India: Cake, boulders, a Fort, and tenderness

Several Skype conversations ago with my family, my mom said I hadn’t posted anything really negative on my blog, and asked if I had been sick at all.

Well, two evenings before, two teammates organized a Cake Party. We sat around two plates with nine samples of cake from our local bakery, and a block of butterscotch ice cream (a flavor Indian people LOVE—it is everywhere). We sampled using tiny plastic spoons, sitting on the floor in the A/C room. The ice cream was fantastic.

The next morning, I started the day off with nausea. I drank a TON of water, and the day after, started my first Real Diarrhea (It's over, finally. Liquid Pepto Bismol is one of my best friends). I’ve written off frosting.

So, yeah. Add stepping on two cockroaches, murdering a mouse with rat poison, being grabbed by beggars, and my experiences haven’t all been mangoes and honey.

On Friday, K., N. (our newest arrival, she’s a good friend of K.’s), and I took the bus to Kowdipally. I compare it to what I’ve heard about The Mousetrap ride at Lagoon, only instead of getting whiplash from side to side, it’s uP aNd DoWn. I was grateful we could sit down on a bench for the two hours it took to get there.

I’ve heard that the women from the particular tribe at Kowdipally dress spectacularly, with mirror pieces embroidered into their blouse pieces and in their hair. I haven’t seen their dress yet, but hope to in future visits.

We saw the CARPED land where Subhash wants me to put the .25 acre homestead. Picture a strip of land covered by boulders. Huge, metamorphic rocks and thorny trees. Well, we could install individual square feet of gardens, but finding 10,890 of them is slightly problematic.

So, Plan B: Subhash wants to bulldoze a 0.25 acre. Hopefully that will make it plant-able.

Saturday, C., Ka., and I went to see Golconda Fort. The original structure was built in the 13th century, and was later "added on to" by the Qutub Shahi kings in the 16th century. The place is HUGE, with a 10 km outer wall. Wikipedia has an entertaining write up. I was struck by the irony of how hotels and restaurants have metal detectors, and you'll even get padded down behind a curtain if you go to a food court, but there was no such pad down at the Fort.

A gentlemanly guide in his 50s showed us around. He called us each "Queen" and took us to various nooks and crannies of the fort. He was very fit, scampering all over. Twice I lost track of where he had gone as he frequently was ahead of us by several hundred yards.

But the most precious moment of the tour was near the end of the three hours, when I rounded a corner and noticed two tiny puppies curled up together, sleeping.

I have thought lately about how some people become so degraded they seem lower than animals, while animals can sometimes seem more human than their caretakers. I do not understand how a person can sell children into child labor or prostitution. I do not understand how one could permanently maim a child to make them a more effective beggar, and then starve them.

I don't understand. I've thought about the scriptural terms "past feeling," "without affection," and "they hate their own blood."

And then I see two puppies. Two puppies cuddled together so their heads overlapped. The one on the left had a large scratch on its right side. They had obviously had a rough time. They were looking out for each other. They were together.

They are my favorite moment. I named them Treasure and Love. When I get to Heaven, they are going to be waiting for me, and I will give them all the shoulder rubs and belly scritches they could ever ask for.