Friday, December 3, 2010

The Finished Oven!

Here's what the oven looks like completed. We'll try it tomorrow. Lalita did all the decoration--she's a master!
 Reppin' PICA--I always try to wear my PICA shirt whenever I do anything really cool. I have just cut the door out of the oven with my favorite large scythe-like knife.
Me and Sunita and oven!

Today I rode on the back of a motorcycle with the wind in my face, past cows and buses and grubby buildings and well-kept schools with pounded mud playing fields out front, past areca orchards and rice paddies and stretches of forest. I would like to learn to drive the motorcycle. It really is a shame to go home so soon...but at the same time, I think half the reason I travel like this might be to go home. To go home to the things I'd like to be doing, digging and planting and living at land-pace, and then to physically go home, to fly into Seattle and see the just-right colors appear under the plane, to know that soon I'll be walking in wet forests and lighting candles and knitting and all the proper winter things.

Meanwhile, I have ten more days in India to live to the very fullest!

3 comments:

  1. Ten days! Ten full days, ripe with the precious sweet drop of every minute, as you realize what India really tastes like when faced with the prospect of leaving. Enjoy! Each hour, now more than ever, is so rich. :)

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  2. Sarah- your Thousand Eyed blog is amazing! Caroline gave me the link. Your writing, perceptions, insights, observations, descriptions, reflections- EVERYthing- are moving and inspiring, as well as funny, right on, thought-provoking, memory inducing... Alan and I spent time in India, including Mamalapuram in Tamil Nadu, and you beautifully capture much that we saw, and help me experience what we never had a chance to see, or be a part of. A big rhuma nandri to you for taking me back so intimately and tenderly, and for inspiring me with your work. Happy trails for the rest of your trip! xxoo, Harbour

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  3. Heather: Thanks! You can bet I'll be calling you at least weekly when I get home...oh but you know how it is. At the same time, I am excited for the comfort of familiar seasons and of walking anonymously, without being thoroughly ogled :)Probably you also know how that is.
    Harbour: What a surprise! I think I haven't seen you since I was about five. Thanks so much for being such an encouraging reader! I am glad that I have been able to describe things in an authentic way. There are a lot of words to choose from. I wanted to go to Mamalapuram...and rhuma nandri is one of about five things I learned to say in Tamil while I was in Pondicherry. I will definitely need to come back.
    What brought you to India? When was that?
    Thanks again!
    Sarah

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