For two years Monica Connell lived as a paying guest of Kalchu and Chola in the Nepalese Himalayan village of Talphi, ten days walk from the nearest road. This book poetically captures the immediacy of Connell's experience, and her empathy and sense of wonder at the dramas of village life - a boar hunt in winter, the wedding of a young neighbour and the magic of the full-moon festival when the gods descend to dance amongst the villagers.