I was beaten!

Those that know me, know that I love love love the spa.
Is there anything better than a day at the spa?

The state of Kerala is well known for their ayurvedic therapies. Ayurveda is an ancient Indian system of healthcare that roughly translates to "knowledge of life." Since I was in the home of ayurveda I figured I might as well give it a try. Besides , an 80 minute massage for $12 couldn't be a bad idea.

I recruited Lana and Sumona to experience the "magic" of Ayurveda with me. So off the three of us go, excited about our massages after a long trip. Doo dee doo dee do.

We get to the place and we are each led into our own private rooms. The room consists of a massage table with a black vinyl covering, no sheets. My masseuse looks like she can't be more than 17...hmmm. It turns out that she is a few years older. I also find out that she had to go to school for two years to get certified. This is somewhat reassuring.

First she instructs me to take off all of my clothing. I tried to leave my underwear on but she insisted that I remove all clothing. In return she gives me this small white cotton strip of material about 4 inches in width and 2 feet long with a string at the end (see the white thing on the table--I will post a pic soon). This becomes my new "panty."

Next she tells me to lie down on the cold vinyl. I do so, trying not to think too hard about the hygiene questions running through my mind (I later on found out that they do disinfect everything). I am a little cold but still excited about my massage.

(to be continued)

Safe and sound on US soil

I am back! Safe, sound and in one piece! I thank God for his travelling mercies! I still have a whole bunch of blog posts in my head about my trip. I will write as soon as I get a chance. Stay tuned to read about: my aruvedic massage when I was beaten; my spa day for less than US $10; the ignorant americans throwing blows; my gourmet dinner; the professor; my ride in a "ferrari"; and many more fun tales.

Happy Pongal!

I am told that there is a festival in some part of India for every single day of the year. This was particularly evident and annoying after we left Madurai and arrived at our hotel in Cochin at 4:30am only to be greeted by non-stop fireworks for the next 8 hours as we tried to sleep. For the record, I hate fireworks! I digress. The reason why I am writing this post is because of Pongal, a festival celebrated in Tamil Nadu (the state Madurai is in).

Pongal is the rough equivalent of our Thanksgiving. It is a harvest festival. It is a way of celebrating the sun god. During Pongal they make a dessert called pongal made with sugar, butter, rice and coconut. It is a bit like a coconut rice pudding. On the morning of Pongal the women decorate their doorsteps with these beautiful chalk designs called rangoli.

Pongal is actually a multi-day festival but the eye hospital was only closed for one day. On that day we celebrated Pongal with Ted and “his kids.” Ted is an American, born to missionary parents who spent part of his childhood in Indian. As an adult he returned to Indian and started this program called S.E.E.D. (which stands for something, I can’t remember what) that supports children from the slums and allows them to go to college.

We went to some village outside of Madurai where the kids made a fire and cooked pongal. They served the pongal to us on banana leaves. We played games and ate lots of sugar cane…yum!

*I will post pictures later. It takes forever to upload from these internet cafes. Boy do I miss high speed internet!!! I never thought I would say this but I actually miss Comcast!

Traffic jam

In the USA sometimes traffic jams occur because of accidents. In India sometimes they occur because of elephants!

This elephant was blocking the road.

What do I have to do to get some C-A-K-E?!!!!!!!!

First pic: The non-cake, cake shop
Second pic: Me enjoying a non-cake dessert

My first experience with Indian cake was at this bakery/corner store. There were these beautifully decorated and iced cakes. For a mere 8 rupees (about 20 cents) I thought it was a great deal…sigh. I took one bite and quickly discovered that what I had mistaken for cake was actually a beautifully iced, rock hard…something or other! I threw it away immediately (and I never throw away food). After seeing my face (and obvious discontent) Zubin says, “Oh I should have warned you about cake in India.” Thanks Zubin.

My second attempt with cake in India was at this Americanized café. They had apple pie, milkshakes, hamburgers and stuff like that. Again, they had this cake in their display cabinet that looked pretty good (when will I learn!). This cake was a bit pricier (almost a whole dollar) so I decided to give it a try. This cake was not as bad as the first but it was still barely edible, dry and flavorless. Naomi said it was the best cake she had ever tasted in India…scary!

My third and finally attempt to get some cake in this cake-less land (I don’t give up easily) happened when we were out and I saw the sign in the picture above. I can’t tell you how excited I was to see this sign only to find out that they did not have any cake. Arruuuuuu?!!

I give up. I will wait until I get on good old US soil to get some cake. There are a couple foods that I will eat on the day I land. First I will get some salad. I long for fresh veggies but I can’t eat uncooked veggies here for fear of getting hepatitis A or typhoid or some crazy tropical disease that no American doctors will no how to treat. After I land I will probably go straight to the Cheesecake factory to get one of their massive salads. Secondly, I will get some cake! I will eat cake!

Then I am taking my butt to the gym! Sigh.

Fat and happy

"Amma" and Devi make poori (Puffy indian bread) for breakfast

Our host family, the Mahandoss’ totally spoiled us. They treated us just like family. Being with them reminded me of the days when I would visit my grandmother and she would make all of my favorite foods.

Regardless of what time we had to leave in the morning Mrs Mahandoss (affectionately referred to as “Amma”- mama in Tamil) and Devi (the young lady who worked for the family) would wake up early and make us these elaborate Indian breakfasts that were soooooooo good. In the evening they would again make a fantastic feast. On our last day, Andrew their son, made the most delicious Chinese stir-fry chicken. I am salivating thinking about it. All of the food was so good that I could not help but eat more than I should. It didn’t help that Amma kept encouraging us to eat more! I must admit that I gained a few pounds last week I am ok with that because I was happy!

I tried to learn how to make some of the dishes but soon came to the conclusion that Indian cooking involves waaay too many steps! Everything was fresh, the breads, the condiments...everything! I did get the recipe to make coconut rice, which seemed doable. We shall see how it turns out!

More importantly, I was able to convince Amma and Devi to move in with me in Boston. The deal was I would keep Amma company and in turn the two of them would cook. I haven’t figured out how we will all fit into my small one bedroom apartment…yet.

More Bathroom fun in Madurai

I had very limited access while in Madurai and was unable to blog but I had a fantastic time! Our host family was so warm, welcoming and wonderful and Aravind Eye Hospital was absolutely inspirational! However, I would be remiss if I did not write about the bathroom situation.

I should have taken pictures but now I am in Madurai and it is too late so you will just have to use your imagination. After finally adjusting to the whole “muslim shower” concept I had to get used to a whole new bathroom paradigm. I will call this the “All-In-One” bathroom. Actually, the bathroom at our current hotel is pretty much the same so I will take pictures of that and you will get the idea.

The reason why I call it “all in one” is because it was a room with both a toilet and a showerhead. This means that if someone was in the shower I could not use the toilet. This also meant that if I needed to use the toilet after someone had taken a shower both the toilet seat and the floor would be wet. Instead of a hose near the toilet seat there was a bucket with a faucet nearby, and of course…no toilet paper. Fortunately I had taken a roll from our previous hotel. I ended up having to go into about five stores before I finally found one that sold toilet paper. Even then they had to look for it somewhere in the back of their storeroom!

There were a few other “special” things about our bathroom. While you could get hot water to come out of the faucet, only cold water came out of the showerhead. This means that I could choose between taking a cold shower or a warm basin bath or some combination of the two. Actually bathing was not so bad. One thing that did gross me out was realizing that the sink that was outside of the “All-in-one” bathroom drained into the “All-in-one” bathroom. This meant that if one of my roommates was brushing her teeth while I was in the shower, her spit and toothpaste water drained into my shower. Ewwww!

Leaving on that midnight train to…Madurai

Last night we took an overnight train from Trivandrum in Kerala to Madurai in Tamil Nadu ( a different state). Our train left Trivandrum at 8:20p.m and arrived in Madurai at 5:30 a.m. After my first, very plush experience on an Indian train from Agra to Delhi I had high expectations. To say that the train to Madurai was less than plush would be an understatement!

Our train adventure started the moment the taxi dropped us off at the train station. The moment after we got our suitcases out of the car, these men descended on us insisting on helping us carry our luggage. I basically had to wrestle my suitcase away from this one guy. To make things worse we had no idea what track our train was leaving from. Again to say that the train station wasn’t very user friendly would be an understatement! After some investigation Naomi discovered that the track had not been announced.

The significance of knowing the track number was that it would determine whether or not we had to haul all of our luggage up and down a bunch of stairs (handicap accessibility has not really caught on in India) and whether we needed to hire some guys to help us. Fortunately for us two of the guys, Tumge and Chiranjeev, from the Sree Chitra public health school had come to the train station to say goodbye to us. They appeared just as we were trying to figure out what to do. Instead of hiring the guys that were trying to exhort us, Tumge and Chiranjeev helped us carry our bags.

Once our train track had been announced and we managed to get all our luggage to the right track we had to figure out where we were supposed to board the train for first class…it was a very long platform. At this point a sign would have been really helpful but I guess that was asking for too much…sigh. We tried asking other people waiting for the train but each person gave us a totally different answer...sigh. When the train finally arrived we had to run a little bit to get to the correct car but we eventually made it before the train took off.

The train itself looked like it was from the 1970’s…we were in a sleeper car with four beds, two bunk beds and two on the bottom. The beds were made out of this scary looking blue plastic that was very dirty. I used a few wet wipes to clean my bed off, all of them came back totally black…and the bed still looked dirty. Sigh. I ended up putting some cloth down before sitting on it.

There was no a/c on the train but that was ok because the fans were sufficient. Actually in the middle of the night it was freezing! I am glad I had a little blanket with me!
We also ended up having this random guy join us and sleep on the fourth bed in our car. That was a bit scary. He did not speak any English and fortunately was quite harmless. Thankfully when we got off the train at 5am Naomi's host parents were waiting for us!

The halfway mark

Yesterday marked the halfway mark of my trip. I had thirteen days behind me and thirteen days ahead. So far I have survived a cold, some gastrointestinal issues, 24 hours a day for 13 days with women who started off as strangers and have become friends without one major blow up! I have witnessed a few breakdowns Sabrina, Lana, Sumona ( I will spare the details). I have been home sick, experienced trip fatigue. I have eaten…a lot! We have visited historic and modern day monuments. Through it all God has kept me and protected me and I am forever grateful to Him. Here is to the next 12 days… I hope the second half is just as good if not better!

Please keep me in your prayers, you are in mine!

The inevitable break up of a girl group

History teaches us that no good girl group lasts forever…The Supremes, Envogue, Destiny’s child…and now the Three Musketeers. I started this trip with Lana and Sabrina now they have gone off to their field experiences with Zubin and Diya. Naomi, Sumona and I will be in Madurai for the next week at the Aravind Eye Hospital.

Aravind is a very innovative eye hospital that provides eye care to thousands of people every year who otherwise could not afford it. Their model is so impressive that it was written up by the Harvard Business School as well as some international health journals.

It was a little hard to say goodbye to the others yesterday (even though we will be together in a week). I guess they all grew on me. I have to say that together we laughed and laughed probably more than I ever have. Between making fun of Zubin (which provides countless hours of entertainment) or watching Sabrina argue with Zubin or Diya’s priceless side comments…it is just pure comedy!!!!

The other downside of the “break up” is that I have been using Sabrina’s flash drive to transfer pictures to my blog so for the next week you guys will just have to use your imaginations.

Basic instincts: Lana and her new friend

For the entire trip the other two musketeers have been making fun of my "maternal instincts" just because I bonded with the cute kids we came across. I have to admit that I was a bit worried about Lana's mommy instincts when she turned around and yelled at this beggar child "GO AWAY BEFORE I SLAP YOU." LOL! BWAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

To be completely fair the kid did follow and harrass us for about 15 minutes and it seemed like he was never going to stop.

Anyway Lana redeemed her image last night when she made friends with the cutest two-and-a-half year old kid at our function last night. He was so adorable and so friendly. He talked a lot!! He also did not seem to care that we had no idea what he was saying (he wasn't speaking English). When I pulled out the camera that boy started posing (after he realized that I wouldn't let him play with the camera). He was such a ham and cute to boot!

I think I need a puppy.

Drugs are good...

Since I have been in India I have had the opportunity to experiment with some drugs....

Ok ok ok, it is not what you think. In order to avoid getting some exotic tropical disease like Chickengunya (a new mosquito borne disease) I have been vaccinated and drugged. One of the malaria prophylaxis drugs I have to take for nine weeks (1 week before and 4 weeks after the trip) is called mefloquine. It is a pretty benign drug except that it has a few minor side effects. It has some psychotropic properties and one of the side effects is “strange dreams or nightmares.”

Usually I never have dreams (or if I do have them I never remember having them). However, since I started taking mefloquine I have been having the most vivid fascinating dreams. Sleep is even more fun than before (that is saying a lot coming from me!)

I can see why people might like some of these mind altering drugs. Don’t worry I am not addicted nor will my malaria prophylaxis medicine become a “gateway drug” LOL!

An transportation revolution

Yesterday an Indian car company, Tata, launched the world's cheapest car. At $2500 (US dollars) the four seater "Nano" is less than twice the cost of it's nearest competitors. It has been dubbed "the people's car." This car could change the face of transportation in devleoping countries all over the world.

The release of this car has been covered by newspapers all over the world, including the New York Times. They have likened it to Henry Ford's contirbution to the car world.

Critics complain that this will worsen the smog and pollution problems that already exist in India.

It is interesting to see history in the making.

"Anti-virus software for your hardware" The condom factory

"Anti-virus software for your hardware." That was one of the ad-campaigns for the condom factory that we visited. LOL!

At first I was resistant to the idea of visiting a condom factory but it turned out to be a lot of fun! The guy giving us the presentation spoke at about 100 words a minute. I am pretty sure he was speaking English but I can't say that I understood a word he said. Here are some of the things I learned about the company, Hindustan Latex and condoms in general (from his powerpoint presentation):

1. Hindustan was started in 1966


2. In addition to condoms they also make IUD's (itrauterine devices), oral contraceptives, female condoms (their line is called "confidom"), x-ray machines, blood bags and typhoid vaccine. (how random)


3. Not only do they make your standard, white latex condom, they also offer strawberry, jasmine, musk, or banana flavored, glow-in-the-dark and condoms withvibrating rings. Hmm...


4. They have 65% of market share in India for condoms and 60% for blood bags. Hmmm


5. They make over 1.066 billion condoms a year


6. The word condom comes from the latin word "condos" meaning receptacle.


7. The molecular weight of latex is 68.12 g/mol


8. Latex is made from a dispersion of rubber particles, the compund is called (cis-1,4, polyisoprene) Betcha didn't know that!
9. Only 30% of condoms is rubber
10. They use A LOT of ammonia to make condoms. Enough to make you feel a little faint
11. Condom factories are hot! (no pun intended)
12. They have pretty risque condom packaging!!
13. 20% of Hindustans business comes from the government of Brazil (I am not surprised)

Overall it was a lot of fun and in case you are wondering, no they did not give us any samples!

The pictures show different condom packaging. The last picture shows this assembly line where these women put condoms, on these metal things to get them ready for packagaing. They put use only one hand to put each condom on and they put condoms on two at a time (does that make sense?) Anyway these ladies are fast! They take less than one second to put each condom on (I guess we all have special gifts and talents)! It reminded me of the Laverne and Shirley opening credits except it was condoms!

Lifestyles of the rich and not-so famous: The Leela Hotel

While we were on the beach we spotted this gorgeous resort overlooking the ocean that looked like it would be a great place to have drinks and watch the sunset go down. That is how we found the The Leela hotel.

The Leela made our hotel look like the projects. Talk about a luxury resort. The rates for a standard room start at $600 (US dollars). This was a different kind of living. The only reason why we were able to afford to have drinks there is because it only ended up costing around $5 (which was more than twice the cost of our most expensive meal in this area).

I would love to be able to stay at a place like this someday...wait a minute...I am supposed to be embracing the simple life...eschewing materialism...hmm...I might need to make another trip to the temple. LOL!

My camera battery was dead at that point but if you want to see more pictures of the place go to:

http://www.theleela.com/hotel-kovalam-photo-gallery.html

Not sure what it is…but it’s good

My eating experience in India usually goes something like this:

Me: Oh, this is good. What is it?
Some Indian person: That is jbagfahdiugjk!@#kjoa
Me: Oh ok (that explains nothing) So what is in it?
SIP: They use kjseaifedin!@$$^ to make it. I am not sure of the English word.
Me: Umm…ok. Thanks for explaining that. LOL! (Since it tastes good I just keep on eating).

Here are some pictures from a restaurant where this happened. ROFL! BWAAAAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Red bananas at the beach and an old taxi

Me, on the beach eating a red banana.

A picture of the taxi that drove us to the beach that looks like it is straight out of the 1970's. Things started to get interesting when it almost did not make it up the hill...

Sometimes you gotta drink the water

On our second night in Trivandrum (city), Kerala (state) we were treated to the loveliest dinner. The faculty, Indian MPH and DPH (diploma in public health) students were also invited. The dinner was at the top of a very nice hotel. On one level they had a rooftop pool and on the level below they had an open thatched roof room with beautiful views of the city.

I had my beautiful new salwar kameez on and life was good, that is until I started choking…ha ha. Ok so it wasn’t funny at the time but it is funny in retrospect. Evidently some food went down my windpipe and I wasn’t able to cough it up. That is when I had to choose between drinking “the water” or choking to death. It wasn’t a hard choice to make.

Thankfully my new friend Ujjwala came to my assistance, she brought me more water, rubbed my back and made sure I was ok. In the meantime my American Red Cross CPR certified classmates were too busy eating to notice my near life/death experience…ok perhaps I am being “a little” dramatic but it was still a bit scary and I am glad I am ok.

All is well that ends well. Overall it was still a pretty fabulous night.

Our new digs

We are doing like the Jeffersons and “moving on up.” Our new hotel, The Ruby Arena, is even nicer than the last one. Better yet, it cheaper too!

Lana is my roommate.

The inevitable. Why I have time to blog today

I had a pretty strong hunch that "this" would happen at some point during the trip. I actually thought that it would happen after I drank the water (I had to choose between breathing or drinking possibly contaminated water--I chose breathing. I will blog about it)

So I should be at the conference this morning but I woke up feeling...less than ideal.

Lets just say I have been getting better aquainted with the bathrooom facilities all morning.

Given that the conference center toilet facilities: 1) have no toilet paper; 2)have no toilet seats; 3) are a bit scary, I will be staying here until things "settle down"

For those of you who were curious, I am including a picture of the "muslim shower."

We are good friends now. LOL!

Introducing the rest of the cast

From left to right: (front row) Naomi, Diya, Sabrina. (back row) Zubin, Sumona, Lana, yours truly

By now you should know the three musketeers, Lana, Sabrina and myself. Then there is Zubin, the only guy on a trip with six women, we are having so much fun making fun of him...his speech, his accent, his mannerisms! LOL! We have called him a german, jew and a host of other things. It is all in good fun and he is a good sport. He does not have any sisters so this is a whole new experience for him too!

Then there are the newbies who joined us in Kerala:

1. Diya aka "The Indian Princess" (24) Her parents were born in India but she was raised in NJ. Went to Columbia University. Very stylish and fabulous.

2. Naomi aka "The organizers" (29) I like to call her the natural beauty. She is stunning but keeps things simple. Her true virtue on this trip has been her organizing skills. While the rest of us have a pretty laissez faire attitude. She is the one who has been making sure that all the "t's" have been crossed and "i's" dotted. In other words we would be pretty lost without her! She is a native of MA but majored in Southeast Asian studies while in college and came to India as a college student to learn an Indian language. She is currently a medical student at the Mayo Clinic.

3. Sumona (pronounced 'shumona') aka "The bubbly Brit" (28) What can I say about Sumona...? Well, life is never as fun when Sumona is not around. She is beautiful both inside and out and radiates this warmth and energy that is quite contagious. She is also crazy and funny to boot! Her parents are from India but she was born in England. She was raised Hindu but became a Christian in her twenties. Her passion, excitement and reliance on Christ is contagious.

On Sunday our group will be splitting in two to go to our field assignments. Naomi, Sumona and I will be going to this renowned eye hospital, the others will be going to an Ashram.

I will miss them!

Comments are welcome

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Just click on the comments link below.

School’s In and the Sun is Out!

We have finally left cold Delhi and flown south with the birds. I am now in Trivandrum in the state of Kerala in the south. In Delhi we would see commercials for Kerala all the time they called it “God’s own country.” Well if this is God’s country I guess He likes warm weather because it is hot here! I love love love it! It hot and humid, I feel like I am back in the ATL. I feel like I am a thousand miles away from the snow and ice in Boston, wait a second…I AM a thousand miles away! This is great!

Our classes started today. We had six hours of lecture in this slightly air-conditioned room. One of the professors had this very monotonous, lulling voice and I may have nodded off for a second… Tomorrow I am bring some Coca-Cola to class with me. We learned about the history of Kerala and how it got to be a model healthcare system. Despite having very low incomes per capita they have excellent health indices (ie. Infant mortality, life expectancy etc.)

In turns out that we are taking classes with new students from the Public Health school in Kerala (it has a really really long name). They started their classes on January 1st 2008 and are very new to the area. I was surprised by how warm and friendly they were to us. Most of the students were from different parts of India that have totally different cultures and foods. At lunch time I was hoping that they could help decipher what I was eating but they did not know either! Lunch at the hospital cafeteria was only $0.30—talk about a bargain! Whatever it was, it was good!

I went to visit my new friend, Anjwala (sp?) hostel room at lunch time. To use her words, it was very “simple.” That is a bit of an understatement. There were no washing machines so she did her washing by hand. She used bedcovers as curtains, did not have a computer and only brought a minimal number of clothes from her home (which makes me feel really bad about my over-sized suitcase). Ironically she did have the latest and greatest Ipod Video Nano—go figure! LOL!

Seeing her very humble accommodations really helped me to appreciate my apartment in Boston, which now seems absolutely luxurious in comparison. It is so easy to get caught up in the desire to acquire more “things” when the truth is that that we already have more than we need and more importantly our happiness should not at all be dependent on having these things. What is even more surprising is that we could still choose happiness if we had a lot less.

Have you ever thought, “I don’t know think I could live without my _________ “(car, laptop, wireless internet, washing machine, coffee maker, cell phone, air-conditioning fill-in-the-blank)? Well believe it or not there are people in the world without that those things that are living very happy and content lives. That’s some food for thought.

I would pose the question to you that if life is not about the acquisition of things, what are you here for? What is your purpose?

Ok it is getting late. I am starting to get pseudo-philosophical. It is time to go to bed!

*The second picture is from Kovalam beach in Kerala at sunset

Introducing the Glitterati

On our last two nights in Delhi we met up with some of Lana’s close friends from College and we got to experience a different side of Delhi. I affectionately refer to her friends as part of the glitterati because…hmm..well..if we were to draw a line that separated the haves from the have-nots, they would definitely be on the haves side of the line, if you know what I mean.

The funny thing is that while we were trying to get the true “authentic Indian experience” by going to the local markets and purchasing traditional clothing. Lana’s authentic Indian friends were totally westernized, fashionable and perfectly accessorized! They looked like they could have stepped off the pages of Vogue magazine! We went to this very trendy lounge/restaurant with excellent food and Indian pop music. We had a ton of fun! We danced and laughed until the wee hours of the morning.

*I thought I had more pictures of her friends but I think my camera battery died that night...sigh

The guest star and the Taj Mahal

We had a one-day guest appearance from one of our public health classmates, Allison. Allison did a one day world wind tour of the Taj Mahal and Delhi on her way to her class in Bangladesh. Despite the fact that we are school-mates I met her for the first time in India. I am glad I did. She was fun, warm, energetic and added something special to our trip to the Taj.

It turns out that Allison is truly a citizen of the world. She grew up in so many different countries around the world that I lost track. Her parents were in the US Foreign Service and actually spent a lot of time in Southern Africa, including Swaziland! Allison herself spent time in Morocco with the Peace Corp.

My favorite part of her story was that her parents met and fell in love while in the Peace Corp and many years later their daughter fell in love with her boyfriend during her Peace Corp years. In rural Morocco there were no internet cafes and telephones were in scarce supply so The Boyfriend used to send her telegrams arrange dates. Is it just me or is that pretty romantic?!

Well Allison I hope that you had as much fun with us (and our HILARIOUS group dynamics) as we did with you. I hope that you made it to Bangladesh safe and sound. Remember-don’t drink the water! LOL!

As for the Taj Mahal, there are no words to describe it. It was amazing! The whole thing is done in this gorgeous white marble with very intricate paintings, carvings and designs. The Taj Mahal is a mausoleum that was built in the 17th century by Emperor Shah Jahan as a tribute of love to his favorite wife who died during childbirth of her 14th child. Talk about setting a standard! The irony of the whole thing is that the person who it was built for will never see it. Additionally, within half a kilometer from the palatial monument there are people living in such abject poverty that it makes you wonder if perhaps the Emperor’s money could have been better spent on helping the living…hmmm.

The have and the have nots

One of the things that surprised me about India is the striking difference between the poor and the rich. When you stop at a red light (or should I say if you stop at a red light--cause often people don't) there are a number of beggar men, women and children that will tap on your window asking for food. Outside of all of the tourist sites there are dozens of kids begging for food and money.

While I wish I could, I obviously can't save everyone. I have no problem saying no to the grown men and women. However I am a sucker for the women with malnoursihed, underclothed children. I feel like you have to be heartless to totally ignore them. The problem is that if you give to one within seconds you find yourself surrounded by dozens of others. I have learned that you can give to one person if you are going to leave immediately. Lana and Sabrina say that my maternal instincts are kicking in. Perhaps.

I am posting a picture of a really cute friendly kid who was with his sister who couldn't have been more than 11 years old. Their mother was nowhere to be found. The baby was not wearing any pants, underware or shoes despite the fact that the temperature got down to the 30's at night and in the morning. The thing that was most striking about him was that despite his circumstances being poor and dirty he was able to smile and find joy in life.

We can learn a lot from babies.