Old Dog; New Tricks

It's interesting to consider the Human Race. We are running in a direction as fast as we can, but all the while running from what someone else wants. We seek health and relaxation by meditation, whole ingredients, local food, yoga, and a host of new age strategies. Meanwhile, rural India is saving up it's moneys for a big TV, grumbling about making flour from grains, and desiring imported packaged goods like the irresistible 20-20 cookies. Westerners savour 'homemade' bread even if it's just pouring ingredients from store-bought packages into a bread-maker with water from the tap. A month here has taught me to live with very little, which means the only garbage I regretfully discard in shrubs are 20-20 wrappers. Toilet paper, hot water, eggs, meat, and beds all seem like frivolous luxuries to me now.

Through my friendship with potty untrained Kuishy it has become evident to me that diapers are also surprisingly unnecessary. Given one lives on a smooth marble floor where animals freely do their business the added contributions of an infant are negligible. A naked baby is also free from diaper rash. Now, for reasons of hygiene, poop catching, and appearances, one may wish to cloth their baby's bottom. This can be done simply with any pair of pants or shorts. When soiled, remove, replace, and clean. A variation on the cloth diaper, I suppose, but the trick is to have enough bottoms to keep your tumbler fresh until the next laundry, a daily event in every Setrawa home.

Today a 10 year old showed me how to remove oil based paints from my hand. The trick is to get your hands wet and rub them in sand. I'm not sure how exportable this knowledge is, given the absence of sand in my front lawn, but it has given me a new way of looking at things

Without internet I have lost access to news. Instead I heard about the Japanese tsunami from my Indian dad who used very complicated gestures punctuated with the word Japan. I insisted my country was Canada, not Japan, thinking he was confused. It wasn't until he tied 'Japan' to one of his few other English words, 'finished,' that I clued in. When realization hit, Jen and many locals joined me in trying to decipher from the TV the of the situation.