Last night, we all slept at Biku's house. The three girls shared the big beds where Connor Biku and I slept last time. Biku and his cousin wouldn't let us sleep on the floor so Connor and I shared a small bed in another room. By far the least comfortable surface I've ever tried to sleep on (and I've taken rock-naps while hiking). The bed was a wooden platform covered with two sheets. I got a bruises on both hips, bites all over my feet and the stiffest neck I've had since I broke it. I may have slept for 30 minutes but it was about 95 degrees inside anyway. I gave up around 5 am and went to sit in the hallway until everyone woke up.
Apparently, Biku's cousin was already late for a meeting in Bhubaneswar so he dropped us off at the beach and drove away. We thought he'd be taking us back to Juanga but this was the last we'd see of him.
We walked down to the ocean and I rented a tarp cabana which the "private lifeguards" set up for us. It cost about $4 and came with seats. The lifeguards wear these ridiculous hats made from what looks like white duct tape. Going to the beach is a unique experience. It's as if someone took the beach template used the world over and changed all the details. Everything from the color of the water and slope of the sand to the mix of dilapidated buildings behind us was different. There were also camels walking by behind us and a bunch of shacks on the beach selling goods or today's catch. We sat reading and staring into the waves for a while before diving in. Biku shouted for me to stay close to shore because of the currents. He doesn't know how to swim and decided to hire a private lifeguard. He put Biku in an inflated inner-tube and dragged him around in the shallows where we were playing in the waves. I swam out a little and body surfed before going back to our fancy cabana to dry off.
By this time we were famished and went to buy some dry and overly sweet biscuits from a hur before heading back to Biku's house where we are two giant meals in the span of an hour.
A driver came to pick us up in a rental car. Connor and I were in the backseat(read: trunk) for the three hour roller coaster ride back over the potholes. *can't call it a road when there are more potholes than pavement.
I worked out (and broke the exercise band I brought) and then washed off the salt sand and sweat from the day.
It was Diwali as well so before dinner we met our friends in the village and went to the roof of the school with a giant box of fireworks. Diwali is a festival celebrating the triumph of good over evil and celebrating those who have died. As far as I can tell, it's like July 4th without burgers or beer. The way fireworks were lit on the roof help to explain the poster we say claiming there were 200,000 burn deaths in India each year. It had been a clear night but the stars were soon hidden behind the cloud of spent explosives.
It was amazing how comfortably my rock hard bed can feel after a night on worse.
-AB
Souls of loved ones passed
Causing burns here down below
Lighting up the sky
No comments:
Post a Comment