To Market

It was a fun weekend here at Jamkhed. Friday night we had the poker tournament that lasted until 2am! It started with around 10 people and I’m happy to say that I came in a respectable third place. I could have left at 1am but stayed until the end as "dealer," mostly so that I would have someone to walk home with to protect me from any lurking cobras.

Saturday we had a class and then headed to the markets. First stop was an animal market, basically people selling cows, bulls, and goats. A cow is pretty pricey but you can get a good goat for about $80. It is quite an experience, pictures attached. The pink on the bull humps is a Hindu offering and a holy color. As we were leaving we saw a snake guy (not really a charmer because he wasn’t playing music) who had these baskets and just started pulling out snakes. While I was trying to keep myself from having a heart attack, it was cool to see. There were three long snakes in one basket and then a COBRA in another. It was frightening but something you can’t look away from. Side note: apparently we all have some fear here of snakes so tonight they are bringing in a real snake charmer to help us "feel okay" about the fact that there are poisonous cobras living with us...we will see how that goes.



After we went to the vegetable market, which happens every Saturday. Lots of local veggies. I bought some mangos which is a nice change from the bananas we have every single day. In the afternoon a few of us went on a long walk around the compound area we are staying in. Really pretty area, we were attempting to find a lake and were unsuccessful but it was still a worthy journey.

Saturday night we had our party. Definitely lots of fun! They supplied pizza, cake, chips, and drinks. We had music and played some games, including flip cup. Playing flip cup in the middle of rural India, it doesn’t get more surreal than that! We even had one of the kitchen staff ladies playing which was quite hilarious.

Sunday we went and sat in on a meeting of the “adolescent girls clubs.” They bring girls here every week and teach them self-defense, nutrition, and other things. It was great to see the enthusiasm from these girls, full of hope, which is a great thing to see here. One girl even said she wanted to be a lawyer! Then a couple of the girls cooked pasta and cheesecake, another nice break from the food and very good.

Yesterday we actually had a free day and I spent it working on my project and panicking about travel. Apparently all of the flights I had intended on taking after are now booked…so Kelly and I are needing to rethink itinerary yet again…however I think we resolved everything today and will actually get to visit some of the cities that I missed before on the tour! Cannot believe it is July already! Time is flying...