It was a festival day, so we had lunch with a bunch of nurses and staff under the sacred tree in the hospital front yard. "Party" or "feast" days seem to just involve moving where we eat and sitting with more people in the same customary silence.
A little while after lunch, we went up to the overhang outside Biku's room and he operating room with Rohit and Milan. They had gotten amulets of protection for us, it's the same ones everyone here (including infants) wear on some combination of their upper arms, wrists and neck. They can only be made on sacred days and today was perfect. The ritual involved Rohit tearing off pieces of the leaves from the sacred tree and sealing them inside the small copper tubes with wax from a candle. We each made a couple as Milan explained how it would keep us safe from the god of destruction. It's perfect timing right before I leave for Malaysia. We also had a red and yellow thread bracelet for good luck put on our wrists (right wrist for guys, left for girls).
Wearing this makeshift jewelry immediately makes me feel like more of a dirtbag traveller. With my (more than one) fancy button-down shirt and slick kahkis, I had started to feel more like a working man. The threadbare bracelets helps to ground me and I enjoy it so far.
We played cards for a while and Biku drew henna on Connor and my hands while some of the nurses drew designs on the women. I have a mountain landscape with birds and a hut on my left hand. I'm writing this post two days later and I've decided I wouldn't like getting a tattoo. It keeps feeling like dirt I should run off.
Our lazy day went by pretty quickly and we talked with the nurses for a while before bed. They were leaving the next day and we were anticipating the hole they'd leave in our new routine.
-AB
Leaves inside
Watching over me
The bum life
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