Where oh where

After a year doing my best to drill the infamous "5 W's" into the heads of attention deficit children (due only to attention determined parents) I am finding myself in the midst of an eternal questioning of where.
I am now sympathetic, especially, to a slightly thick headed chubby kid called Tom, whose main educational deficit was not a lack of smarts but a lack of cool which led him to things like talking smack in Korean and throwing things at teacher in an attempt to fight his own naturally sponge like mind. In any case, despite my constant remindings in both English and Korean, Tom always confused "where" with "why" or "who". I am now seeing that it's all one in the same, really, though you don't much want to ask "Who are you going?", especially to a stranger.
"Where?" seems to be the most popular question posed here in Nepal.
Where are you going? ~friendly banter--much like saying hello.
Where are you from? ~meant to guide you into a conversation during which you will be invited for tea, into a shop, or for a variety of other things. My standard answer has become "On top of California."
Where are you staying? ~meant either to create friendly conversation between two foreigners to pass the time and compare hotel rates and hot showers, or, to set up a date later in order to meet for some act more discreet than sidewalk chat.
Where have you been in Nepal? ~meant, it seems, to test out your Nepalese street cred and/or to see how much you might pay for a yak wool shawl, given prices in various places vary with popularity of the place and the item.

So I have learned the word "where" very well in Nepali.

But it has struck me many times over breakfast, or waking from dreaming at 2am that *where* is really of no consequence and it is much more *who* that is important.
I am not returning to a Portland where *where* matters. It is a beautiful city, of course, but it is the who that makes me excited to return.
I am not visiting a *where* in Korea but remnants of the *who* I knew when I lived there.
I will not visit the places where the extraordinary people I have met over the last year live, but the who that lives there.

The two are linked though, and in some way the places where you have been make you who you are, and can say something pretty powerful about you.

For example, the other day I went to a particular cafe to eat some chocolate monstrosity which I later regretted, recommended by an Argentinian man who works for the parahawking company in Pokhara. The only reason I was interested in the dessert at all was because of the way he talked about it and the slight accent mixed with a day's excitement about flying with vultures made the chocolate sound especially interesting. On the way, I met a Nepali man who runs a jewelery shop. In 5 minutes I learned where he was from (Kashmir), where his girlfriend was from (Colorado), where he had traveled (Australia, England, Canada, California) and where he will live when he and his girlfriend get married one, maybe two years from now which is less important than the where they will be. But for now, he has to be in Nepal for the family and the family business. Once he finished listing off places he had been, we had little to talk about and were able to move on, but it was incredibly important for him to tell us at the time. And so, I think of him as perhaps slightly hungry for conversation but also much the same as myself, or how I will be when I get back to Portland.
Home for the who moreso than the where or what that is there.