Heleen and Tom and Chonge

Heleen (pronounced like Hel-ane) is originally from the Netherlands, but she left when she was young, and lived all over the world—her family first moved to Denmark, where she went to an international school and learned English, then to England, back to Holland briefly, Brazil, a couple other places I can’t remember…. Her father worked for a Dutch shipping company.

When she was eighteen she decided she wanted to go to college in the States (where she had never been), and sort of blindly applied to schools on the eastern seaboard. Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond accepted her, and it was affordable, so she went. Soon after, she met her husband Tom, who was in medical school in Richmond.

Later, she got a master’s degree in Public Health at Tulane, then followed Tom out to California, to Ventura, where he was doing his residency…. They eventually moved to Bishop, where he got a job, but nine years ago they left for Iowa for two years, where she got a nursing degree and Tom worked for the CDC; then they were off to Africa. They worked in South Sudan and Kenya, she for the World Health Organization, Tom for the CDC.  After five years, they came back to the states and both went to work at the hospital in Bishop.

They had a house in town, but when they came back they bought a house eight or nine miles to the west in Starlite, two thousand feet higher up, closer to the front range of the Sierras. Starlite is a gathering of sixty or so houses, built in the early 70s in a sagebrush bowl, next to a bouldery area popular with climbers and known as Buttermilk  Mt. Tom towers 14,000 feet just to the west, a peak on the high, crenellated wall of the Sierras. The views are pretty spectacular.

Yesterday evening I met Heleen back at the hospital, when she got off at 7:30. I drove her truck and followed her up the hill. Tom was working, and he would come later on his bike.

The heat was less oppressive up at the house, but the temperature was still in the 80s when we pulled up.  The house stood at the end of a cul-de-sac, a modest, though probably not modestly priced rambler, a big garage on one end, packed with bikes and camping gear and tools, three bedrooms and a small office on the other. In between, a large living room and dining room ran together, with floor to ceiling windows along the back wall, and a narrow kitchen to the left. The living room was cluttered, the coffee table covered with books and stacks of paper; one side of the room sported several dog beds and a wood-pellet stove; the walls were festooned rather haphazardly with art and photographs, several bookshelves were messy and full.

A back deck ran along the length of the house, with a jacuzzi perched at one end. A rectangle of grass bordered the deck, then a few small trees, some flowers, while beyond the grass was a stretch of pale sand, the unwatered portion of the yard, peppered with bird feeders. A large shed stood off to the right, an unoccupied stable in a far corner. Beyond a chainlink fence a sagebrush slope rose gently up to a rockpile hill a quarter mile distant.

When Tom arrived home I felt a little awkward, but he was welcoming and friendly (before she had offered to put me up, Heleen had called and checked with him). He was a tall man, probably mid-forties, fit, quite thin, with a gentle manner and a shaved head though only the sides and back needed such attention. His first task on arriving home was to attend to the dog, the third member of the family. He sprinkled big nuggets of dry food on the bottom of a large bowl, then pulled bags of chicken and salmon from the frig and layered the meat on top. Tom and Heleen are vegetarians, but, Tom said, “I don’t need to impose that choice on Chonge (the “e” is a hard vowel: chon-gay). The name means “fang” or “toothy” in Swahili, and refers to the dog’s early tendency to be bite-y. But he’s not like that now, they said.

The dog was a calm, superior creature, or seemed so to me. He accepted their affection but did not seek it out. And after a having a sniff of my hands and ankles, he did not bother further with me. He was medium-sized, gold-ish in color, with pointy ears and a tail that tended to curl up. He was a significant presence in the house and clearly an essential part of Tom and Heleen’s life. Heleen had found him in Kenya, when on a bike ride in the countryside, near a Masai village. He had appeared out of the bushes,  a small thing just five or six weeks old, sick and malnourished, with suppurating eyes, covered with lice and ticks. Heleen took him home and nursed him back to health, intending to find him a home but then they got attached.

After the dog ate, Heleen made a salad and heated up tamales for the people dinner. “A friend made these for us,” she said, and they were delicious.

In the morning early, before breakfast, I went on a walk with Heleen and the dog, a forty-five minute turn through the sagebrush, the dog dashing after jackrabbits, Helene talking and telling me about how the L.A. water authority owned most of the surrounding land which is why so little has been developed. I referenced Chinatown, and she said, yes, that’s about around here, the water part.

Later in the morning, we went on another walk. Heleen and Chonge and I drove up the road (Tom had to work), fifteen miles or so to where it ends at the Sabrina Basin trailhead (at about 9100’). Here there’s a reservoir and a big concrete pipe heads down the valley.

We set off up a trail on one side of the reservoir, climbing. The dog was off leash but Helene had fit him with a shock collar, and she carried a remote in her hand. “He’s fine with people,” she said, “but he can be a bit of a Napoleon with other dogs.” Apparently it depended on whether the other dog (or dogs; many hikers  travel with several) was male or female, fixed or not; size could be an issue too, as well as demeanor. “Not that I usually have to shock him,” she added. “There’s also a tone button, and at this point that’s usually enough to get his attention and bring him back.” She had tried the collar on herself before using it on the dog. The shock is similar to what one gets from a bit of static electricity: unpleasant but not excessively painful.

We hiked about four miles up to Blue Lake, passing several sweating backpackers on the trail, including four young people with REI rental packs; the three men were shirtless, as is often the preference of twenty-year-old males. Up at the lake we sat on a lovely granite shingle beside the water, and Chonge had a wade…. The day was hot again, up in the eighties, the sun bright and intense, and I had a bit of a wade myself…. We went on another mile or so to Donkey Lake—it was amazing the number of lakes that fit into this picturesque and rocky basin; it seemed as if one was right up against the mountains, but no, there was still significant room and depth. We sat on a large flat rock forty feet above the second  lake, in a small bay, and gazed down at trout swimming in the clear green water.

Sometimes when you’ve just met a person, it can be uncomfortable to spend a long stretch of time together, without the distraction of a movie or something like that; but I felt at ease with Heleen (and Tom too). She was talkative and interesting and smart and easy-going, telling about her work, her dog, her husband, the Sierras, and she listened to me tell stuff too….

We walked the five miles back without pause, down two thousand feet in elevation, thirsty and parched in the heat and sun…. At the house Heleen poured me several glasses of cranberry juice, and then I had a lovely shower….

Later in the evening, after Tom came home, we went down to town, through town and out to the small airport to a Thai restaurant, Thai Thai (there was some explanation for this odd location, but I didn’t really get it). Tom ordered spring rolls (which the menu called summer rolls), pad sieu (better than pad thai, Tom said), panang curry, and massamen curry (both with brown rice). The food was quite good, a rarity for small town Thai, in my experience. Afterwards the co-owner, a Thai woman in her late 50s, stopped by the table to chat. Tom and Heleen know her quite well, but she mostly maintained eye contact with me while we talked, though I had almost nothing to say. She had a small face, pale mahogany complexion, dark hair just flecked with gray, and tiny jowls beginning to form on either side of her face, and I thought do we have something going on here, the two of us? 

After dinner, out in the dark, we walked along one of the dis-used runways, a tradition with Tom and Heleen and Chonge, undertaken so the dog can chase the rabbits that proliferate around the airport.