Amoebas are People too

My other potential title for this blog was: Alive & Kicking, Just Barely.

I managed to sleep in a position mostly sitting up, though truth be told there was very little sleeping. At one point I thought I should have moved into the bathroom just to save getting up and down, and the feeling of nausea, and the waves of thinking I wasn't going to make it and really should have put my affairs in order before I left home (I'm not so sure you can use internet writing as a legal document. Would you all be forced to gather around the solicitor's office while he read my Last Will by Blog?)

This settled the question as to whether I could go to PhoolChatti Ashram today. I emailed them yesterday and the were very nice, saying "Hope you get over your tummy bug soon." I nearly started crying at the words tummy bug.

The thing about getting sick is how much it makes you want your Mom come along, say words like tummy bug, and help prop you up on the couch in front of the TV. Then you are healed.

My morning looked not too dissimilar, so don't feel bad, I know I can whinge. After lying down around 6 a.m, I woke up at 7. By 8 a.m I had walked with Sarah over to Pedro's roof where they yoga'd, and I went in search of a doctor or pharmacy.

I'm fascinated by the Pharmacy culture here. No one goes to the doctor. For example: Vanessa got valium over the counter just by asking for it. There was a moment of "You need a prescription," from the Pharmacologist and then "Okay, here". Forty rupees later 40 valium are hers. That's $1.05 in Canuck bucks. Prescriptions, by the way, in case you forgot my adventures with Rich, are written on a ripped piece of paper or cardboard, no letterhead or official stationary. What are you, fussy?

Pedro had some medication that sounded incredibly hardcore, after first being offered penicillin by the doctor he went to in Gujarat. He called his doctor back in Europe who advised that the other medication he'd been given definitely what he suspected: Intense. It was a medication you can't get outside of a hospital anywhere else in the world, and it's used to treat tuberculosis. His doctor in Portugal said, "So no problem, take it only if you get really sick and then not for more than 15 days in a row." Because Pedro had been really sick on his trip here last year and he still has some scars see and...

Right around this point, I'm watching Pedro and Vanessa eat they're amazing breakfasts of Fruit salad, muesli, curd, milk espressos, orange juice. You know what comes in a fruit salad here at the ol' Freedom Cafe? Everything: papaya, pomegranate, banana, grapes, mango. I kept looking at their food and feeling like I can't believe this - breakfast of Champions for $3 and I can't eat any of it. I've got to find a place called Moonlight Cafe that will make me Kichari, or just have plain rice. Perhaps a banana. Whoo hoo. A banana? Say it ain't so, doc.

But he did. I found this wonderful Ayurvedic Doctor, after I went back to bed, thrilled about being able to lie down and woke up late for Hindi, walked slowly down to Freedom to apologise to our teacher and Vanessa (who is kicking my arse in Hindi and I'd like to tell you it's because she's part Indian but no, her Papaji's from Gujarat and speaks Gujarati so she the gift) and walked back to this doctor's office. The young women who just came out of his medical room was almost in the same boat as me but had also just found out she was pregnant. (So I guess it was more like I was like in the rowboat peddling away from her Rainbow Warrior.)

Eufemia: Wow - really?

Traveler: Yes, so I don't have any medicine from back home. I am completely unprepared.

I wanted to say "I'll say," but I let it go and just sat there. Because I'm telling you, last night I thought an Alien would burst out of my stomach, or a fully grown adult like in the original series-turned-movie The Kingdom.

The doctor held my wrist and said "Stomach upset. Even before this not digesting properly. And insomnia. Nausea." After giving me multiple pills and instructions and re-hydration salts, ($9 later) he sends me on my way advising maybe it's best if I stay outta the sun and heat.

I've heard about winter back home, in Vancouver and Toronto, so I know, no one's crying me a Ganga back home but truly, staying out of the sun in India? This is nahee milega. Not possible.

I meant to tell you all about the other night when Vanessa & I got to watch a movie at the Himalya Cafe, a movie I bought in Pushkar called Paheli (Translation: Riddle, India's official entry into the Oscars in 2006) It was quite the feat, considering it stopped alot and skipped parts, and the guy at the cafe wanted us to watch the other movie I had Dilwale Dulhania le Jayenge, which translates into The Braveheart Captures the Bride. It soon became obvious why, after we picked Paheli, (the movie that was 2 hours and 10 minutes over the 3 hour plus movie.)

"This is called a chick flick in our country," I told him. And he sweetly let us watch it till the end and then said "Can take TV back now? Elections going on in Nepal now."

Well by all means! There we were watching a chick flick when the first democratic election in 250 years is happening in Nepal. I felt a tad superficial.

So tonight we're heading back to watch the other DVD, and inviting a small crowd. The Braveheart Captures the Bride is the longest running movie in Bollywood's history - running non-stop for 7 years (or 5, depending on who's telling the story) in a Mumbai Cinema. I'm fascinated by that and it's also the story of Indians living abroad, in England. The love story, of course.

I'm going to prop myself up and tell everyone to keep asking me about my tummy bug. That and a few banana's, I should be better in no time.