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the people there and understood, perhaps for the first time, that our culture of guilt and fear may not be the way to live.
     
    We strolled in the surrounding park and Taj asked me how I felt about the eastern culture. “I find it strange, but think I like the openness of it,” I replied blushing a bit with embarrassment.
     
    The look he gave me with those beautiful brown eyes left me feeling breathless and I felt my body melting when he took my hand.
     
    Taj said, “I love your spirit, your courage in coming to work so far from home along with your vulnerability at the strangeness of this land.”
     
    “I love this land, the mountain people and the mountain where I live.” I replied.
     
    “I am ashamed of the Western world, the waste and greed I see, now from a different perspective. It’s opened my eyes coming here and seeing the hardship of the mountain people.”
     
    Taj smiles at me and gently takes me into his arms.   We kiss and I feel the warmth of our bodies melting together as our embrace becomes closer still.
     
    We pull away from each other as we hear people coming along the path.
     
    “I hope I wasn’t being forward,” Taj says when we are again on our own.
     
    “No of course not, I was just as willing as you”.
     
    “I find you so attractive, not just your looks but what I see inside.”
     
    “I think that it is the difference in our cultures that attracts us to each other, and it may be better to step back a bit before we go too far” I reply because I feel very steamed up and too ready to take an irreversible step.
     
    “I’m sorry if I have offended you but I do feel so close to you,” Taj says quietly.
     
    “Just the opposite,” I reply.   “But the feelings I have for you are throwing me into a cauldron of emotions that I find difficult to check. “
     
    Again he holds my hand and we stroll happily through the park.   I feel so close to him and my heart is singing as we make our way home to his house.
     
    “Where have you two been,” accuses Taz.   “We have been waiting lunch for you and I’m starving”
     
    We apologize profusely and lunch is a comfortable meal with all the family seated around the dining table, making interesting conversation.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
    Chapter 3
     
     
     
    We have to return to the mountain, his sister and I.    The week’s work is waiting and we are thrown into it very quickly.   The religious festival, Shevhi, is almost upon us and the children are getting very excited about the local god they are to make to carry through the town on the days of the festival.   I am unsure of their beliefs but I try to understand by reading up on the Hindu religion.   With help from Sahida I begin to enjoy the whole proceedings but I am left tired at the end of each day.  
     
    I have been dreaming of Taj and remembering the gentleness of his love.   I keep hoping that I will see him again soon but I know that he has a busy life at the hospital in Kathmandu.         
     
    I hear a sound at my door, it is Taj, and he has come to see me on my own. I can’t believe my eyes as he enters my little cottage so unlike his parents’ house.   I feel bewildered by his presence but when he takes me in his arms then I know that this is what I have been waiting for.
     
    “My lovely girl “he whispers and all my body melts as he gently kisses my lips, my eyes and the hollow of my throat.   I have never felt like this before and I hope that it will feel like this forever.   He gently undresses me and we make love on my narrow bed overlooking the lake.   My feelings are spiritual as well as sexual as we come together in a wonderful ecstasy.   I tremble with love as I make us a cup of tea.   He follows me into the little kitchen and again we make love, now standing as we forget the tea.
     
    He stays all night and before the light comes over the mountain he leaves, gently untangling himself from my sleepy arms.   “I love