Hello Valsar

I'm staying at a village in Valsar. I haven't had internet access for days but it actually feels like weeks or months, rather. I'm not getting proper phone reception here and it's been driving me nuts. The ground-toilet situation was tough for me to deal with on the first day, but I adjusted after my first night of being stubborn; I had refused to use the bathroom and had to learn my lesson the following day.

To sum it up, my week has been extremely isolating, emotional and rewarding. The locals from my Dad's village were all teary-eyed when they met me. It felt strange visiting the family home that we've set up there, when there was actually no family to visit inside. I also visited the village my Mom's from. I connected with some relatives immediately, while others just gawked at me as though I were from another planet. Tomorrow I'll be visiting my 90-year old paternal grandmother who's been extremely ill. I'll also be attending an annual village function to hand out an award of some sort to a few promising students. I'm not looking forward to it, am feeling very uncomfortable being the centre of attention, but I understand that it should be an honour.

I've visited at least eight different villages in the past days. I can't recalls the names of most but I'll update this post once I do remember. I've seen some of the most beautiful scenery imaginable. I can't wait to upload some pictures once I get the chance (right now I'm at a cyber-cafe, which is technically just a computer lab. The labs have started asking for passport photocopies which are then used for identity fraud soonafter. Luckily I had a contact who had another contact who let me skip the ID step).

Diwali fireworks were still going off yesterday and it may be the same case today as well. I've been spending a lot of time with this charming little 11-year old boy named *Jai. When he met me he literally took my cousin aside and asked her to "bond our friendship." How cute is that? Our friendship has been bonded ever since. He has a few small burn marks on his left cheek that are evidence of the unsupervised crackers he lit up prior to our arrival. There's also a boy at the neighbour's house who literally has a hole in his hand, that too, from the firworks he fooled around with unsupervised.

I'm not a big fan of the fireworks. They leave so much pollution behind. And they are incredibly loud, I'm definately getting my hearing checked when I get back home.

Another observation I've made is that there is absolutely no garbage disposal system in the villages. Litter either gets burned or is thrown into the fields, I've been left with no other choice but to guiltily follow this trend.

I've meet so many families this week and noticed a common experience they all shared. They all have at least one member in the family who's been bitten by a stray dog, and who has been in a motorcycle, or scooter, accident. One of my distant aunt's is still healing from a dog attack she experienced six months ago. The dog apparently snapped out of nowhere and wouldn't let go of her leg. It had to be put to sleep and she was rushed to the hospital to get vaccinated. She's been walking with difficulty ever since.

Now she has to be careful about what she eats in public. Most people in her village know of the attack. Because she was bitten, she's no longer to eat certain types of foods, such as anything with spice. They say the dog will come back to demonise her otherwise. So since the bit she's been living with a new-found stigma.

I'd like to highlight some of the splendour from this week but have run out of time, my half-hour is nearly up. I'm off to Goa on Monday! More later.