Well folks,
I love my friend Dara. I have for years, and today even more than before. Here’s just one of the reasons why. I think she figured out how to stop me from spamming you all with emails every day!!

I am the first to admit that I am a bit of a technosaur and I have been struggling for weeks trying to (unsuccessfully) figure out how to get my blog site to send an update email to my subscribers…. Without spamming everyone on a daily basis.

Sadly Dara was on vacation as was her assistant and I am the first to admit I was drowning. This morning I believe a lifesaver was thrown in my direction when Dara gave me some suggestions as to how I can fix it.

I am hoping it isn’t a premature celebration, but fingers crossed, I have fingered it out and the spamming will stop.

I appreciate everyone’s patience and look forward to exercising my writing muscles in the new year as I am working on becoming a (well) paid published author in 2019.

Again,
Thanks for not only subscribing but for hanging in there through all this.

Happiest of days to you!

Annie

More mobs and police interventions needed to save us from an unruly crowd!!!
Last leg…

Bombay has been quite good to us in this part of the trip.

We were quite fortunate to secure a crack smoking cab driver who only blinked once every 17 minutes. We know this for I timed it. It was quite freaky as he stared out at everything with big frog eyes (you know what I mean, eh Mom?) chattering in fits and starts, not unlike his braking techniques throwing us into the back of the front seat from time to time…

Amber had the good sense to check a few streets in the beginning to ensure he was taking us in the right direction. We again passed miles of slum houses, projects, poor people and polluted areas. There weren’t as many cows and goats here as 26,000 people per square kilometer doesn’t leave much room for farm animals.

We arrived at Moti Mansion after much ado for yet another taxi driver did not know where we were really specifically going and needed to ask 84 different people for directions. Too bad Amber doesn’t speak Hindi cause she could have told him twice over. Her navigation skills are second to none. She only needs to see somewhere once to never forget it and be able to navigate from there with no errors! She makes an excellent co-pilot to be sure.

Sonja had missed us by only an hour (we found out later) but we were still able to check into our hotel, leave her a note and head out for lunch and then to the Crawford market for more sight seeing and shopping. (Shopping was the theme for this part of the trip.) We saw the butcher portion of it, and were so lucky to smell it too…thank god for Tiger Balm under the nose! We then toured part of the market, down tiny back alleys, saw the wholesale district, listened to people singing/praying/wailing over loud speakers when it was prayer time.

The Holi Holi Holi festival of India was this weekend too. It is the celebration of spring, good fortune, abundance and the starting of “new”. Part of that festival is on Saturday night where they light bonfires to cleanse the air of evil spirits, and then on the Sunday, they paint themselves with paint powder either straight (with natural organic washable paint powder) or with ink powder mixed with water that is far more permanent. They have powder piles or powder packets for sale in booths on corners. Seeing one, I asked Amber to stop so we could examine it.

Simply looking for more information, I started to ask the vendor how it all worked. He asked me to show him my palm and then he sprinkled less than 1/16th of a teaspoon of red powder. I wasn’t too impressed until he then sprinkled my hand with water turning the powder green and then it ran all over my hand. I giggled at the magic of it, so Amber held out her hand, and was sprinkled with bright red powder that when added with water turned pink and gold. She then giggled too and we started to smear it on each others arms, cheeks and legs. It was great fun! Or so we thought….our laughter and squealing with the display of fun, unknown to us, was a beckoning call for a crowd of over a hundred men to gather around us to see what was going on. Apparently any sign of laughter is seen as a sign of encouragement.

Soon, the police with riot gear had to be dispatched to save us from the crowd. They were starting to pour powder down our backs, our necks, the backpacks, the scarves….and we were still naive as to what was going on. Soon they were pushing us, roughing things up and the hooligans were coming out. Practically lamb to the Holi festival slaughter until we were rescued by the police. The police were yelling at the vendor for he had broken many rules to the Holi festival. We learned this after the fact, for we weren’t sure if we were in trouble, and if so, what we had done wrong. The vendor wasn’t supposed to paint foreigners, which he did, he wasn’t supposed to do it two days early which he did, and wasn’t allowed to touch us as we were women, and especially not to do it to us as we were strangers, not friends. Color painting is for friends only.

Quickly hustled out of the melee by the police we were told we had to leave…..NOW! We now had to make our way back to the hotel with the paint all over us with people staring at us and chanting “Holi Holi Holi”. We still weren’t sure what the big deal was, so we smiled and acknowledged them not wanting to be rude, but also not knowing that it could be misconstrued and we could have been assaulted with paint again.

We also found out once we reached our hotel that the vendor would be facing jail time, possible caning and other serious consequences as a result of his error. The caning happens here right in the street. Sonja attested to that. Earlier in her trip she had been pinched by a man, and a police officer saw it. He asked her what happened, so she told him, when he whipped out a 1″ cane and started beating the man. It is called “Eve teasing” when a woman is taken advantage of or harassed by a man.

We made it back to the hotel and then started trying to scrub it off. And scrub it off. And scrub it off. And try again some more. It wasn’t coming off!!! Arrgh!

Sonja came back then and saw what was going on and laughed and laughed at us. Nice friend….! As you will see, those who laugh last, laugh hardest!

Amber and I decided then to skip the curry dinner and head to Bombay McDonalds. We were quite happy to see the golden arches at this point in the game. The fries were EXACTLY the same as back home…mmmmm…. Their menu also offered the McCurry sandwich, the McIndian wrap, the McEewww Thing we didn’t even recognize. Fortunately we also saw a McChicken on the menu. There was a big sign on the wall stating there were zero cow products on the menu.

We decided then to supplement our calcium intake with an ice-cream. As the sign said no cow products were on site, we asked the employee there where the milk came from for the ice cream. (Was it water buffalo perhaps? Goat?) He said, “It comes from the factory.” When then reclarified, “What animal does it come from?” He again replied, “From the factory.” I guess milk is made in factories here, not from animals! LOL. We didn’t’ have the heart to tell him it was likely a cow factory and then breach their no-cow products rule. Sometimes denial is not just a river in Egypt! (More on that later.

Sonja belongs to a “couch surfing” organization that allows foreign travellers to stay on the couches of local people as an exchange program of sorts. She had arranged to have us all go out for coffee with a woman from Russia, a man from France, and three local Indian people. We all met for coffee which was nice and then arranged to meet for the Holi festival on Sunday afternoon.

On our way home, we dodged another bullet of sorts as we came face to face with a grill of a bus as yet another crack smoking cabbie was running the gauntlet with his cab and we were the ones at risk. Narrowly averting death apparently caused my face to contort to such a freaky one that Amber nearly peed herself as I inspected the grill for bugs! I must be part cat I think….

Going home to bed, or should I say sleeping on practically a rock was nasty. It was a futon time mattress that was only one inch thick and super hard.

Sonja was not feeling super well, so I got to crack out my first aid kit, and with Amber filming it, jabbed a needle into Sonja’s arm that she claims was the best injection ever! When we were in Dehli, Amber needed to get an injection, but her arm still hurts, days later. She was having an allergic reaction to something, and her face was breaking out, so rather than popping all the zit like bumps on her, it was more efficient to dart her with an anti-allergy needle. She cleared up nicely, but still moans about her arm to this day. Sissy! What I should say now is that there is some credit to the CSI shows. They talk about hesitation marks on dead bodies when they are being chopped up, and how there are little marks on the body indicating that the person doing the chopping or stabbing is hesitant. Well, Amber showed such newness to stabbing, and I have the hesitation marks to prove it. I needed one shot while in Aurangabad, and I swear had I taped it, I could have sent it to Funniest Home Videos as it was hilarious. Good think I wasn’t in anaphylactic shock with my life depending on a timely delivered needle, for I would have croaked. I was ready to ram my own arm into the needle after her carrying on, pricking me, then pulling away, pricking me, then pulling away, all in nervous anticipation. Soon the blood was streaming down my arm before she finally got the courage to jab it in. I told her to pull it out quickly when she was done, but she did not do that. She pulled it out so slowly that the medicine had a chance to follow the channel out that the needle had made and ended up like Old Faithful and gushed out for a good squirt! The only consolation I had to being pricked unmercilessly was that the squirt made Amber’s stomach turn and she suddenly was queasy from giving me the shot. My turn to laugh!

Anyways, back on the ranch, Poncho not knowing Sisco was disguised as a door, he shot his knob off….back to Bombay…

Rock hard beds…right….off to sleep now.

The next day was slated as another shopping day. We went to a store called FabIndia that Sonjas was quite excited to financially support, several specific present stores that shall remain nameless to protect the identity of the gifts. We did more sightseeing and then headed back to the hotel.

Sonja was off to another couch surfing party, and Amber and I decided to indulge in a massage at the Taj Palace hotel. We went early for all the shopping had made us “crusty” from the day and we thought it would be prudent to shower first and avail ourselves of the services the spa offered. Hot tub, steam room, large fluffy towels, bath robes, slippers that didn’t fit my skis and then the massages. Aaaahhhhh…..

Afterwards, we went to Ming Palace for Chinese food and champagne to celebrate the final hours of our trip here. That and to celebrate surviving all we had to date. Much champagne induced laughter followed, and then phone calls home.

Three hours of packing and repacking our bags capped our night. Deciding what to keep, what to throw away to make room for purchases and weighing the bags on a fish scale wrapped things up.

Next post….Holi Holi Holi….

Annie and Amber

22,995

22,995 what?

This is the number of prescribed pills I have taken in the last 6 years and 22 days. This is not including any antibiotics for things, or multivitamins. Why so many? I have heart disease and as such have had heart surgery and now I take these medications three times a day to stabilize my heart’s electrical activity.

They are required to keep me safe and alive. I am grateful to them, but as I lay in bed last night, I realized I had forgotten to take my nighttime batch. I was frustrated and I didn’t want to have to get out of my nice warm bed to go get them. I texted my husband and he brought them in to me. Lazy, right? I prefer the word efficient, actually.

He brought them in and I could see 0.001% annoyance at my request. I commented that in the last six years I have maybe forgot them 6 times…..in 6,000 doses. 6,000 times so far I have opened the hatch and swallowed these life saving pills. Then I did the rest of the math and came up with 22,995 pills in total, and I still have another 56 years to go before I hit 100! That is another 160,000ish pills to go, barring any additions to my med list.

I shook my head and had a ten second long pity party at having to take them and then was grateful to have them as I rolled over and went to sleep.

Our newly sharpened suturing skills were going to be put to the test as we went to the Kality Health centre in…you guessed it, Kality City.

Lee and Alynne assisted Dr Northcott to teach 12 Health Officers (Like a Nurse practitioner or Physician Assistant) some finer points of sewing while I ran the camera snapping pictures of the facility, some of the patients and the outside of the building.

I met a lady outside who had her toothbrush with her, and she was brushing her teeth with a stick. A stick. Seriously. It was about as thick as two or three round toothpicks put together and was frayed at one end. She was brushing it around her teeth and gums. That is what they use here. Sticks. To clean their teeth. It might explain why Matt and Kari pulled at least one or two (or five…seriously) from every single person getting their teeth assessed that day.
Hence why I came out help them.

Once my picture taking was done, I put on my dental assistant hat and helped out Matt and Kari in the dental surgery suite. I was cleaning instruments, and restocking for them as fast as they were ripping bones out of people’s heads. A record number of people were seen by us that day, including one six year old boy. He was a terribly rotten baby tooth that needed removal, but was terrified of being there. He initially sat in the chair with much coaxing, but as soon as Kari brought out the suction tube while Matt was prepping to freeze his gums, this kid moved faster than a cat on a hot tin roof. It was the closest Matt has ever come to a needle stick in his career as a dentist. Thankfully, he has reflexes a fast as a mongoose, and was narrowly able to avoid getting stuck and contracting the HIV. His screams attracted of all in the medical clinic and immediately everyone are to investigate…and I mean everyone. Within seconds, there were nearly a dozen extra people in the room. His mother was very angry with him for embarrassing her (or so her body language said) and this boy was being shrieked at from every side of the room. It iwas hard to believe that the Italian didn’t colonize this country cause I felt like I was having supper at Lucia Defillippis’s house in Toronto with Fran Drescher as the dinner guest.

I made him a glove animal to try and distract him, and drew a chicken on it and used the fingers as the comb of the chicken. I made the “Bauck Bock” noise chickens make as I handed it to him…the irony of me calling him a chicken didn’t occur until after I had done it. I then hoped the cultural differences would be such they wouldn’t be offended with the chicken reference. Needless to say, he didn’t get his tooth pulled.

Once we were finished there, we went to the Kaliti centre for lunch made by some of the guardians of rice and vegetables with bread before our home visits. These visits were powerful for perspective, let me tell you.

Our first home was for a girl who lived sometimes with her dad and step mom and sometimes with her mom. The step mom was pregnant and the dad had a googly eye. The daughter was aptly given the name “Pupil” so she could grow up and be her father’s eyes. She wanted to grow up to be a pilot and make enough money to take care of her dad forever.

We then went to a home where six people lived. It was owned by a daughter of the grandmother who was raising her daughter while she went to work in UAE to support the family, a girl who worked as a prostitute, a man who had mental health issues as well as two other brothers. The grandmother guardian lived in a tin shack in the yard of this place and slept in the main house with everyone else.

Our next home was for a girl who lived her mom and three other siblings. When I say home, it was the SMALLEST space that has ever been called a home that I have ever seen. Five people living in a room that was big enough for a double bed, a shelf beside it, and a space at the end of the bed so small the door couldn’t even open wide enough to fully open. The eight of us had four on the bed sitting, two on stools by the door, one standing, and the mother on the floor squatting.

Stop and think about this for a minute. This home for five was smaller than my king sized bed. They had to cook outside in a charcoal fueled stove, there was no toilet, no water and no electricity. Dick asked her where they all slept, and she looked at him with surprise that he couldn’t figure out three went one way, and two slept in reverse in a head to foot pattern. Five people in one double bed aged 14-43.

It took EVERYTHING that I had to stem the flow of tears as she was thanking us for the support we were giving her and her daughter with our visit, and for the support for her and her daughter in getting HIV+ medication. She explained that she was trying her best to be a good mother. I asked the translator to tell her from one mother to another that she was doing an amazing job. It was then the tears began to flow. I was able to turn my face away and thankfully the visit was over cause I needed a good cry and a hug from Alynne afterwards.

I could not even come close to imagining what her life as a mother had been like. Not even a little bit.

We went back to the Kaliti centre to do our medical and dental treatments for the kids there. Dick brought out his guitar and we sang a few songs with the kids to lighten our mood. It was there I truly appreciated the power of the selfie as we were swarmed with kids wanting to have their pictures taken and then see the pictures.

Once we finally finished there, we headed back to the house for comfort food. Spaghetti. Those Italians still have their hooks in Africa. I wouldn’t be surprised if they mount a second attempt at colonization….!

Night night!