Lying in Bed

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Hello!!! Here's the news for yesterday:

Yesterday, I spent most of the day lying in bed in a ridiculous amount of pain. I stared out the window for a long time, and as I watched an old woman with a bandage on her leg begging for change, I thought about how lucky I am to be sick and, at least in this country, affluent. Health care IS free here, but still, I thought about all the people in the world that have had shingles (or much, much worse) that couldn't lie around in a nice, warm bed and relax. Even though shingles seriously sucks, I could be in a lot worse places, and I started feeling very thankful for my situation and my life. The gratitude gave me access to feeling very peaceful.

The weather outside was rainy anyway, so I wasn't missing much. Basically, it means wet flip flops and a bunch of slick cow poo. I did leave the hotel twice, once for lunch and the other time to take my laundry to the cleaners. I ate at this vegetarian Japanese restaurant called Lung Ta, which is run by a non-profit organization called Gu Chu Sum. It is run solely by former political prisoners of the freedom movement for Tibet, and aims to assist current and former political prisoners. Their Web site is http://www.guchusum.org, in case you are curious. On that note, it's sad meeting so many beautiful Tibetans here who have fled their country. They really are a wonderfully peaceful people (not just so in the movies!) and I can't imagine a solution to the problem since China is so powerful with so many people. I tend to be optimistic about peace, but this is such a difficult situation.

Now for a random thing I've noticed about the culture that was a bit unexpected. I have never seen an Indian man and woman walking hand in hand, BUT, frequently I see Indian men do it with each other. They even walk with their arms entertwined or around each other. And from what I heard from one Indian man, homosexuality is quite frowned on here, so it's not that. Although I did see two monks walking through the rain together with their arms around each other, underneath a rainbow umbrella;-) They even had matching red and white shoes. Cute.

I'll continue with today's *exciting* (and itchy) stories in the next entry...

xoxo,
Jess

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Comments

[Jessica's Mom, Trish]

Have you seen this website?
http://reservations.bookhostels.com/ Select India, and then Dharamsala (are you still there?) ... and there's a $20/night Hotel India House that looks wonderfully nice. Just thought you'd like to know ... in case you didn't ... know, that is ... Love, Mom