Smells Like Masala

It’s been a second since I last blogged.

Since then, I’ve spent two days at a hospital, and a couple languishing in our hotel room.

Thursday, Tristan awoke under gastrointestinal duress. The kind of duress that sent us directly to the nearby Tibetan Delek Hospital. Saturday, I awoke under similar circumstances and the trip was made again.

The facility was built with Italian money to directly serve Tibetans in exile. It staffs at least one western doctor and resembles slightly, a miniature US hospital. It sits on a hill overlooking lower Dharamshala, across the street from the Tibetan Congress.

We took our places in what appeared to be a chaotic waiting room, after paying Rp.10 for a seemingly arbitrary number to be seen by the doctor.

In classic Indian fashion, appearances were deceiving, as the whole thing operated more efficiently than most U.S, emergency rooms.

Not to weigh the post down with details, the long and the short of our combined visits is, Tristan and I have Amoebas swimming around in our guts.

This not only makes it difficult to concentrate but magnifies homesickness and inflates the abject disdain I have for the Indian teenagers playing soccer just outside my window.

Their game follows three days of Indian girls chatting and screaming just outside our guesthouse door.

The universe alined, and Tristan and I fell ill just as an Indian tour group of children and teenagers descended upon Paul’s house in otherwise quiet Dharamkot.

In between ear-plugged naps, I’ve had the pleasure of trying to read while listening to Hindi screamed over English, yelled over some sort of mixture of the two.

All the while, I’ve tried to suck down hydration salts, which taste as if someone pissed in your Tang before bringing it to the moon.

As I finish this post, the children outside argue whether a goal was scored and I resign myself to quietly sipping stale-flavored salty citrus water and trying to ignore the tumult.