THE LONG JOURNEY HOME

Saturday saw me leave India. I shared a car with Ross and Dennis because the 3 of us had flights much later than the rest of the group so we didn't want to take the bus at 9am. A 2.5 hours car ride cost us each 500 rupees ($11 US - try getting a cab ride like that in Toronto!) so it was worth it.

However, we got to the airport at around 3 and I still had some 7.5 hours before my flight. Unlike the Singapore airport, at the Trivandrum (TRV) airport there is nothing to do. The security wouldn't let me into the airport (where there was airconditioning) until 3 hours before my flight. So I just sat in the heat. The only thing to do out there is to really catch up on the latest styles of moustaches since everyone in India has one. I just sat outside the airport reading a book. Once in a while I would walk to the other side of the airport where I'd have to tell the waiting taxi drivers "No thank you" and then walk back. That managed to kill about 4 minutes of my wait each time.

Finally, at about 7:30, one of the machine-gun-toting (yes machine guns) security guards waved me over letting me into the air conditioned inside of the airport. Not that I need to tell you this, but India is hot, so it's no real treat to sit outside in the hot airport for about 4 hours.

The security at the TRV airport is more intrusive than a physical from your doctor. After you put your carryon the xray bag and go through the metal detector, some guy still waves you down with a handheld wand, even if nothing beeped. At the airport, on the tarmac, there are still guys with rifles standing sentry.

Once I got on the plane, the real adventures started. My flight left 10:30 TRV time and landed in Singapore at 5:45 Singapore time. The total flight was only some 4 hours, so I tried to sleep. I wanted to try to get back onto TO time as soon as possible.

On the Singapore flight to Tokyo (Stopover) I tried to sleep. By the time I woke up, it was already 8 am LA time, which meant it was 11 am Toronto time so I had to stay awake till I got home.

Once in LA, my love affair with Singapore Air ended rather quickly. Apparently, they forgot to put my bag on the plane in Singapore. I found that out in LA - they already had my name on a list (I hope it wasn't b/c I was "smuggling" in almonds!) and they promised me it would be put on the next flight to Toronto since it was landing in LA at 4pm. I had a 3pm flight back to TO.

There was nothing of real value in my luggage, save for the bag itself, the shawl I got at the closing ceremonies, and three scarves that I bought as gifts. Those scarves were "irreplaceable" in that there's no way I'd find anything similar in Toronto for the prices I paid for those three scarves. Because one of the recipients may read this, I won't say the price.

LAX was a great time. I found a duty-free store that had 30% off of Burberry ties. $90 ties for only $63 US, and because I paid for them with US dollars that only cost me $1.121 CDN before I left, I got those ties for ONLY $70 CDN. What a bargain! I completely forgot about the $750 exemption we're allowed to bring back into Canada duty free (I only brought in $200 worth of goods) otherwise I'd have gone buck at the duty-free store. I LOVE TIES! (If anyone is ever in need of an idea to buy me a gift, clearly a Harry Rosen gift card would be well appreciated and I'd probably buy a tie with it so you'll be a part of me wherever I go).

I also got some good news in LA - Edmonton forced a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup finals. I had to flip through at least 3 or 4 U.S. newspapers before I could find out the outcome of Game 6. A big drawback to the U.S. is that hockey is clearly not a priority there, especially when a city's team is out of the playoffs. I was very ecstatic to find out that there would be a Game 7 - not so happy about the outcome but that's another story.

On the flight back to Toronto, I realized that airlines really need "Kiddy Class" where all the parents with their kids can be segregated from the rest of the passengers because after flying for over 24 hours, the last thing I want to put up with is some screaming kid.

Sadly, my luggage did not end up in Toronto on the 4pm flight from LA. It wasn't until Friday, 5 days after I returned to Toronto, that I was reunited with my luggage. So, finally, a happy ending to the trip was just delayed.

That concludes my journey to India, the land of Tom Selleck fans, water that gives you the shits and food that is spicy.

FRIDAY JUNE 17

The Chronicles of Nania

Today, because there was no work, we had no time constraints to wake up, unless you wanted to eat breakfast (for free* - an asterisk attached b/c while we didn't leave any money on the table after eating our 3 set meals a day, they were paid for out of what we paid for fees to go on the trip).

Friday was a special treat because in that we were going to see how Nan bread was made. I'd often eat two or three (or sometimes even four) pieces of the sweet tasting bread at whatever meal it was served to us. No real mystery, but it was confirmed that the sweetness of the Nan came from the sugar used to make the dough.

It seems that almost everything we ate had sugar added. Or rather, Indians add food to their sugar. Each morning at breakfast, we were served a glass of freshly squeezed juice - with sugar added. It's as if sugar is one the major food groups. To paraphrase a friend of mine, maybe the Indians believe that food is just an excuse to eat sugar.

That afternoon we boarded our Magical Mystery Bus for our last outing. We went to go see some sort of waterfalls. I think waterfalls are really attractive, natural wonders to see. Now, I wasn't expecting to see anything of the magnitude of Niagara Falls, but I definitely wasn't expecting to see what I did see.

The waterfall, whether natural or man made, was in some sort of park that required admission. Actually, to call it a waterfall is an insult to waterfalls everywhere, but for ease of reference, I'll call it a "waterfall". This waterfall was really just an outdoor shower area - yes, water was falling over a cliff edge of some kind, but I don't envision a bunch of Indian men, most in shorts and some in their traditional Indian skirts (which the white skirts become VERY transparent when they get wet) lathering up. Worst 2 rupees (approx. 5 cents U.S., yes a nickel) I ever spent.

The Last Supper

That night was the closing ceremonies and our final meal as a group, since two were leaving that night because they had really early flights the next day. There were speeches from Mr. John, the head of Habitat for Humanity Kanyakumari (the local affiliate) and we got to meet the homeowners, many of them who had never met any "white" people. Note, that Leo is Korean, Andrew is Chinese and Flore is Columbian, so I don't think that they'd be consider "white" by any stretch of the imagination. For the homeowners, it was good for them to see the people who were volunteering their time to help build their houses.

We were showered with gifts of appreciation - including certificates that had watermarks of the photos taken of us throughout the week - and some sort of ceremonial shawl. It was a nice way to close off the 2 weeks of work.

THURSDAY JUNE 15 - T-minus 2

Today was the last day of work at the work site. It was also a 1/2 day at that. The previous day was also a half-day for, too, because not only did I go back to the hotel at 11 am, but our group was in the midst of learning how to make an Indian chicken dish, which to give a Cliff's Notes version of the lesson:

• mix a lot of spices and spicy food (green hot chill peppers) together
• add chicken
• add salt
• add more salt. A. Lot. More.
• cook
• eat
• extinguish fire in mouth

On our last day, the bulk of what we were doing was moving bricks. Again. Sometimes, it felt like I was volunteering with Brick Moving for Humanity. We were moving the bricks from the pile where they were dropped off by the truck to one of the three houses we were working on because the masons were going to be building the walls of that house.

Let me describe the three Habitat houses on which we were working. The first one had its foundation poured, and walls were in the process of being put up when we got there on the 1st day. Most of our tasks involved carrying sand from the pile by the pre-school to the side of the house to be used for mortar for that house. There was also some masonry work to be done, and we had to carry buckets of rocks, but I have no idea what they were used for. By the time the last day rolled around, there was already work being done on the roof.

The second house had its foundation set, and some brickwork set for walls. Mostly we had to fill in the rooms with the dirt that made up the land that surrounded that house, which eventually made it tricky to get into that house because we used most of the dirt near the entrance to fill up the rooms. Once the rooms were filled (i.e. a floor was created which would eventually have concrete poured over it because its next to impossible to keep a dirt floor clean) that's when the bricks had to be moved into piles in the house to give the masons easy access to them, and this is where we started a chain gang go first pass the bricks (working the obliques and arms) and then later we started to toss them, working our shoulders. A lot of the work we did could've been seen as a very interesting exercise regime - when we'd toss pans of dirt, that worked the legs, abs, shoulders and for the catch: the forearms. The rest of the work on that house consisted mostly of masonry - mixing mortar, bringing pans of mortar to the masons and the volunteers who were helping to lay brick.

The third house was the house we worked on early during our trip and on the last day. For the first job we did, we had to fill up the foundation with dirt to eventually create a ground floor. The dirt was from the dirt that surrounded the house - but a lot of it had to be broken up, which was very hard. Aidan, one of the 3 20 year olds on the trip, was "one with the dirty" and was able to break up good chunks of the solid dirt with the dirt-breaking-stick. It wasn't until our last day, that we did more work on that house - brick carrying in buckets, masonry work. At 11:30 am exactly we had to install the door frames - there were only short walls in place - because of some sort of ceremonial reason. There was even flowers tied to the door, and pictures were taken with us holding onto the door. I don't know the reason for the exact time why that door had to be put up then.

The reason for the 1/2 day was so we could go to the beach. There was nothing to get excited about going to the beach because, India being a very conservative society, required the girls to wear shorts and t-shirts at the beach, even if they went in the water. Beach blanket bingo it was not.