AROUND THE WORLD IN 11 YEARS   
PUSHKAR'S DIARY Substituting Subsitute lunch, subsitute dinner, subsitute donation I planned to visit Angola from Namibia but the Angolan embassy refused my visa. They said I had to return to my own country to get it. I don't know when they'll set up an Angolan embassy in Nepal for me to apply for a visa. Namibia, with only 1.8 million people, is one of the least populated countries in the world. Two people live within a distance of one square km. The country is six times as large as Nepal. After my tour of Namibia, I returned to South Africa to join a cycle race in Cape Town. Cape Town's cycle race is the biggest bike race in the world. It took place on 12 March with 38,300 cyclists participating! I was the only one representing Nepal. I rode with my fully loaded bike. It was fun, the race felt bigger than Tour de France. The Angola consulate in Cape Town refused my visa too so I planned to go to Botswana. Meantime, I heard that the Nepali national cricket team was visiting Namibia. I'm not a cricket fan but I wanted to meet and watch them play. So I caught the bus from Cape Town to Windhoek, Namibia. It wasn't that easy trying to find them in Windhoek. Finally, I learnt they were staying at the Kalahari Sand Hotel, Windhoek's five star hotel. I couldn't see them because they were tired and jet-lagged. I wasn't tired by the 20-hour bus ride but I decided to return later. I went to the hotel the next day and called Shakti Gauchan. Within minutes, Shakti, Basanta and Gyanendra came to see me. I knew many of them by name. They took me to their room where I met the other players. They were as excited to meet me in Africa as I was to meet them. We had dinner together. Dhirendra was ill, he skipped the meal so I took his place as substitute dinner-eater. I went to watch their first match at the stadium on my bike. The players were waiting to enter the field. It was cloudy as it had rained the night before. I met the cricketers and we chatted for awhile. Five minutes later, two players asked me to come out and then talked about my bike. An awkward silence later, they said, "You can't sit in the player's box, our manager sent us to tell you that." I had never been to a player's box so I didn't know and I didn't mind them telling me so. I had come 1,500km to cheer them as audience and supporter, as the only Nepali there. The field was still not ready so the team said they would play after lunch. I fed tidbits to ants with the kids there as the cricketers entered a restaurant. I was thinking of having satu (cooked wheat flour) for lunch when a Nepali cricketer came and asked me to join them. "I'm ok, I have lunch with me," I said. "They want you to come," he said. "Who?" I asked puzzled. "Management." So I followed him to the restaurant. Everybody had finished lunch but there was some leftover for me. I was lucky to be eating the national cricket team's leftover food. Of course, it was better than my Satu. If you have the national players' food, you grow strong, or do you? They didn't get to play until five, so they said they would play tomorrow. I didn't get a chance to wave my Nepal flag. I said "Namaste" to the manager in farewell and he gave me a hundred dollars. "Maybe, this too is a substitute," I thought. I will ride a couple of hundred kilometres in the Nepali cricket team's name. Saikale, Pushkar in Windhoek, Namibia source- wavemagezine