Ode to Cipro

Hello everyone! I have now survived my second round of traveller's illness with a newfound love and appreciation for ciprofloxacin. Three pills over 36 hours and magic, I'm cured! It's the best thing that's happened to me in India so far. Well, not really, but close! So to back up, I'll start on last Sunday...

The American girls Saras set me up with were really nice, though unfortunately they're just here a short time and have already now left for Delhi. On Sunday we all met up again for some shopping and coffee (and I bought my huge book of maps - the second best thing that's happened to me aside from cipro!) and decided to go visit a Krishna Temple. Now I had no idea what a Krishna Temple is, who Krishna was, or what we were in for. In my mind I kept signing that Hare Krishna song and picturing the old ladies who come up and ask you for money at Tyson's Corner. Anyway, so we take an auto-rickshaw to the Krishna Temple at the north side of town and it's HUGE! Like a great white step pyramid with huge ornate detailig. Along the way I learned that Krishna is a Hindu God (unfortunately, I don't remember the stories associated with him...) and this was a temple devoted solely to the worship of Krishna. We decided to pay the extra 50 rupees (A little more than a dollar) to get in the patron line so we could get closer to the icons and skip the long lines. Good deal! Everyone has to take off shoes and check them (I was certain we'd have tetanus or staff infections before we left becaue there were so many people) and then we started working our way up through the chapel type of things. There were various icons and statues with bright colors and lots of gold and people were really into it... everyone was praying and down on their knees and performing rituals. It was so interesting, very different from the more familiar judeo-christian traditions. Anyway, at the top there's a huge room with very very big icons, I'm guessing of Krishna??, and lots of music (again with the Hare Krishna song whirling through my head). At the head, we in the 'patron' line got shuttled into a special room where the monk/priest type people solicited us for donations. Because the Krishna temples actually run a really good program feeding kids lunch in India, we donated the equivalent of 30 U.S. dollars between the three of us an apparently bought lunch for a kid for a year. So, all in all, fascinating place.

On Monday a new volunteer came to the office, James from the UK, and on Tuesday I had to take him out to the field and show him around. It was a little like the blind leading the blind because I'd only been there once before, but I think I gave a good intro and he seemed really interested at seeing the women's income generation projects at work. He somehow even got convinced to organize a sale of their products the following week at Bangalore's AOL offices. Yes, it's true!!! I'm finally going to see the famous Bangalore call center! Totally incidental that the product sale is also a bit of tourism for me, but if you call AOL in the middle of the night on Tuesday, I'll be there! Funny stuff.

Anyway, so quickly after I got home from the rural villages on Tuesday I felt like a truck rolled over my head and could barely stand up without my vision clouded and I ended up really sick by the morning. Had to miss two days of work and was gulping down water with oral rehydration salts. And of course my wonderful cipro saved the day and by Friday I was back at it. So here I am, found an internet cafe near 'home' and am off to a film festival for documentaries about water issues this afternoon. Should be interesting!

Missing home a bit and hope all is well.
love, julie