Cross one off the Bucket List

Dear R,

We are here in Simla. You should see this place! The things we went through to get here made me wonder if it would be worth the trip, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. The drive up from the train station in Chandigarh was a bit harrowing, especially since India is a former British colony and everyone drives on the wrong side of the road. We also had to stop every few kilometers for a monkey, cow, squirrel, or some other creature in the road. The animals must know they are sacred here and will not get hit because they simply would not move—until the driver honked his horn and got out of the car shouting and waving his stick! The boys quickly passed out in the backseat from the Dramamine but even with that, the drive still made them sick. Fortunately, the sickness passed almost as soon as we stopped the car.

We arrived at our hotel late, so it was dark when we checked into our room. We walked outside onto the balcony and were very disoriented when the darkness engulfed us and a white carpet of Milky Way stretched out over our heads. "There must be a bazillion stars up there!"  "No, it's a bazillion, bajillion," marveled the boys. It was nearly freezing so I grabbed our blanket and we wrapped up in it and lay on the balcony for nearly an hour just watching the sky. We started making a wish every time we saw a meteor but there were so many of them that we soon ran out of things to wish for. After a while we were so cold that we began shivering and we couldn't make our teeth stop chattering. That nixed our plans for sleeping outside.


The surprise came the next morning when the telephone rang with my wake up call.  From my bed I caught a glimpse of a crisp, clear day with a deep blue sky and not a cloud in sight. I also noticed a horizontal white streak in the distance.  You know how much I enjoy lingering in bed, but I popped right up and headed directly to the balcony. Wow. The mountains spread out before me were filled with deep green fir trees. And that white horizontal streak--I ran back in to grab my camera to photograph a sight you have heard me talk about wanting to see since fourth grade-- the Himalayan mountain range.


I could have stood there all day but the wake up call was for a yoga class. I'm glad I brought that thick cashmere sweater you gave me for Christmas because the class was outdoors. Oh, and I was the only student in the class. I had my own private yogi. It felt so good to close my eyes and stretch. The sun and stretching warmed my body quickly. The birds were out singing in full force. Halfway through the class I heard squeals of laughter from some children taking archery classes. With my eyes closed, I could have been anywhere on earth. But when I opened my eyes, my yogi was before me, with his body in a contortion one can only imagine, and behind him, framed by giant fir trees, were the Himalayas. I am really, really here.


As we neared the end of my yoga session, the laughter grew louder. I saw the grin on my yogi's face and turned to see the boys--my boys-- taking pictures of me and laughing so hard their faces were red. I can't wait to see what they found so funny. Guess I'll find out soon enough from the photos.

Better go, and we will see you in two weeks unless we decide to stay here forever!

Love,

J

P.S.  The honeymoon couples want to have their pictures taken with me!  It must be the blonde hair, fair skin and sunglasses.  Maybe they think I am someone famous

Map of Kasarani

We are traveling to the Children's Center, at Kasarani, to play with the children today. The orphanage is just over 20 minutes away, but I cannot wait to see the children and to see how they have grown since last year. We pass through Mathare Valley, one of the slums of Nairobi, Kenya's capital, to reach Kasarani, our destination.

The bars in front of the gate are unlocked and have been pulled back for us. The scent of dampness hits us as we push open the heavy wooden door-- the familiar smell of the place that is home to so many special people. We notice the walls. A film of dirt and handprints that appears to have built up over many years dulls the blue and green coat of paint we applied just eleven months ago. 

We walk across the concrete floor of the open courtyard, toward the right, to the windowless corner office. We are greeted with warm hugs.  We throw our backpacks onto the chairs in the dark office then step back into the courtyard to meet some of the other workers. I should have looked over my Swahili phrase book---the only thing I remember is "Jambo," which means "Hello"---but most everyone speaks English very well since Kenya is a former British colony. 

The children that are too young or too sick to play outside with the others are on the floor above us. We hear giggles and look up to see them peeking down through the wire mesh that has been put up to reinforce the railing. We must run up for hugs.  We tour the familiar rooms on the second floor. They are all neat and clean.  We see the rooms where the children sleep.  A room for the boys and a room for the girls, each with neat rows of beds, each bed with its own mosquito net.Two rooms  are set up to be classrooms.  There is one locked door which is where the medical supplies are kept.  Once the door is open and we walk in, I smell alcohol and suddenly remember my own elementary school nurse's office.  One room now has gym mats and a sturdy table along with two broken wheelchairs and a walker and is designated as the therapy room.  One of the children is in there now, his muscles being stroked and exercised by a therapist. Once a week a doctor will come in to tend to the disabled children to set their course of treatment.   This service is funded by the government.  The orphanage is very lucky to have this therapy and everyone hopes it will continue. Not much has changed since last year. Maybe next year we can paint again.

We finally go back downstairs and head toward the playground. When we walk through the breezeway we see N in his wheelchair with his assortment of arts and crafts. He always smiles. N makes woven purses and baskets, earrings and necklaces, bookmarks and other handmade items. He is an artist with a very special gift that he shares by teaching other children how to create beautiful arts and crafts, which are then sold to make money for the Children's Center. We are lucky---N has many new things this time---and we plan to buy him out again this year.

Directly outside of the breezeway is our favorite place, the playground.

It is winter in Kenya, but it is a warm clear sunny day with a blue sky and white puffy clouds. The temperature feels very mild to me, about 69-70 degrees Fahrenheit. I am comfortable in a long sleeve t-shirt, but most of the people that live here are bundled up in sweaters and coats. The weather is cold to them.  Some even have on toboggans. 

To my left there are two workers washing a mountain of clothes and hanging them on a clothesline to dry. Two stone walls and a wooden fence surround the playground and afford privacy to the orphanage. The ground is hard-packed, pale orange dirt with splatters of grass around the edges at the fence. An out of control soccer ball disturbs a peaceful lineup of children and an argument begins over who is next in line for the slide. The swingset against the left wall is working its magic, with the children pumping their legs as hard as they can, trying to swing up to the sky. Situated in the right back corner of the playground, a small wooden shed is a makeshift kitchen that also serves as storage for the piles of carrots, potatoes and other items that will soon be transformed by the cooks into a hot, tasty stew. 

The playground is vibrant. The children's clothes are colorful, bright, and mismatched, and on closer observation, well-worn. Six or seven of the children are off to the side in wheelchairs, some watching and laughing, and others silently rocking. When I close my eyes, the laughter and squeals that I hear could be from any playground in the world. 

Suddenly, the first few moments of quiet introspection come to a screeching halt. The children have seen us. Yay--the fun begins! Here they come. 

No, I don't love every place in the world

Me: I don’t like you and I can’t wait to leave here. You make me miserable.

City: Blaming me for your unhappiness? You know, people are supposed to make the best of their situation. Have you tried that?

Me: Of course I have. Every single day I try. But you take, take, take, yet you give nothing but problems in return. Interestingly, I wanted to come to you badly years ago and couldn’t wait to join you. Then an unexpected detour took me to small city in the mountains. It was so peaceful and beautiful. I was taken by surprise when I realized that I didn’t want you, big city, anymore.

City: Wallowing in pity is not very becoming. If I am so bad, why did you leave small city to move here?

Me: My husband transferred. We had to follow the safety and security of a job. The golden handcuffs. Well, those golden handcuffs led me to this armpit of a city and now I’m stuck here to deal with it.

City: Armpit? You sound like a petulant child. Your home is very beautiful at the end of a peaceful cul-de-sac. The wooded lot is private and perfect for your children. Your neighbors are wonderful. You should be grateful.

Me: Grateful? I love my home very much and I am thankful for it. But the major renovations we had to do just to make it livable are another story . I have a difficult time trying to look at things in a positive way while I’m being slowly poisoned each day. A national study very recently confirmed my suspicions on the pollution--so I must correct the previous sentence to .....while I'm being poisoned very rapidly each day. The water we get from you comes from a polluted source where human waste and various other things that are undesirable to put in our bodies are dumped, put through filters with loads of chlorine thrown in and, ta-dah…clean water! Right. To add insult to injury we must pay a fortune for it. Small city was a place where the water was filtered through many layers of bedrock from deep within the earth and the city fiercely protected its watershed. Recreational activities, animals—none of those things were allowed anywhere near the water. Small city treats its water as the precious resource that it is.

City: Drink bottled water.

Me: Bottled water is expensive. This city is expensive. Another problem is the air, or lack of it. The smog is choking, especially in summer. There is a horrible, smoggy haze that is especially noxious in the heat of summer. Watching all of the joggers along the sidewalk, I wonder if the health benefits of jogging truly outweigh the danger of the toxic mixture of chemicals being sucked into their lungs with each deep breath.

Me: Oh and the traffic is stroke inducing. Once I got stuck in the middle of a seven lane freeway in a traffic gridlock and the car next to me caught on fire. A big fire. Horns blew as people went in every direction to clear the area. I didn’t get far before “POOF”. That’s the day I learned what a panic attack feels like.

City: Well you..

Me: Wait. I’m not finished. Another time a great big mattress fell off this teeny, tiny truck and bounced off my front windshield before I ran over it. In both incidents I had little children in the backseat. Thank God they were okay. Also, there is always furniture on or around the freeways. I imagine I could have furnished my home with the furniture I have nearly hit. Ladders seem to be an extremely popular item to lose on the freeways and they are very hard to dodge.

City: Why in the hell don’t you leave?  Do you think I really need you?

Me:  But, an odd thing recently happened. When I was stuck in traffic during a thunderstorm, the sun briefly came out and a huge rainbow stretched across the sky.  The rainbow was so close I  started to look for the end and suddenly, there it was.


City:  What?


Me:  The end of the rainbow.  The end of the rainbow was on the hood of my car.  

Brush with Scary Namibian Snake

Smart thinking, Karl, I thought as our guide shut off the jeep's engine just out of reach of the tree. Ever since seventh grade, when my mother had to bring a change of clothes to school for me after a magician’s bird landed on the light fixture directly above my head, I have gone to great lengths to avoid being under birds. So I certainly did not want to be parked under the biggest bird nest I had ever seen.

"It is a community nest," Karl explained, as hundreds of birds were chirping and fluttering in a huge swarm around the tree. The warm breeze and clear blue sky with its white, puffy clouds was deceptively calm for Namibia. My heart seemed to suddenly begin thumping when I realized that it was an ostrich charging toward our jeep. "Oh. It's only an ostrich," Karl said. What an understatement—only an ostrich. “Stay quiet and he will not bother us.”

As the ostrich trotted on his merry way, our sights returned to the chattering tree. It was then Karl very calmly asked my husband to "shoot the snake." It was winter in Namibia and snakes, we thought, were not supposed to be a part of our adventure. My husband and I had to take a moment to process what Karl had said when he pointed to the tree and, again, very calmly said, "Please. Shoot that snake. The one right there on that branch." Squinting into the sun, our eyes scanning the acacia tree, my husband and I both spotted the dancing snake at exactly the same time. My husband reached for his gun as I reached for my camera. He was about to shoot.

"Wait! Let me get a picture first!" I shouted. My husband mumbled something with the word ‘crazy' in it. "It will only take a..."

BAM! He missed.

Now was my chance. I lifted the camera as he lifted the gun. Unfortunately for snake and me, the ‘BAM' came before the ‘click.' This bright green snake suddenly thrashed wildly in ribbon-like curls.

"Green Mamba," Karl said. The Green Mamba is a very poisonous snake that is seen quite frequently in Namibia we learned. Even in winter.

The men went toward the tree with a giant stick. This time I mumbled the sentence with ‘crazy' in it. No, a snake cannot bite without a head but that is no reason to tempt fate.

I still have not been able to confirm whether or not there is any way a green mamba can kill without a head but I do know that they fight for quite a while without one. But I did get a photo (headless) and Mamba rode back with us in the bed of the jeep, thrashing wildly all the way.

"That is why we do not park under trees," Karl said on the drive home.

Maybe it's European Bread

3-4 day old, barely-chipped, bread

"Baking bread relaxes me." That phrase actually came from someone's mouth. Again. Twice, I have heard this and both times it set off a chain of memories.

My mother used to bake the most wonderful cinnamon bread. She timed it so that the bread would be warm and ready to eat when my brother and I got home from school. Those were such good memories and I think of them when I smell cinnamon bread. Soooo,
I decide to try it to create some of those great memories for my sons.

It was not fun. It was work. Mix, mix, mix. Knead and wait. Knead and wait. Cover and wait. The process went something like that. But I would learn and get used to it and I would enjoy it the way my mother did and, after all, I was creating those good memories.

Finally, it was ready to put in the oven but it did not look very big. I put in just a teeny, tiny sprinkle more of yeast, covered it, and let it sit a bit longer. Wow, I thought at the time, it fit the loaf pan perfectly and looked just like it should. Of course, I really had no idea what bread is supposed to look like at that point, before it is baked, but that thought didn't cross my mind until just now as I write this.

The temperature was set according to the recipe and then I set the timer. I have been known to burn things or use the wrong setting (broil instead of bake, etc.) so I triple-checked those things and they were just right. Whew. The hard part was over.

As it baked, I sang and danced around the house while doing the normal household chores. Although I always dance around the house, singing is something I don't do because I am horrible (I threaten to sing aloud if my boys' misbehave when they have friends over---it works every time). But no one was around to hear me and I was so excited about the bread. It began to smell heavenly as it baked.

My husband and children were going to be so proud of me---I couldn't wait to surprise them. I had to make sure I did not burn it, so I made frequent checks.

A friend called and during our conversation, I heard a clanking sound coming from the kitchen. The bread had risen out the sides of the pan, about 2-3 inches, and was about to hit the top of the oven. The clanking was the pan moving to accommodate my growing bread. But my bread was nice and brown, and had cooked long enough so I took it out to cool. It was a bit lopsided, but I didn't care.

The big bread looked great! I knew everyone would eat a lot because they love cinnamon bread. The memories were going to be so special.

Everyone praised my beautiful, but lopsided loaf of bread and we all gathered at the candle-lit table to have the inaugural piece. My husband began to cut it with a dull knife that wouldn't slice very well. I was anxious and ready for my bread so I grabbed a giant bread knife and sawed with the serrated edges. Didn't work. My husband tried again and still, no sliced cinnamon bread.

In Europe, they all have that bread that is very hard on the outside, but the inside is incredibly soft. I must have cooked European bread!

We finally got out the electric knife but it would not cut the bread, either. By that time we realized my beautiful bread probably was not edible so we took it outside and pounded it with a hammer a couple of times. Still, only one giant loaf. We gave up and threw it out to our two dogs. One of them gnawed on it for a little while but soon gave up. The next day the dogs were playing with my special bread as if it were a toy. That bread lingered in the backyard for over a month. Then, one day, POOF! and it was gone.