Its time for another festival, this one lasting for a week, I believe.
We spent Monday night going out to some of the temples, almost like trick-or-treating. You show up, stand in front of the shrine, hit the bell, and get "prasad", which is usually some rice with coconut and sometimes little candy balls. Then you go out to the next one.
The night got off to a rough start, as one of our friends who worked in the lab pricked himself with an HIV positive needle. He was in a hurry to come play volleyball, and didn't notice the patient was HIV positive, and in his haste, he poked his finger with the needle. Normally, the chances of contracting HIV is is about 0.4%, and with anti-viral drugs it drops to 0.01%, which means it is unlikely, but still scary. The drugs themselves also have nasty side effects, and he has to take them for about a month.
While we were consoling the guy who got pricked, the patient with HIV came in to have another test done. After a few miuntes I realized how crazy it was that we were giving all this attention to our friend who has a small chance of catching the virus, we were ignoring the poor bastard who actually had it. The patient started talking to me in Hindi, and I nodded and went along, repeating a few words here and there. If someone wants to talk, I guess its easy to make them think you are listening.
After all of that, we walked out to a few of the temples, and were taken into the village of Ganiyari, which we didn't even know was there! I had thought the village consisted mostly of the small shopping area where the twice-weekly market is held, and then small clusters of mud houses. However, thats because we come through on the "highway" and there's another main road where the rest of the village is.
The village has little stone streets crowded by houses, many of them two stories tall, and some of them three. Most of the houses look well maintained, and much sturdier than the mud houses. It is a cute village, and we will have to go explore it more, and in daylight.
After visiting some small temples, we went to a larger one with a larger celebration. This is a temple we had visited during the last festival, following the sounds of the tablas. They were inagurating a new shrine, and so were having a big event. There were a few hundred people gathered, and they had an "orchestra" - a band and singers playing into the late hours of the night. I left a bit past one, and they were still playing! People stay up all night for good luck, and our friend who got pricked by the HIV needle stayed, so hopefully the gods give him his good luck!
We spent Monday night going out to some of the temples, almost like trick-or-treating. You show up, stand in front of the shrine, hit the bell, and get "prasad", which is usually some rice with coconut and sometimes little candy balls. Then you go out to the next one.
The night got off to a rough start, as one of our friends who worked in the lab pricked himself with an HIV positive needle. He was in a hurry to come play volleyball, and didn't notice the patient was HIV positive, and in his haste, he poked his finger with the needle. Normally, the chances of contracting HIV is is about 0.4%, and with anti-viral drugs it drops to 0.01%, which means it is unlikely, but still scary. The drugs themselves also have nasty side effects, and he has to take them for about a month.
While we were consoling the guy who got pricked, the patient with HIV came in to have another test done. After a few miuntes I realized how crazy it was that we were giving all this attention to our friend who has a small chance of catching the virus, we were ignoring the poor bastard who actually had it. The patient started talking to me in Hindi, and I nodded and went along, repeating a few words here and there. If someone wants to talk, I guess its easy to make them think you are listening.
After all of that, we walked out to a few of the temples, and were taken into the village of Ganiyari, which we didn't even know was there! I had thought the village consisted mostly of the small shopping area where the twice-weekly market is held, and then small clusters of mud houses. However, thats because we come through on the "highway" and there's another main road where the rest of the village is.
The village has little stone streets crowded by houses, many of them two stories tall, and some of them three. Most of the houses look well maintained, and much sturdier than the mud houses. It is a cute village, and we will have to go explore it more, and in daylight.
After visiting some small temples, we went to a larger one with a larger celebration. This is a temple we had visited during the last festival, following the sounds of the tablas. They were inagurating a new shrine, and so were having a big event. There were a few hundred people gathered, and they had an "orchestra" - a band and singers playing into the late hours of the night. I left a bit past one, and they were still playing! People stay up all night for good luck, and our friend who got pricked by the HIV needle stayed, so hopefully the gods give him his good luck!
