Today Shovan was telling me about his school “excursion” to the Chitwan National Park south of Kathmandu. I tried to envision the scene as his bus tumbled into the Terai jungle on the patchy provincial road. He says the Chitwan is famous as an Asian safari, and the word “safari” sent my mind off to a tangent on the Serengeti Plains in Easten Africa. “You mean like tigers and elephants?” I was way off. Shovan sternly set me straight that tigers are only in Asia, so Africa only has lions. I guess I haven’t watched “The Lion King” and “The Jungle Book” enough times to figure that out. I was also way off imagining the landscape. The Serengeti is a little sparse and arid, with a few desiccated shrubs here and there. A safari in Nepal is completely different, with dense jungles, running rivers, and perils shrouded on all sides.

In the open spaces of the Serengeti you can plainly see the prowling lions and the bolting zebras looking at you crossly from afar, but in the jungles you have to rely on your imagination for your sense of danger. The Terai is affectionately known as the “Malaria Belt” where the mosquitoes are a serious threat in the summer, along with land roaming leeches (my dear favorites) and leaping, poisonous tree snakes. I wonder what kind of release form Shovan had to get from his parents to go on that trip, and what was considered an acceptable casualty rate? He tells me that not too many kids got injured and my mind started popping out springs and gears. In America the schools are so risk averse that they would never go out on such an adventure with so much potential for accidents. Shovan explained that there isn’t really a system for suing like that in Nepal and it’s up to the kids to manage their own risks. Of course when you stick your hand in the river you may or may not get your arm torn off by an alligator, and an elephant may or may not swat you into a misshapen lump with its trunk. I guess it’s a good teaching tool after all.