Dengue Fever

Well it's around us within the community. We have discovered in a community you cook together,  you eat together but you also get sick together.

  There is a few things Sadhana Forest could be doing better to slow the spread but it's a large organization and change is hard for them. 

Last Thursday while in Auroville I started to feel dizzy with a slight temperature.  We came home and i went straight to bed. At first feeling happily drunk.
But 30 odd hours later the fever broke. In that time i was stuck in bed.
I did go for a wee outside un assisted and past out climbing the stairs back tp bed.
I came to lying in the gravel lost.  I tried to recall what and where I could be but my mind was blank.
I called out for help in my pathetically weak voice until rissa turned up.

After adding a few bruises I made it back to bed where i stayed for the next day.

It's now day 3 and compared to others im doing really well.
I made the quiet walk to the main Hutt for some papaya and banana.

Thank fully I didn't need this hearse I spotted outside the hospital. 

I am getting better but very slowly. 

I can now go to the toilet and carry luke for a short distance.  In fact it was a moving experience holding him for the first time since last Thursday and have missed the contact. 

While all this is happening we are trying to get tickets to our next stop an pack, return bicycles etc and everything seems such a hassle.  But we are getting there.

Boyd

Our Home Sadhana Forest.

our adventures into real India :-)

Images of India

As we get near the end of our time here at Sadhana Forest our thoughts are shifting to reflection of our time. Sadhana has been very peaceful with Luke and Tara finding confidence to play on their own and others. Mornings are busy with the community with afternoons free for us to explore by bicycle. 

I love Chai

I just do.

My Sadhana

I have been quietly waiting for this place to grow on me........

And in some ways it has. ..... There are some truly special people that come through this place ,that bring with them interesting stories and moving life journeys. Michael,  the organic farmer from Orkney who drives part of his annual income from two windmills.   Otto,  the funky hydrologist from Sweden.  For examples. :-)

There is also a comfortable peace that comes with children so at ease that they dissappear for hours.  Tara has become friends with the director's daughter,  Shalev. They raid the jaggery ( palm sugar) cabinet and hide in the lost property cupboard knawing covertly on their jaggery nuggets like vegan dogs with a bone.

But on other ways I struggle.

There are soo many rules and regulations.

You must wake up at 5:45 and come to morning circle to massage each other and shout MORNING CIRCLE !!!!!  really loudl.

You must not touch the food buckets unless you are a designated server

You may not help yourself to more food until that bucket of say porridge has been offered to everyone else for second helpings

You may not eat until after the chimes.

Community announcements take place before the chimes and personal announcements may  only be made after the chimes

You must place your shoes neatly at the door

No shoes in the hut

No technology may be used outside of the technology area

You may only charge your gadgets between 12 and 4 each day

Wash your hands before cooking and tie up your hair

If you eat or touch your face whilst cooking then you must wash your hands.

You may only use water from the hand pump to wash your clothes and have a shower.

You may only use Sadhana approved soap.

You may only use the washing areas to wash clothes and the  washing area amd hand pump are 50 m from the hand pump

Do not pee in the composting toilet

Only pee in the pee hole.

Carry your crow bar lile this, use your mumpty(hoe) like this, plant a tree like so.

If you go out eat at restaurant that has soap in the bathroom.

No smoking nor alcohol is permitted during the entire stay on or off the premises.

No competitive games.

Non vegan food is not allowed on site.

Park your bicycle s at the gate....with your initiative

As I write I realise the quiet anarchic pleasure I get from breaking the rules through my young children who gaily raid the chimes ? demand seconds, pee in the composting toilet,  talk loudly through the moment of silence and ride a balance bike naked through the main hut.  :-)