peacocks and fireflies and mornings in Rishikesh

Today is really windy. My ashram is up on a headland and this is why I like it. It gets so windy up there the way the wind coming blowing down the valley around that corner and hits us full force up there. It’s gorgeous.
Walking down the hill into the streets, life is coming alive. Yatra season is beginning. Pilgrimage season, and everything just gets busier and busier, after the so peaceful winter we had.
The weather is warming, winter is over and business is picking up.
The fleets of workhorses overtake me, trotting down the hill with their keeper pulling up the rear. Some of them with their front and back legs tied together to restrict the range of movement so that when the guy fills their loads too heavy, they don’t hyperextend their knees. I wonder if this is a problem exclusive to Rishikesh and other hilly areas where the work mules are packing unreasonably large loads of stones or sand up very steep and long inclines.
Everyone is dusting off their shops for they day.
Throwing water on the street in front of their establishments to calm the dust that tends to fly in the air during the day, and throwing water on the cows foraging out front to discourage them from getting too comfortable setting up camp in front of the shop and possibly pillaging a chapatti here or there. (Cows can be quite sneaky and ingenius in their methods of stealing cauliflowers off vegetable carts. Just like the monkeys are at snatching bags of buns from inattentive shopkeepers).
All of the streets of my neighborhood are alive in the morning readying for the daily activities. I love the ritual.
Devotional chants are being played from cd shops and chai is steaming from pots. Cows are being chased…I’m not sure if they are trying to be caught or shooed away, it is unclear.
On my way to find skype to try to call my mother, its 9am but no one has their act together yet. My usual place is a travel agency with an attached internet room. Some guy I’ve never seen there before… he’s alone, and he tells me to come back in one hour… which I can’t do. The second place I try can’t seem to get their internet connection working, so I have settled for just writing in a word document and will paste it into my blog at another time. I guess. This is India. What choice do I have? What to do? As they say here.

Somehow India hasn’t managed to get on my nerves, even after 7 months. I just seem to fall deeper and deeper in love with it.
Peacocks and fireflies. That is what I have been hearing and seeing lately. A peacock has a most peculiar call. Like a very loud and persistent cat, very early in the morning. I haven’t asked anyone but I assume it is mating season, as this is a sound I haven’t heard yet. It is really nice to be able to stay in one place for so long to watch the seasons come…. And go.
I recently took stock of my stock: I now have TWO towels, a rug in front of my bed, some dishes and about 3 times as much stuff as I left home with. These are clear signs that I am living here. No “traveler” could be called so with so much paraphernalia in tow.
I saw peacocks too. In the bushes about 2 weeks ago. It was pretty cool. They pretty much act like prairie chickens in Canada, except they’re peacocks.
And fireflies…..ooooh, how much do I LOVE fireflies. Walking at night beside wheatfields or rice patties and all these little floating green lights. Like magic. So delightful. That’s all that’s going on for now. I’ve completed this 13 day course I was in. I still go to meeting everyday for one hour cause its nice to hang out with the people, but otherwise….just enjoying life. Soaking it up since the time is going to go very quickly these next 2 months, I just know.
So much love to all and bye for now.
ang