from Israel” – the American fella behind me with the bandana on his forehead above his vintage glasses, beard, and a strong accent said: “You’re from Israel, ha?” The smiling barista suddenly turned around and rushed to negotiate with his boss about the appropriate choice of English words. He came back jumping and said: “War war, ha?” I said: “Yeah.”

Then, as I turned around, the cool Jeff or Joe, the American rider, looked up in my eyes and said: “Well, it’s safer here, isn’t it?” As I faced the front door and heard his remark, I decided to stay in my cool bubble, as I’ve had a sleepless week and endless real-life worries about my family and friends in a war zone. I had no energy for this small bar talk and just said: “Yeah”, and left.

As I was walking down the ancient streets of Kathmandu, I thought about this movie scene scenario I experienced. Nothing drastic I thought. Nothing much I can do about all this. It’s becoming casual, and quite entertaining to be honest. I used to get very upset at first about this, but then I let the negative win. Then I let discrimination win. Then I let the people who put people in boxes and discriminate against humans based on their ethnicity or background, rather than who they are – win. I learned that this way is actually good, because I automatically filter out shallow thinkers with a tendency for racism, or antisemitism out of my life. Funny how Russians or North Koreans never get called out when they say they are from Russia or North Korea.

Anyways, how it all changed for me! I remember when I first started traveling how people never thought twice after I told them I’m from Israel. I remember some even asking me where I served in the IDF! They wanted to hear all about my short tank driving career as an 18 year old boy. On some occasions I felt like Tom Cruise, and on others I just felt normal.

I walked and thought about the role that Joe tried to play, which reminded me of some character from a Tarantino film or from one of Hemingway books. It’s fortunate that in that scene I didn’t have any energy for people because I only came up later, as I was walking, with the appropriate response that I thought to myself would’ve been the perfect response to Joe’s statement. When he said that “it’s safer here in Nepal, ha?”. I could’ve said: “Yeah, because there’s no radical Muslims here.”

I continued walking down by the temples and laughed at my dark joke, which in hindsight might not be such a wrong statement. It is safe in Nepal, and very unsafe wherever there is radical Islam.