India - Auroville - The Monsoon

Then, the Monsoon season struck us.  Some Oregonians might be familiar with the concept of “lots and lots of rain”.  Well, that’s what we got.  Damp, humid, wet, rain.  Every type of rain imaginable: pouring, pounding, misting, drizzling, dumping, flying-sideways, flooding, RAIN. All day, all night.  Thunder and lighting – one so close Aphyna and I almost jumped under the bed.  Mud ruined the roads, and threw us off our little scooter more than once.  Dampness seeped into everything in our room: the sheets, the clothes, our backpacks, everything sprouted white and green mottlings of mold.  And it gets into your soul, too, that dampness; and it makes you soft, sleepy, and damp.

It was difficult, at first.  It’s not easy to adjust so suddenly to such a drastic change in climate: from the hottest of the hot to the wettest of the wet.  But before long, we were starting to adapt: finding ways to stay sane when trapped in such a small space turned from an impossible task to a Divine gift.  We painted, we read, we learned songs on the ukulele.  We made soup, we meditated, we made Sauerkraut, we drank lots of chai.  We barely even noticed when the power was out – or rather, we barely noticed when the power was on, which was the minority of the time.  We didn’t see other people very much.  We stocked up on groceries when we dared venture out in a brief dry (or drizzle) spell.  We scrambled to wash clothes if we saw even a hint of sun.

Rain.

Negative: standing water surrounding our house.  Positive: Moat.

I actually PREFER candlelight dinners - much more romantic.  Who needs power?

SSUPER special limited India edition kraut - cabbage, okra, chilies, garlic, lime, himalaya pink salt!  YUM! 

These jars are HGFP Collectors items!

The terrace is still nice even when it's pouring!  Aphyna is tending to a burn wound from one of our scooter spills - our only injury so far! 

I think it may have been the onset of the Monsoon, grinding everything to a halt (or at least everything that isn’t entirely mandatory, which for us, meant everything), the dampness setting in, or all the foreigners starting to make us feel antsy, or just a plain thirst for adventure, which inspired us to consider changing our plans.  Why stay in Auroville for 2 months?  India is a huge country – almost as tall North to South as the US is wide East to West.  Why not explore it?  So we made a plan: we’d leave at the end of the month for Rishikesh, a popular destination for Hindu pilgrims (and tourists) making their way up into the mountains of the Himalayas far in the northern state of Uttarkhand.  And from there, why not further?  Maybe even Nepal?  We had a whole month before we head for Thailand – we made up our minds and hearts to make the most of it! Rishikesh here we come!