14 Hours In A Plane

India Day 9

 Samode is a small town south of Jaipur, in the mountains.  I like it here.  The air is cleaner and just being in sight of the mountains makes me feel calm.  There is no traffic to speak of, and as we travel the rutted roads, all we see are little parcels of land with huts on them, and people working the fields.

 

What is amazing to me is how the women are able to keep their saris so clean in all this rural dust and mud.  But they do.  This is the place that John Deere has not heard of.  All the farming is done by hand or with a camel. 

 Today we got off the bus and boarded a little fleet of jeeps for a more “backroads” and “up close” look at what we’ve been seeing from the antiseptic remove of the red “Tourist” bus.

 We pass a camel cart

 

And a cow looking for a snack

 

We stop and visit a homestead, and from nowhere, all these little kids appear.  We were told that we should bring pens to give to the kids.  They like them for school.  So we gave some pens to Mr. Singh and here he is talking to the kids in Hindi and telling them who we are and that if they are nice and polite he will hand them each a pen, but no grabbing!

 

We then re-board the jeeps and climb up a steep mountain to a school.  “The Excellent Public School” to be precise

 

Inside, there is a central courtyard with photos of Gandhi, Saraswati (goddess of knowledge) and Nehru.  The children are divided into grades.  The sit on the floor and stand and greet us as we pass, singing out in unison, “Good Morning Madam.”

A teacher

 

We give the majority of our pens to the principal of the school.  Here I am giving her the supplies

:

 

After our visit, we jeep to the Samode Palace for lunch.  Once again, I am jolted between 2 worlds: medieval and posh-modern. 

 

This is the dining room of the Samode palace

 

And this is our table.  That’s me in the yellow shirt:

 

After our day in Samode I am feeling full.  I am full of India.  Full of poverty and palaces.  Full of bougainvilla and dung factories.  Full of camels and holy cows, monkeys and homeless dogs.  I am over-stimulated, tired and in dire need of solitude and rest and order and my own bed and reliably clean water and clean air. 

I am ready to leave India.