9/24/08 in bed surrounded by moat

We've been visiting Ravendra (the man we look to the hospital) every day. He is doing a little better. Abel for the most part has taken responsibility and visits him 2 or 3 times a day bringing clothes or food. Abel was gone for the day so he told Mayang and I to take food to him.

When We got to the hospital, we saw that he had managed to completely defile all the clothes and sheets around him. They where covered with piss and blood and what mayang calls "su-su". It bothered us that he had been like that all day and the hospital hadn't helped him or cleaned him or given him a diaper of some sort. So, we helped him up to the bathroom to take a bath. The bathroom was so filthy that I almost vomited. The toilets (that are level with the ground) where all clogged and overflown, the urinals were clogged with what looked to be gallons of red Kool-Aid ("oohh yeahhh!") , vomit was clogging all the sings and drains in the bathroom, and the floor was a big fat mosaic portrait of the hospital's incompetence drawn with piss, blood, puke and "su-su". To top it off there was a malaria warning on the bathroom door. After feeding and cleaning Ravendra we left, promising we would come back with hot tea and cigarettes (we where happy he felt good enough to smoke..heh)

We came back to the hostile and Mayang and I where still upset and disturbed by poor conditions of the hospital. Mayang was ready to take a bath in rubbing alcohol when he we came back into our room (we now share an extended cut off to the Madelin room that is separated by french doors and leads into the garden outside) to find his bed covered with hundreds of ants. He wasn't in a great mood to start off with and now, needless to say, he was pissed. He tried in vain to brush all the ants off, and then lifted the mattress to find more underneath! He pulled his caut away from the wall and there where TWICE as many as he had already found! I looked at my bed and didn't see any ants, but I lifted the mattress and there were TONS! By now we were laughing in disbelief Mayang looked at me and said "Sy, mahn.... If we don't deal with these ants now.... we will die in our sleep tonight, and then be carried away".

We started to sweep the ants off the mattresses and underneath them, which sent the ants into a panic and they went all over the walls and covered the floor so that every step we took ants where climbing up our legs. Mayang shook his bed sheet swiftly to catapult the hundreds of ants off of his bed, and they flew into the air and landed all over his body.He started yelling and taking off his shirt and slapping every inch of his body (needless to say I was laughing head off. We pulled away a small night stand away from the wall, and behind it where twice as many ants as we had seen already, on this concentrated spot on the wall, all carrying their larva around with them. After an hour or so everything was clean. We swept the ants away and cleaned every square ince of our little room.

The next night before we went to bed, we searched the entire room for ants and didn't find one. I layed down in bed and thought "I should call april, but sleeping sounds incredible right now" so I went to bed. 40 minutes later I felt something on my arms and head and think "it's just my imagination recovering from last nights trauma" but the "creepy crawly/ebee-jeebees" got incredibly tangible and I turned on the light. There were ants all over my body and bed. I looked at mayang who was still asleep and saw there were none on his bed. I took it as a sign that I should call april... so I did. I turns out that mayang woke up at 2 in the morning to the same unpleasant surprise.

This same routine has happened for 3 days. The ants disappear during the day, and at night they cover your body and bed. When I told our "ant woes" to Aanugra, he suggested putting each leg of the bed into a bowl and filling the bowl with water, because ants won't try to cross the water, and if they do they can't swim. So now, as I write, I am laying on my bed with half of a water bottle on each leg of the bed filled with water. Call it superstition but I feel safe to sleep tonight.

Abel often laughs when Amy tries to speak in hindi, which is ironic because half the time I can't understand a word he says in english. He often mixes his "ss-ah's" with his "sh-ah's". The other day when we went on a group site seeing trip, Abel told us "let's stop here and shit together". we all laughed and assured him that there was no way we could all fit into one bathroom.

I realized that some jokes just don't make alot of sense in india. Like that joke "Which hand do you wipe with?.......(friend answers right hand or left hand)...... oh really? I usually just use toilet paper!" doesn't really apply here. If you asked them what hand they wiped with they would just say "left hand! Duhh!" or maybe even retell the joke "what kind of toilet paper to you wipe with?..... (wait for response)..... oh really? I usually just use my left hand!"

There are some other cultural differences and preferences that you come to recognize after you've been in India for a while... example- Did you know that "cow tipping" is frowned upon here? well I sure didn't!