Remember how I said on this particular street corner of Kathmandu there was “never a dull moment”?
Plot twist: there was now indeed a dull moment.
One that felt dense, yet vulnerable.
(If you missed Part 1 of this story… it’s HERE.)
What had been a curious, synergetic dance of divine timing just seconds before, had quickly detoured into something far more tender.
The evening chaos was still humming with squeaky rickshaw wheels and impatient taxi horns, but between Karina and I, the playful energy had all but sputtered.
She took a deep, yoga-trained breath… in through her nose, out through her mouth.
“Whew… Sorry, Adrian. I guess I didn’t realize the impact this has had on me.”
“No need to apologize,” I said. “Is it something you feel comfortable talking about?”
“I think so. Maybe it’s best for me to share it with someone else… help to energetically move it through my body.”
Karina looked at me sternly for a split second — a subtle hint that she was entrusting me with something difficult…
Then she began.
The first American she’d ever met was actually only eight days earlier.
She’d made the journey from Australia to Nepal to participate in a seven-day, spiritually focused silent retreat — one of the reasons her grounded, calm & collected energy had been so easy to detect.
For a week, a group of twenty women from all over the world had come to Kathmandu to sit in shared, collective silence.
No phones.
No conversations.
No distractions.
As Karina went on to explain, the retreat had wrapped up just the morning before. And the moment it did, one of the participants went sprinting towards the lockers where all their personal belongings had been stored.
“Keep in mind,” Karina reminded me, “we’d been in complete, purified silence for seven days straight.”
Many of the women were whispering softly, sharing their experiences with one another when — suddenly, out of nowhere — the American who’d rushed to retrieve her phone began screaming at the top of her lungs.
“Oh my God, Adrian. I have to tell you, the shrill was a piercing shockwave to all our central nervous systems. We had no idea what had happened, but whatever it was, it wasn’t good.”
Karina and a handful of the women rushed over to console the screamer.
“As we all hugged on her, she just sobbed and repeated, ‘This is why, this is why…’”
Come to find out, the American woman was on a healing sabbatical after being terminated from the job she’d held for fourteen years.
After her company’s awards ceremony just a few months earlier, the newly appointed CFO had offered to walk this woman to her car.
Once they stepped out from the elevator into the parking garage, the evening’s cocktails had somehow convinced this CFO that the woman was ready and willing for more.
She wasn’t.
And with his hands and mouth, he sexually assaulted her.
Right there.
She’d gone to the police and HR within days.
And — surprise, surprise — the case was dismissed.
Not long after, her position was eliminated.
Meanwhile, the CFO kept his.
“This is why, this is why women don’t say anything,” Karina said she kept repeating.
After seven days of what was meant to bring some semblance of healing, the first thing on this woman’s mind… and what she’d gone sprinting towards?
The results from the presidential election.
She just had to know:
Did the same kind of man who sexually assaulted her — and who walked away scot-free — just get re-elected to the most powerful position on the planet?
The scream after her silence said yes.
Karina’s eyes were misty by the end of the story.
As she dabbed at them, I could feel the rage inside me swell.
She graciously thanked me for listening, and I was quick to return the favor for her willingness to share.
On cue, Samuel and one of his buddies swooped in on a motorbike.
“So sorry I’m late, dai (brother). Please, hop on.”
“These are my Nepali friends I was telling you about,” I said to Karina.
She and I quickly exchanged phone numbers and a much-needed hug.
Moments later, I’m third-man deep on the back of a motorbike — whizzing and weaving through the overcrowded backstreets of Thamel — while also trying to compartmentalize everything I’d just been told.
Her having just shared such an emotionally revealing experience, I felt guilty for leaving Karina behind.
However, she and I did end up connecting for a friendly beer two days later, before she flew back home to Sydney.
And today, as we watch these Epstein files get chopped up, redacted, and spun into oblivion — I’m constantly reminded of that same rage I felt standing beside Karina in Kathmandu… and how it always seems to circle back to the same kind of character:
Powerful men, who prey on women.
Because they know… they’re the ones who end up being believed and protected.
God bless this motherfuckin’ mess.
With Gusto,
Adrian
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