Nature does not want us to leave. We found out that our train tickets that were supposed to be booked for Tuesday accidentally got booked for September! However, this problem was soon trumped by the fact that it's been raining for an entire day and the 7-day forecast doesn't show signs of it stopping anytime soon. The issue here is that heavy rain produces conditions that will increase the chance for landslides up to 80% (and we found out later that there indeed had been one, closing the road for at least a day). Winding through the mountains on slick roads where rocks and mud are extremely likely to fall on or in front of our car is not all that appealing to me, even in my desperation to leave behind a situation over which I have no control (I'm realizing more and more though that control is an illusion, or rather a DElusion). I never thought I could be so grateful for having my basic needs met- we have adequate food, shelter, personal hygiene, and clothing (although the last is not so clean anymore; I did wash on the second day I was here and the climate has prevented it from drying for a week!). It's like getting stuck on a camping trip but having endless supplies and thus minimal concern over survival (although if I was so avid a camper that I would camp in the Himalayan foothills, I would know not to camp in the Himalayan foothills during the rainy season!) Now I am completely at the whim of the weather; I won't even be able to get down to the valley where the train station is (4 hours away) until it stops raining for a few hours. Then I will have to find a way to get back to Delhi, either by train or by the dreaded bus, and all on my own, as I am no longer travelling with my host.
The good news is that I am headed back to Thailand in a week! I've decided to go back to look for teaching jobs there. The natural beauty, ease of travel, and friendly people have really endeared themselves to me, as they have to many others, which will make finding a job there difficult. I am considered to be a low-qualified candidate, fresh off a TEFL course and with no experience, so if others are vying for the same jobs I may not be in luck. However, this way I will not regret having failed to look in my dream location for my dream job; if I don't find one, at least I'll have tried. I need to take a vacation from my "vacation" to India anyway. I'll make a beeline for the beach once I land and spend a few days recovering before I start the search.
Thursday was a very special day for the spiritual school here- it was the Lord Krishna's birthday. From what I gathered prior to the celebration, Krishna is an incarnation of Vishnu. He is blue, but I don't have any clue why. He also plays the flute and has many "girlfriends" (consorts). The ashram students put on a rendition of the story of his birth, in Hindi, complete with music and dancing! (All of the students had to learn Hindi to come to the school, as not one of them speaks it as a "mother tongue"). The play was very good; they were very creative with props and made the entire "stage" themselves, hanging saris for curtains. They even painted one of the children blue! The story goes like this: an evil king heard a prophecy that his sister's child would kill him. He then put his sister and her husband in jail (together?) and killed each child that they subsequently had. By divine intervention, the father was able to escape from prison and exchange his child (Krishna) for the newborn daughter of his friend in town. The king then killed that child mistakenly (not before the child shouted out "you have killed me mistakenly"). When Krishna was old enough, he fulfilled the prophecy and killed his uncle. The students depicted the family reunited as well (including the 7th child which was thought to be a miscarriage but was really transferred to the womb of the wife's husbands other wife). All the neighbors scattered around the hill were also in attendance and the play was well-received. The students even did an unrelated comic skit at the end that I could not understand (the play had only required minimal explanation), but which everyone was in hysterics about!
Up until now, I thought I had fully perceived the Himalayan view within my sights. Just beyond the hills is a higher layer of rough-hewn rock, like the edge of a chipped knife, the beginnings (or rather ends) of the Himalayas. Clouds roll over, sometimes obstructing the view of everything but our hill, making it seem like we are on a floating island in the sky. But I had clearly been missing something. One day, I couldn't resist going outside to walk after being cooped up nearly the entire day because of the rain. "Today I am going to find those tree-dwelling anteaters I heard about" I said to myself. I kept my gaze focused between the foliage and the slippery path, trying not to fall, which I did about every 10 feet anyway, splashing myself with mud every time. After one such spill I regain my balance and look up... and nearly fall back down again. Above a flat layer of clouds, I traced veins of white on a blue-gray slate upward through the wisps until they burst high up- snow caps! The periphery of my vision widened and my heart skipped a few beats as I began to comprehend the enormity of what I was seeing- the jagged outline of shapes, thousands of feet high, and dominating the entire panorama. They've been right there all along, the grand Himalayan mountains, to which neither words nor pictures can do justice. "So this is what holds up the sky." This is probably the most awesome thing I've seen in my entire life, the grandeur of the scenery divinely appropriate for the place where heaven touches earth.
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