[ Pokhara ]

As my departure from Nepal approaches, and Africa looms, the hourglass of my first half-decade in the Himalaya is releasing its final grains of sand. With only eleven days until I leave Pokhara, and one more before I’m sitting in a metal tube en route to Houston, a permanent, low-grade sense of panic has set in. There’s just too much to get done before heading out—not to return for two-and-a-half years, if all goes well. (I don’t say “goes according to plan” because, well, fat chance of that.)

Part of this final mad rush? Sifting through a large backlog of unposted photographs from Pokhara and sharing them with you. Unlike most of my photo-posts this set has no supporting narrative—it provides a kaleidoscopic sense of my life in Lakeside throughout 2017.

The main feature of this year’s stay has been preparing for Africa, rather than exploration or boundary-expansion. Nepal was neither destination nor motivation this year, but merely home. I’m left with mixed feelings about this: the sense of integration is reassuring, the lack of titillation mildly alarming. Ultimately, though, that’s why I came here: to make a life and a home. Done and done.

These images, then, are a simple reflection of that—a pictorial mobile of the friends and family, faces and places composing my daily existence. Welcome to my life, Swagatam & Namaste—make yourself at home.

—jim

A Kaleidoscope of Pokhara, Lakeside