My Village I Call Home

Chavadi Pudur, just a small village one hour outside of Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu. It has a thousand people, maybe. I am constantly surprised at the new faces I continue to see and the wide age variety. There is a little girl that lives at the top of the road leading to Matthew and Jeeva's house, my host family. Everytime I pass (I must pass at least five or six times a day) she comes running out of her compound onto the street with her hand in the air and not wearing any pants or underwear. I think she trying to wave but all she has master is to stick her hand in the air. After two weeks here it has not gotten old.
I wake up at six thirty every morning. Around this time it starts to get warmer, the rooster is testing his vocal strength and the next door neighbor can't stand a waking moment without his radio. All these elements combine to my natural wake up call. It take about an hour and a half to get ready because bucket showers are not as easy as turning the faucet on. I do an assortment of things until about 12:30 in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day, and I talk the twenty minutes walk to lunch. On the right is a picture of the lane I walk down in order to get to the main street. I am usually wearing a sawarl camis, a long tunic with pants and a scarf. T he jerks who thought it was ok to wear a scarf when it is a hundred degrees outside will pay in the afterlife, I am certain. It was probably a man. Most woman here wear sarees. I can't do it. It is to much fabric and it is to complicated.
The landscape here is beautiful. Like this lake you see. One morning I went on the bus and found this lake. I got off the bus to see if I could eat a little breakfast and read a little. I was quickly disappointed. This was the ultimate public bathroom. As I walked down the hill towards the lake I saw it was a field of poo. I saw three people squatting to take a dump. Must be nice, poo with a view. So beautiful yet so disgusting.