Karan cannot afford the luxury of getting on an airplane and flying home. When he wants to go home, he travels by bus for three days to reach his village.
My name is Karan Khadaka.
My home is in Adarsh, a village near the towns of Deepai and Doti in Nepal. Like all the other homes in our village, my house is built of stones and then plastered with lime and mud. It is in the middle of the fields. Our home has a total of eight or nine rooms. Six of those rooms are bedrooms. Our home has three floors. Our kitchen is on the ground floor. All our cattle also live on the ground floor. There are about a hundred houses in our village.
At the moment, I live in the same building where I work in Jodhpur. I share a room with the other men who also work at the same hotel.
In Nepal, we live as an extended family. Our family consists of my parents, three brothers, one sister-in-law and two nephews. My oldest brother is married and has two children.
Like most people in my village, to get from one place to another, I walk if the distance is about eighteen to twenty kilometers (about eleven to twelve miles). Walking through the fields, it usually takes me two to three hours. It takes longer if I walk on the road. For longer distances, we hire a car or take a bus. In Jodhpur, if I have to go somewhere, I travel in an auto-rickshaw or I walk. Sometimes, I go on the hotel’s motorcycle when I have to buy vegetables or other things.
