Thursday, December 1, 2011

you got to heal faster than this 'ol world can hurt you

I went to town today to see the Doctor for some skin problems & another for my stomach (India is tuff on my body..) Tummy guy wasn't there today, so I went to a French bakery for some coffee & a sweet with two hours to kill. Had a great conversation with a sharp young lad who appealed to my intellect & a few other senses. Told him where I stay & what we do here, he said he'd like to stop by sometime & check it out. Something like 'oh Father, you'll love it' came out of my mouth. He just laughed & said I need to talk to some men who aren't men priests from time to time. Hope that means he was volunteering for the position ;)
Got to the doc, sat in the waiting room with Father-- who I met in town & had to see the same guy bout a thing on his foot. He'd just come from a Moslem family that he knows nearby who just lost a son to Leukemia. They're very poor & the congregation my priest belongs to had paid for his treatments. Their daughter had polio as a child & is crippled. Then he told me about Paris and St. Catherine. An Indian woman next to him saw him & started speaking French to him. She brought in her daughter and granddaughter from outside and asked him to bless them to which he obliged. We went into a smaller waiting room & he went in first then left. I was next. The doctor was a really nice guy. We talked for a bit about things I don't really remember but I know I was happy talking to him. I called him Father too, he laughed & said he had three daughters older than me, so I wasn't completely wrong in my statement. I got my medicine at a pharmacy & haggled with a rickshaw driver for a ride home.
I'm teaching English to a group of men who are studying to be Priests here at the Ashram I live at. I gave them an essay assignment with prompts all about the caste system. It's something that really intrigues me. One man was shocked that the west didn't have a caste system. He asked how we can accomplish anything. I've researched the subject a lot, but I'm eager to see what will be in their essays. I will keep you posted.

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