In Which My Camel Adventures Continue

Yesterday I succeeded in flushing my sunglasses down a squat toilet. Oh, sunglasses, what times we had, and what a bitterly foul end you came to. I am sorry, lovely $2 sunglasses. You may have been $2, but in my heart, you were priceless.

Please, everyone, a moment.

And now, catching up with our heroine on Day 2 of the epic Trek Through the Desert...

Having fully expected to view the sunrise, I was shocked to awake long after the once-in-a-lifetime event, cocooned in our camel scented blankets that were as burr-free as possible in the height of the burry season. And by "long after the sunrise," maybe about half an hour after, but felt plenty late. We ambled about our campsite, brushing our teeth, utilizing our knowledge of angles and depth perception and such to take care of our personal toilette (punctuated every so often by a shout from the wilderness of "OUCH! goddamit, stupid burrs."), and were served some delightful breakfast by Mr. Roop Singh, which THIS morning happened to be, of all things, french toast with bananas. I should have asked him to throw some of his rum in their and voila! It's like a little bit of the Even Keel half way across the world. Generally, the toast tasted like the soy bean oil it was prepared in, but all in all, not too shabby. Not to mention, Evan was able to fashion a FANTASTIC likeness of India out of the last uneaten piece.

And then we lounged, as we were wont to do on this journey, and chatted, and the kids came back so we played some more frisbee, and we distributed water bottles and said we had no pens, and then we were off and back on the desert trail by mid-morning, with Dave in the camel cart, myself on Mr. Raj, and Evan high and mighty on Mr. Singh, made even more so by the unexpected event of Roop giving Evan the reins and a very basic lesson on how to guide his camel ("you go right, you pull right. you go left, pull left. want to stop, pull very hard, sitaram*.").

*Sidenote, which isn't so much on the side as in the middle: Roop Singh said sitaram about ten times every minute. It was either contained in his response to all queries or was the answer to a query, whether if it was a question about dinner, a response to someone begging for money, or a farming family yelling at him at how his camels destroyed their trees during the night. It was how he answered his phone, how he said good-bye, and, according to Evan, he spent a good portion of a jeep ride muttering it to himself, over and over again, under his breath. It just about drove David up the wall by the end, whereas I found it wedging itself into my vocabulary. A few more days, and who KNOWS what would have gone down. For the first day or two, I thought he was saying "sit around," and thought what a relaxed guy this was, but turns out it's an amalgam of Sita and Ram, a great Hindi God/Goddess love story. As far as we could tell, he's the only one who uses it.

So there we were, once again on the road, a little bit sorer, a little bit wiser, a little bit dirtier than the day before. Roop Singh stopped to chat with some of his grandfather's friends in the area, older sheepherder men in white turbans, and we did our best to properly Namaste as we passed by. Eva tended to lag behind as Mr. Singh wasn't feeling very fast (he IS 11 years old) and liked to take frequent snack breaks. As Evan said, they had reached an understanding. Mr. Singh carried Evan, and Evan let him have a snack when he wanted, because Evan couldn't stop him.

Roop Singh led us to a village he knew where the mainstay was clay pottery and rug weaving, done the old fashioned way. It took two men crouching over a low loom about 15 days to complete one rug made of camel hair, and an older gentlemen demonstrated the making of a few pieces of pottery on his completely hand spun clay spinny thingy (what are those called?? Pottery wheel! On his pottery wheel!!!). Roop then ushered us to the exit, but on the way we were ushered into side activities, i.e. a group of men beckoned David and Evan into their opium den, blessed their foreheads with red paint and rice, and fed them a mild chewable version of the poppy derived substance, and I was shown into the lady and childrens quarter, with a group of giggling children surrounding me and a smaller group of colorfully garbed women (then again, not much ISN'T colorfully garbed here) sitting nearby, who giggled a bit more subtly behind their head scarves. They offered me chai, and then a packet of what looked to be some sort of Japanese candy with a cute little Kirby-ike cartoon character on it. Once dumped into my hand, however, I was at a loss of what it could be. It looked like greyish blue lint, and was then directed to put the whole thing in my mouth and chew, which I did, and which eliceted MORE giggles from all corners. It tasted fairly minty and weird, and was (thank goodness) not meant to be swallowed as the very idea made me gag. The kiddos then directed me to spit it out with the aid of water to get it all out of my mouth, and followed me outside to watch me do my best to expel every little last bit of it. Finally having gotten it all out of my mouth, I stood up and immediately felt terrifically, terrifically dizzy. The boys, who had completed their opiate experience, were ready and set to go, none the worse for wear. I, on the other hand, was having a bit of trouble, and the dizziness soon turned to feeling quite queasy and weird. I therefore called the camel cart and curled into the fetal position for the ride to lunch, which was mercifully short, wondering what the hell I had eaten and praying that there wasn't some insidious parasite making a nest inside my belly. Once I decided that it helped more to sit up than to lie down on the cart, I was able to locate the wrapper, AND they listed its contents on the back. Turns out I had me some "betelnuts, catechu, tobacco, lime, [and] permitted spices and flavors." So instead of some weird Japanese breath mint, I had injested some very Indian chewing tobacco. I was okay after about another hour or so, but it was a valuable lesson to always, always look gift horses in the mouth.

Roop came up with the magical cure of soda water to cure my tummy, which definitely helped, among his reassurances that he was our mother, father, grandmother, etc. for the trip and not to worry ("You miss your mother?" he said to David. "I am your mother!"). We snacked, napped, hung out with some more kids who showed up, and then I was well enough to hop back on Raj and make our way to our campsite for the night, a spot right below these beautiful shrub covered dunes that offered a brilliant view of the sunset after a steep and sandy scramble up the side. We chilled with the beetles and the burrs while the sun set, David showed us a few of his hives (they come and go... every day brings something new and exciting and it's become something to look forward to, David's Daily Hive Check), we had another delectable dinner, had another poor showing when it came to rum drinking (on our part... Roop did alright, I think, and when he came to wish us goodnight after awhile he fell asleep on my blanket covered leg for a bit until I started laughing), and eventually fell asleep under the stars.