Monday, June 1, 2009

Monday, June 1, 2009--Day 19

Today I did go for a walk--only 35 minutes, but going for a walk and seeing new things is the exciting part. Everyday is pretty much the same here except on Sunday when thre is no yoga and Colonel Babu and Dr. Baji are just here for a short time. Boring!!!

Kirish went to see his family yesterday--an hour and a half away. He was just like a kid-antxy-until the time to go came. He was back early enough to present us with our medicine at 6:30 this morning. He went by bus. There are lots of buses Greyhound size. There are no windows in the buses. Driving here is akin to kamikaze driving. I would say bumper cars, but I have yet to see an accident. There is a lot of horn-honking, but it is merely to let the pedestrians or other vehicles know where you are. Going around a curve or coming up to a thoroughfare, it is always good to honk your horn before proceeding. The buses don't bully anymore than in the States, mostly because they are slower getting started after a bus stop. That's the time when everyone tries to pass them. But there are so many!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! When I am walking, the vehicle, whether bicycle, tricycle, truck, or bus, always let me know. Like England, they drive on the other side of the street. I've about decided to continue walking on the side I normally do and just stop and wait for the vehicle because a tricycle came as close as he could to me before going around me. When people are getting out of tricycles, it seems to be on the fly if you are a man.

Haven't seen them do that with women or children though.

There are government hospitals here and private hospitals. An American ALWAYS wants to go to a private hospital. In the paper this morning it said that 15 of the government hospitals here were going to be equipped with some version of a powered washing machine. They have been relying on women to hand launder the sheets. If it's like here, the sheets don't always get dry enough to put back on the beds. So the other part of the program is to have 5 sheets per hospital bed. We have never been sheetless here, but sometimes our clothing doesn't get dry enough in one day to give back to us.

Dinner last night was a little sparse (sp). No tomatoes or cucumbers (none for lunch today either). So I had a dry chipotle, a few spoonfuls of soup, and the equivalent of an apple. My stomach still does not settle well with most of the vegetables they give me. I am looking forward to fixing my own food. (If I could only have bananas like Amelia.)

The neighbor family apparently comes over early in the morning and picks up mangoes that have dropped on the ground. Apparently it's okay. The baby must be feeling better as no crying today. BTW children sleep in the parents' room until they are 12 years old. All I've got to say is that some of those bedrooms must be awfully crowded as some families seem to have had babies about every year.

Found out today that Kathy's husband works in the rice fields. It sounds like a lot of the men around here do that although they don't own the land they farm.

Hopefully I'll talk with you tomorrow. I did make a list, but, of course, it is in my room. Still, it's helpful. I don't know if I have enough material for 9 more days.

Take care.

Love,

Mom/Peggy/Granny, et al