India. I think I’ll never get used to glancing into a construction pit as I pass by and seeing the bright colors of sari-clad women with wide, low baskets on their heads, loaded with heavy sand or mud, excavating the construction site with their manual labor. In their lovely saris, they look as if they could be attending the year’s most glamorous social event. The saris are such lovely fabrics, trimmed with golden threads. The women wear them so gracefully. They walk elegantly and climb out of the pits smoothly with these heavy mud-laden baskets on their heads.

India. Maneuvering the streets as a pedestrian or from the back-seat of a 3-wheeler rickshaw is a terrifying experience. But this is India and we are going to be in this for many months to come, so we need to adjust. Keep eyes and ears open. Listen for that traffic and the honking, move over at the last second. But be aggressive or get nowhere. Cars, rickshaws, bikes, carts, people, dogs, cows, ox-drawn carts, buses and lorries. All are whizzing toward one another and around one another, through one another. White-knuckled, I hold the rail behind the driver and watch over his shoulder from the back seat of the 3-wheeler. Taxis are headed directly at us at top speed, 3-wheelers are coming from all directions, people are casually (?) walking across in front of us, and the driver averts the wheel by only inches at the last possible second. And this doesn’t just happen once on a trip … it’s a constant. We all have played on the bumper cars at the fun fairs. This is like that, only we manage to miss each other in harrowing, last second dodges over and over again. I’m learning to take it calmly (??), and survival means that I must learn to pace myself the same way if I am to get across the street.