Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Wednesday, May 27, 2009--Day 14



14 days without chocolate.



Words of Wisdom from Dr. Baji: A long belt means a short life.



We went to Dr. Baji's house and factory yesterday. His home is modest by our standards, especially by the standards of the doctors in Granger. We met his father, mother, wife, and two daughters. The adults wore Indian clothing while the daughters and Dr. Baji were in western-style dress. ( I have never seen an Indian woman in anything but a Sari. There have been one or two men besides Dr. Baji and Colonel Babu in western-style clothing. Even in the towns we have been through, everyone is dressed in traditional garb.) Dr.Baji's father is an Ayurveda toxicologist and is 80 years old. He used to teach primary school, but has been retired for 25 years. Very kind and friendly man. The women and children do not speak if there is company. We didn't go in the house, but Dr. Baji showed us his factory, his office, and many of the herbs, leaves of trees, and trees whose roots are used in Ayureda medicine. We smelled the leaves of several of his trees (broken open to allow the aroma out), including a cinnamon tree. We were served lemonade, dried rice, I think, and some other kind of rice, and coconut and sugarcane (and probably some other things) wrapped in a leaf and closed with something like a toothpick. You don't eat the leaf. It is for presentation. Figured it was okay to eat and drink since we were at the doctor's house. The food was very palatable as was the lemonade.

Dr. Baji's factory is quite a set-up. It takes up several small areas and two larger rooms. He has what looked like an autoclave, a pill-former, a container sealer, a mechanism which crushes the stuff to whatever size, a grinder to grind stuff down to whatever size, and humongous stone fireplace with huge cauldrons for boiling/simmering (vented to the outside)(He says boiling stuff down is far preferable to heating stuff at 600+ degrees like they do with our medicines.), a mechanism with the same idea as the apple cider maker at Amish Acres, and large room with tree bark, herbs, different kinds of salt and other things that are used in the medications. The factory is run by muscle power although the machines are much easier to use than in the olden days when you would have to use stone against stone to grind wheat or corn. Very interesting. He also has a huge well, very deep where he has fish for eating. They literally fish in it for the fish they want to eat. What an idea! A large part of his property has rare and not so rare medicinal plants/trees growing. Dr. Baji's father said to remember him always so we took a picture of all of us.



Today I saw a satellite dish. David says that he has seen others, but I haven't. This was not a rich house. Most of the people seem to have wells. If you don't, there are spigots here and there where you can draw water. I have seen men carrying buckets of water. Oh, and the noise I was hearing and told you it was the women using a bunch of reeds or whatever to beat on the clothing to get it clean. They also sling the piece of clothing from over their shoulders onto a rock probably for the same purpose. What a great way to get out your anger!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Somehow, I don't think the women of America are going to go for that method of anger management.

There is now sewer locally that I know of. The ground soaks up water pretty fast.