Himalayas and good endings to munted feet..

Playing in the snow

The ski slopes when we arrived (apparently covered in 15 feet 3 days later although inaccessible!)

Mountainbiking in the Himalayas

One month to go.
4 and a half months have gone by and it seems like so much longer when we think of what we’ve experienced and seen in this time. There’s been hard times when we’ve missed home and it felt like it was still so long till we would be back there, but now we’ve only got 4 weeks left and we’re starting to worry about how we’re going to be when we have to say good bye to this place and all the faces.


We had a week away in the Himalaya’s in northern india at the beginning of Feb with some of the other foreign workers at the ashram. It took us 15 hours to drive there (one little missed turn makes a big difference). We were hoping to get some snowboarding in but when we drove to the ski area there wasn’t any snow so we ended up doing a 40km mountainbike instead. The next night it started to snow heavily (I’ve never seen such big snow flakes!) and didn’t stop really until we left. We were so stoked with the snow until the power in the town went out, the roads were all closed and we were stuck in a budget hotel with no heating or hot water for 3 days. It was still heaps of fun and nice to have some time away from the noise, dirtiness and crowds that are delhi.

So we left still not able to snowboard at all as it was impossible to get up to the ski slopes and we were lucky to be able to drive home. To get out of the mountains it took us 5 hours to drive 30km’s due the snow…the shovel (brilliantly nicknamed Novel the shovel) we brought before leaving was so needed!


We got invited to another wedding the other night. The Dr from the Ashram’s good friend was getting hitched in a rare love marriage. We were to meet the Dr at the wedding venue later that night. We got all glammed up in our Sari’s and the boys in their suit jackets. This wedding was SO so flash. Cant even describe it! Millions of fairy nights, massive flat screen projections with film crews documenting the whole wedding. Dance floor with DJ and lights,waiters bringing around mocktails with umbrellas, and most importantly row upon row of food stands from all around India.…..AMAZING!!!
We worked our way upstairs to yet another food area which we had to sample and mingled some of the curious guests (wondering why the pales faces were eating all their chilli paneer). When we hear the band starting up outside signaling the groom has arrived on his horse drawn lighted cart.

The fun drum and brass band plays while you dance like crazy while men throw 10 rupee (about 30 cents worth) notes in the air which are quickly snatched up by lil street kiddies (check out the video at the end of the blog). We danced for about an hour wondering where our Dr friend was…..Got a phone call from him asking where we were, which we said "with the groom"……which apparently he was too-we searched around but couldn’t see him anywhere. Our friend finaly comes around the corner cracking up as turns out we were at the totally wrong wedding!!!! I could hardly make the run out of the wedding as I was doubled over laughing. The rest of the right wedding was wicked though…….hmmm the food. We are planning to crash another wedding tomorrow night actually…..

Vishisht

Vishisht is a cool story. If you look back at our earlier blog called "another day, another dhal" you can see a photo of when we found him outside one of the Delhi hospitals. He had such a munted foot with bones and raw flesh overflowing with maggots. Finaly got him to agree to come with us and then to consent to get operated on to get the foot amputated as he was in sepsis (massive body infection) and a little crazy.
We thought the doc's would have to amputate his whole lower leg but they managed to just amputate the fore foot leaving a wound that would normally need a skin graft to heal but which wasn't available. We were worried it wouldn't heal but he is making massive progress every day with the wound healing beautifully. He’s still a little crazy but seeing him singing and drumming away with a massive grin today shows how far he’s come.

Had lunch at Jakes friends house a few days ago, sat up on his roof of his grandfathers house (which has been passed through the generations and now will be his) and watched the colorful neighborhood. The village sky was littered with homemade kites that the kids flew by jumping from roof top to roof top. Felt like I was in a scene from the kite runner.
Some of the cute shy kids hopped over to see us up close as we would have been the first white people they had ever seen in real life.

kite runners

So many mixed emotions about leaving in 4 weeks…..Taking it as it comes but already feeling like each day left I want to make the most of.

Lots of love. Ruth and Jake

Video of the girls dancing at the wrong wedding