Each day I see new things that I want to tell everyone about; too many to remember. India is such a vastly different world than what most of us have ever experienced. It is one thing to see pictures or films but quite another to live amongst it.
Several days last week I rode into town early in the morning. Early is a relative term. The daily schedule in India is quite different from the U.S. They do not go to work until 9:30 or 10:00am and get off at 6:30 or 7:00pm. Most restaurants do not even start serving dinner until 8pm. We usually have the dinner dishes washed in America by then! While in town those mornings I saw families with small children picking through a large area where industrial trash and construction waste had been dumped. Both times the families were looking for simple, small objects that they could use for living or to sell for a small amount of money. Broke my heart to see this. Life is so hard for most of the people here. It truly comes down to survival. So many struggle here to get the basics for daily living that we take for granted and even waste!
Water is so necessary for life and yet so hard to get in India. They do not waste a drop of it. The amount we waste by letting the water run while brushing our teeth they use for an entire day!! I watch people "bathing" outside their huts from a communal water bucket. Frankly, I am impressed they make the effort. I now understand why there are so few western-style, public toilets in India (less than 500). It is because it takes precious water. Imagine being thirsty and all you had to drink was rainwater you caught in a holding tank or unclean water pumped into your area from a local river. No, it is not purified between the river and the spout! Since it only rains 3 months out of the year I wondered what happens when the rainwater in the holding tanks is gone. They told me they use the water that is pumped in from the rivers and then wait for next year's rains. I sometimes feel ashamed that I always have a bottled water with me wherever I go. Do the people seem to resent this? Not in the least. They are the poorest, happiest people you will ever meet. I am always treated like a special guest wherever I go; even in the remote villages where I am the first white person they have ever seen. On a funny note, the children are scared of me at first. They are so amazed at how different I look and will stare for a long time. Everything is fine if I don't stare back or smile or try to talk to them. Then they start to cry! Had two tiny ones cry just last week. They are so shy and cautious and I have to let them ease into talking to me on their own terms. Nothing like most children in America who will smile and laugh at you. I don't take it personally since they do it to Bob as well :) Usually the ones who are about 5 or 6 yrs. old are just fine and a little more confident to approach us.
The rice fields are being harvested right now. I watched them plant those rice fields in June and it is neat to see the crops coming in now. Everyone who lives on the farm helps. If the children go to the free govt. school in the morning they work in the rice field in the afternoon. Same thing for any husbands who might work in the factories. They all use a hand-held sickle (hooked blade) to cut down the rice plant. The stalks look just like wheat that grows in the U.S. The stalks are dried in the sun and placed in big stacks that end up looking like round, tall, grass huts. (See the picture above) As the top layer of the stacks dries the rice is beaten out on the threshing table; just like you read about in the Bible. One threshing area I saw in town was "high-tech'! They had a huge fan that blew at just the right angle so that when the rice was beaten out the chaff blew away. The rice is gathered, put in large bags and stored outside. No worries about it getting wet since there won't be any more rain until next June or July. Not quite sure about pests and rodents and frankly really don't want to know! I am sure that the food we eat here at the hotel is completely sanitary--that's my story and I'm sticking with it!
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