I've been posting a bit less the last couple of days. Everything is ok, there's just been a lot to do.
I'll start with Friday's events. We were supposed to leave early to Rhada Kund, a small town near by, to visit a goshala (I'll explain this later), but it was raining and we had to cancel it. After lunch we went to see another school, a not sponsored one this time. It was located just outside the city in a rural area. To get there, we needed to walk through a filthy (there's just no other word for it) flooded area. First I tried to find a way through a drier dump yard looking area, but in the end I had to give up, take off my shoes and walk through the unknown waters. When we got to the school, it was closed because of the rain. If you're thinking why does a school close because of rain, I've got a simple answer for you: it was an open air school. The only building was just a small hut, with a bell. The "classroom" was the area in front of it (picture). I was very surprised to see a beautiful school like the one we visited on Monday, Sandipani Muni. This rural school most likely was the other end of the spectrum.
After we returned from the school, we went to see a local tradition to a temple near by. It was one of the funniest things I've seen here so far. A ten meter pole was standing in front of the temple and there was a scaffold next to it (picture). There were some prizes on the top of the pole. A group of ten men, dressed only in boxers (or something similar), was trying to make a group effort to reach the prizes. The four guys on top of the scaffold tried to stop the guys below by pouring oil and water on them and on the pole. The shrine of Vishnu was watching the games from a wagon close by (picture). The group below tried at least ten times, but they weren't successful.
After watching the pole climbing, we went out for dinner with two of our local friends. One of them insisted on paying for the dinner, no matter how hard we tried to explain that for us the price was much less than to him.
Yesterday was a full day as well. In the morning it wasn't raining, so we headed out to Radha Kund. It was almost an hour's ride with a tuk-tuk and the road was very bad. When we got there, we went to another ashram first. There's a Krishna devoted man living with his family in the ashram. He comes from the very east of India, Assam. He offered us tea and told us that the ashram was built mostly by one Swedish man, who came to this place for the first time over 35 years ago. Most of the western people coming there, are from the Nordic countries. At the moment the ashram only hosted two monks and one old orphan woman.
The man living in the ashram also has a goshala. Cows are holy animals here and goshala means "cow-house", a sanctuary for cows who have gotten old or sick. Many families who have got a cow, can't afford to keep it after it gets old and gives no milk. Often these animals end up walking around the streets hungry. A goshala is a place where some of such cows are brought to. This is by far not the only goshala in the area.
In our way to the goshala, we walked through the countryside and saw many species of birds, peacocks, a crane and birds I don't know the names of. We also saw a Banyan tree, claimed to be 3000 years old (picture) and a magic tree of sorts, that heals illnesses. For this to happen, the person standing under the tree gets water poured on him through the leaves and then he has to leave his clothes hanging in the tree (picture). We saw a child "getting cured" this way as we passed by.
We took a short cut to the goshala through the rice fields. Walking knee deep in water was one of the scariest things here so far, because there was no way of seeing what else beside rice was in the water (picture). After surviving this, we finally reached the goshala. It looked a bit like a barn actually. Three men and two women were living there with around 250 cows. All the people working there, used to be poor beggars, but now they get food and a little money for tending to the cows needs. The oldest man living there offered us chai-tea, which he cooked on a fire made of sticks and dried cow dung (picture 1 picture 2). It was really nice of him, but since I had just gotten over my stomach problems, I had to decline. The man touched the fuel and the tea and sugar with the same hand, so it was too much for us westerners.
In the evening we again went out to eat with our local friends. They took us to the restaurant with their motorbikes. Three persons on one and two on the other, no helmets, bumpy roads. It makes up a nice thrilling feeling. We weren't going fast, but in this traffic 60kp/h is fast enough. We had the best Indian food I've had so far. The two brothers are the nicest and friendliest Indians I've met so far. I feel sorry, I didn't meet them earlier.
They helped us with getting a prepaid number, since our first attempt ended in a failure two days ago. The number should be activated on Monday evening.
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