MARCH 7, 2007

I feel good as new, thanks to some drugs from Charlene and sweating it all out overnight. It is our last day in the desert and we mope around in the gray morning, playing listlessly with the black lab puppies, posing for a group photo, saying truly heartfelt goodbyes to Bonnie, Bim, Sunayna, and others as we trudge onto the bus large enough for forty of us, and head to Jaipur.

At our deluxe hotel/former Haveli (mansion) in Jaipur, it is the first time we’ve been among so many Caucasian faces. I suspect each of us had some variation of the culture shock I know I had. I hope not everyone’s culture shock was as visceral and downright mean as my own, where I just kept repeating to myself “fucking tourists.” Silently I implored them to climb back on their bourgeois, oversized, air-conditioned buses and take their designer-clothed, bargain hunting asses to some other place so as not to mess up my authentic experience of India. This just before I look at my Timex and hurry to meet the group on our air-conditioned oversized bus as we rumble out to find the best prices on textiles and jewelry. Yet I still managed to feel superior…at least I was dusty and my sharp edges were worn smooth by desert wind and sand. Thankfully I found myself absurd and funny. I would have been insufferable to myself had I taken myself seriously.

There are more adventures before and after the humanitarian portion of the trip…on elephant back at a fortress, with snake charmers, luxury haveli hotels, puja ceremonies (I finally got a damned string tied around my wrist!), and more, but this is the end of the ride.

With my newfound appreciation for simplicity, I recognize my good fortune in being the only one who has a non-stop flight back to the U.S. The armrest of my modular leather seat in opulent first class on American Airlines has at least nine settings to personalize the comfort, and I can only sit bolt upright, staring at the buttons uncomprehendingly, for the first hours of the flight. It is luxurious and easy, and in my present state, baffling. When I get home to a computer, its purpose seems to elude me. It takes days, even weeks, for me to re-integrate into my world.

I still retain, and hope I always will, a taste of the calm and maybe I can even say the tiny taste of transcendence I found in India, one of the most chaotic places I’ve ever been. I remember the extraordinary honor of being welcomed into such an uncomplicated world. Boys in the medical camp shyly approached me, bent down to touch my feet, then quickly touched their hearts and foreheads, trying to do the gesture discreetly so perhaps I wouldn’t notice. The intention was to get some of my personal “greatness” to rub off on them and bless their lives. “It is a sign of very great respect,” the dentist with whom I worked told me. I am so humbled and close to tears. It is I who should be touching their feet.

It is a bit like eating a caramel. Long after the savored flavor is gone and my tastebuds and mind have moved on, maybe hours later my tongue will worry a part of my mouth outside its usual, mostly unconscious travels, and it will discover, quite by accident, a tiny explosion of unexpected sweetness. Not for looking, but just because it was there, waiting to be tasted and remembered. If I poke and prod around looking for more I’ll never find it. I can only stumble into the sweet.

Sorry to have bored you, if anyone is still reading this far.

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