They call it Longevity Hill because the old people who climb it day in and day out often live past a hundred.
One old man I say good morning to each day is bent over like an Egyptian riddle but he never fails to smile even if, in our journey down the hill and back, I lap him.
Those who live must come up, while those who die must come down (after coming up again once more to be paraded around by strapping young men for a final stroll).
At a funeral last weekend, held in an empty plot of land just beyond my building, all the old people of our village appear on the fringe, one by one, like mushrooms after a rainstorm. Arms clasped behind their backs, they calmly drink in what most cannot - impermanence and death. And that is why they never hurry up the hill.