7 – Busy Day: Teaching in the morning; Traveling to The Amber Fort in Jaipur in the Afternoon and “The Great Cow Poop Incident”

An early morning breakfast at Kalwar Castle.  We are beginning to get used to Indian food at every meal, but breakfast is still the most difficult as spicy foods with chutneys and spicy hot ketchup are a little dicey at seven a.m.  The staff is always bringing us more foods to try and attempting to explain in their limited English and our very, very limited Hindi (like maybe five words!) what everything is that we are eating.

Then off to school.  The children surround us with “Good Morning, Mam.” and “Good Morning, Sir.”  This morning after class they decided to show us some of their favorite handshakes and we all ended up laughing and having a wonderful time.  We really like these wonderful children and they appear so highly motivated to try to learn English that we are excited to be with them.

Do not ask why the following photos were included, except that, on the walk home from school, Mary had an “event” occur.  Please see the cows below.  As we walked, Mary was watching them.  She was not watching where she was walking.  In just a split-second, her foot hit a “gift” left by the cows on the dirt road, and, suddenly, she was flat on her back in cow dung !!!  What a terrific India-Only experience !!  Her back, her arms, and her jeans were covered (see below)!  Needless to say, she headed straight for the shower !  Unfortunately, because the “Castle” is in such a very rural area, the electricity had been off and therefore no hot water for a rather extended time period.  Thus, Mary sat covered in cow dung until, luckily, the electricity returned for a long enough period to get clean.

 

After our morning of teaching as well as “The Great Cow Poo Incident”, we joined a local guide who drove us to Jaipur to see one of the most remarkable forts in the area.  On the way, we saw camels and elephants being used both as work animals and as transportation for tourists and locals alike.  One quick anecdote:  As we watched one of the elephants stroll through the streets, we noticed that his trainer, sitting high on the elephant’s back, was involved in a very animated conversation on his cell phone.  Very strange to see the juxtaposition of ancient elephant transportation and modern cell phone !

Along the way to Amber Fort, we stopped to look at an fascinating example of the step wells which had been built in India to aid with water use when the Monsoons were not adequate.  Often the community found an area with deep-rooted trees so that they knew there was water there, and then dug deep “wells” down to that water, building steps so individuals could avail themselves of water even if there were water shortages at the time.

Finally we arrived at Amber Fort.  Built in 1592 the fort looks extremely old on the outside but is lovely on the inside.  Painted scenes of wars and hunting expeditions adorn the walls which are set with precious stones and mirrors.  Of special beauty is the Sheesh Mahal or Mirror palace which is covered by carefully placed small mirrors and and precious stones.  A group of school children all turned the flashlights from their cell phones on the ceiling and the ceiling sparkled with light.  The fort is surrounded by a huge wall which reminded us of a smaller version of the Great Wall of China as it ran up and down the high hills around the grounds of the Amber Fort.

On the way back to Kalwar we stopped for a minute at the floating castle located in the middle of a large lake.  It is a lovely structure and quite old.  However, recently it was purchased by a private company which began to turn it into a restaurant.  The government discovered that the private company had not received the clearance to change some of the old features into updated ones, and thus the castle now just sits there — or, more correctly, just floats there…..