pictures from mah trip

nurses being trained to run the integrated counseling and testing centres in rural areas.

view from the roof of a small village convent. the nuns run a primary school and farm the plot of land behind it for money. you can see their waterbuffalo and her calf.


in the city's zoopark on a day off. yes, those are white tigers.

at a farm/newly started Care and Support Centre/soon-to-be nursing school the NGO is working on. the crops are grown for both medicinal purposes as well as for profit to help fun the endeavors.


the view from inside a rickshaw.


visiting one of the government hospitals in the city (huge!!!).


visiting a nursing school - this is the practice room.


this is the nursing station/medication room for the HIV/AIDS Care and Support Centre. i can't really post any other pictures from it - confidentiality and all that.


doing some touristy stuff - visiting ancient ruins, climbing on things.

the world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point.

i really am glad to be back in Toronto. i have missed home. and yet there is something that worries me about being back.

you see, being in India i had the privilege of seeing the world through tourist's eyes. not belonging to a place and having no (or very limited) responsibilities, and being somewhere quite alien puts a sense of wonder and the exotic on everything.
everything is interesting and strange and beautiful. i recall the daily 'parades' of Eluru and realize that i probably did not represent them to you entirely accurately, as even while they stared at us walking by, i also stared - not in the same way, but at the beauty and wonder of this strange new world and its people.
it's sort of like reading the beginning chapters of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (hence the title) - where the ordinariness of life is so magical and surreal that you are filled with continuous wonder - (before the world he paints descends into chaos and ruin).
i would catch myself thinking all the time, i wonder if anyone else realizes how beautiful this moment and everything is. just the way the sunlight falls, the way the ground feels beneath your feet, the buildings greyed with dirt and pollution, the walls covered with moss and creepers, birds calling, traffic blaring continuously, children laughing, and people everywhere, busy, going about the stuff of life.

i know that now i have returned i will soon get caught up in the stuff of life myself, and lose the wonder and appreciation of life and its beauty that i gained while being here.

it's strange how we learn to be in a way that isn't being at all.
eyes that don't see, ears that don't hear.
and i know that soon i will start to take for granted the people that for months i longed to see. we will argue and fight and become bored and exhausted and stressed and disconnect, and want to be away from it all, all the while blinded to the wonder and beauty and love.

on flying.

i hate flying.
i hate flying.
i hate it so much it had to be said twice. i used to think aeroplanes were wonderful marvelous magical machines - oh naive fool that i was, for in reality they are horrid and evil.
i don't know who came up with the whole aeroplane/airtravel/airport process, but whoever it was is sadistic: combining the experience of being treated like a terrorist, a criminal, an illegal alein, an imposter, and cattle, all into one 33 hour long day. cramming into a shaking aluminum box, sitting still for hours on end, having your seat kicked by whoever happens to be behind you and listening to children shrieking as unconcerned parenets ignore them.
i think being frisked is my least favourite legal activity, and it is made so much worse by being told to have a nice flight directly afterward.

have a nice flight?
yes. i think i will do that.
same to you.



it wasn't that bad, really: there were no kicking/screaming children, the kids that were there were quite good actually; the plane didn't crash; they constantly kept coming around with food; i watched Prince Caspian (and bawled - but it was dark so it was okay) and about 4 other movies aaaannnd,
i'm back.

yay!

'Z' is for zoomzoom

the end.

'Y' is for yard

'X' is for xylem

... didn't expect that, did ya?

'W' is for waterbuffalo