mostly harmless

after leaving vellore, i spent a week on havelock island, part of the andamans in the bay of bengal. i enjoyed one glorious day of snorkeling before the monsoon rains recommenced (if any harvey cousins are reading this, that is with a heavily rolled r!) el and i only made it off the island by some small miracle. from there i flew to delhi and spent a couple of days seeing old things: mosques and palaces, forts and tombs. oh so many tombs and eternally burning flames! then i went to agra but decided not to visit the taj. fine fine i did. but it cost 750 rupees for foreigners and only 20 for indians. i am glad that indians are being encouraged to see their history, but i almost didn't go in protest. then i thought it would be a shame to die with an easily preventable regret so i went to this white marble wonder. i couldn't help but hope my husband will do something comparable for me after i die birthing his 14th child. my next stop was bharatpur where i visited a bird sanctuary. i walked around aimlessly, trying to look knowledgeable without book or binoculars. finally i hired a naturalist who, though we couldn't understand each other, showed me countless beautiful birds that i would have otherwise missed. mostly i think i had just forgotten to look up.
my next stop was jaipur. again, i visited forts and palaces and probably couldn't tell you the difference between these and the ones in delhi. though, rajasthan is uniquely beautiful and unlike other parts of india that i've seen. jaipur is a city built on a series of hills that emerge out of miles and miles of desert. last night when i arrived i walked around a little shantytown at sunset (head wrapped to incur as little notice as possible). camels were tied to trees like dogs, cyclists were refilling their tires, women were brushing out their waist-long hair, but overwhelmingly people--mostly children--were picking through piles of trash. rag picking is a major pastime and means of making money here. if you have been/come to india, you will be totally undone by the children: watching them wade through garbage and tenaciously beg for food. i can't help but think of my own childhood in such stark contrast...i was never asked to produce income or raise my siblings or forgo school. life isn't fair. (speaking of life's injustices...i've been seriously pondering which is worse: to live in a cast or in the caste system. i was wondering if peter could weigh in on this.)
mostly the last week has made me acutely aware that while i like perusing art galleries, buying local handicrafts, eating new food and meeting new people, i detest whirlwind sightseeing. today someone asked me if i had "done delhi." how can we so quickly dismiss a whole city? it is the very nature of this slapdash touring: take a picture, check, check, check and done. run home and write about it in your blog. in fact, with each empty stone monument i've seen (sorry history buffs!) i've missed nairobi (and lynnie!) more and more and wonder why i didn't just stay there. i'm afraid i left my heart in kenya and i will be back there soon no doubt (but don't worry christmas committee; i'll be home first.)

gaming in the rain



delhi: humayun's tomb


my first glimpse

one for posterity

golly that's artsy


stone cutter

this is really not good form in india (or anywhere)




at the bird sanctuary. why did these weaver bird's nests evoke a nostalgia for childhood. mom, sibs..did we have a weaver bird when i was little...or a book about it?


jaipur: amber fort

"walkin' the same line through every single southern town"

for the last week i have been in vellore, india. lonely planet says that it holds "little to detain travellers" but it does boast one of the best research hospitals in the country. i have spent a few hours each day at sisters of charity, where a group of nuns cares for about 40 handicapped girls who have been abandoned. it was a new experience for me to work with kids who can't feed or bathe themselves or go to the bathroom alone. the sisters asked hopefully if i was a dr. when i showed up one morning. unfortunately all i was good for was baths and art projects, but by the second or third day the kids would yell "auntie, color!!" when they saw me coming. besides that, i've mostly been relaxing and enjoying the friendlier and slightly slower pace of small-southern-town life. elliott and i hiked a nearby hill station one day, which was a welcome respite from noise, dust and public transportation.
this weekend i travelled down to mamallapurum and pondicherry for a few days to get a taste of the south. i spent most of my time off-roading on buses--wind battered, claustrophobic, thrown up on-- oh and on one bus, there men with guns escorting some handcuffed criminals. the cities themselves were less exciting than the journey--as i have found is often the case. there were monuments and beaches and remnants of colonialism, and i did see my frist dead person. elliott sort of summed it up though when he said, "if you turn 360 anywhere in india you will see something--human, dog, cow--pooping."
hiking in vellore

the sisters didn't allow any pictures of the children.