Fernando Salazar

Only 6 days remain till I depart India to return to USA and home.  Now I am in a limbo, where I have to tear down the infrastructure that has sustained me these 23 months.  Just last night I moved from apartment to hotel, having sold off all our mattresses.  As the bellman was walking me to my room he asked a typical question, “Did you have a very long journey, sir?”  I was taken aback.  In a way it took me 2 years to get to that point in time.  In the end I just said, the journey was not bad.

99% of our stuff is now in boxes or bags awaiting the movers on Monday.  In the un-packed 1% are the items above, small keepsakes from our travels about, that we have lined up on our dining room shelf.  Leading the way is the wooden horse, one of Kim’s finds.  Then there’s our soapstone elephant within an elephant, a candlestick given us by Rupesh’ family, minerals from our trip to Karla Caves, brass and wood fabric stamps (another Kim acquisition), and statues of Lords Hanuman and Vishnu, and of Manjusri, the bodhisattva of wisdom.  Soon they too will be in limbo, packed and mostly waiting in warehouses, till 3 or 4 weeks from now they arrive in Arlington, MA., pieces of India far from home …

… back now, a pleasant duty done.  In the kitchen we have many things to give away – excess staples like rice and dal, plastic containers, odds and ends of glassware.  Seeing some of the sweeper ladies who clean our building, I brought them up and they happily took it all.  And, they gave me some of their chai, that they brew in a little utility room using a tiny electric boiler.  It was good, hot, sweet, and with a bit of masala.  Who knows what they will think of the Salazars after we are gone?

Now, time to tear down more infrastructure … till next time.