Squelching the Rumors...

Temple, Parassini

Long time no post, I apologize. I am sure many of you are concerned--distraught even--at my abrupt disappearance, your heavy hearts plunging as you sit listening to the clock's menacing tick, pacing your living rooms late at night downing tumblers of whiskey (what? my friends are southern...) and frantically trying to shake the mental images of me drowning in slum-muk or running away with some high-pitched skinny-jeaned Bollywood star. Or perhaps it was the animals that did me in as I lay screaming under the foot of a wild elephant or whimpering from my Indian jail cell where they have detained me for first-degree murder of the ever-sacred cow in a moment of American carnivorous weakness.  I've even heard the rumors that this whole blog was just an elaborate scheme so that I could make away with tons of used children's books. 

Well rest assured; I am safe and sound and back in Saugus as planned. The reason that you have not heard from me in so long is that I changed locations and lost computer access. As some of you might recall from the first entry,  I left Jaipur and my precious girls in early December and began a new volunteer project in Kerala on December 6th. 

My bed and charming Finnish roommate

In Kerala I was located in a tiny village called Parassini just outside of the city of Kannur. This location was so rural that it makes Nebraska seem like a bustling metropolis. It's the kind of deep jungle that cultivates bugs in such mutant sizes that we mistake them for rodents or birds. On one occasion I woke up spooning with a cockroach the size of Macaulay Culkin. The closest Internet cafe was 30 minutes by bus and it frequently lost power. Typing emails was like a WPM test--how fast could you bang out a cordial update before the computer shut down with a sigh and the lights flitted to black? It doesn’t help that you are still charged for the time spent in the dark slapping mosquitoes against the back of your neck as you wait for the power to return. 

The good news? I have a few blog-drafts that I wrote in my journal, and I promise not to leave you hanging. Put down the bottle and toss out those fist-fulls of Klonopin—I’m back! In the next few weeks I will recount my last classes with the Jaipur girls,  how we said goodbye, and my brief reunion with them before returning to America. Sorry again for the delay and thanks for being so patient!