leaving...

We leave CMC today to go to Chennai to meet up with Swetha and catch an overnight train to Kerala, where we will be traveling for a couple of days.  I'm excited about the overnight train since it's apparently a staple of the Indian travel experience.  Hopefully it's a restful staple!  :) 

In Kerala, we will do a backwater houseboat overnight tour from Thursday to Friday morning.  Then we will travel to Kochin and see whatever there is to see there until our overnight train back Friday morning to Saturday morning.  We will hang out with Thenu and Nithya's families until my flight at 4 a.m. on Sunday morning to Zambia via Heathrow.  Mike, I'll see you in London in a few days!

Some things I've been noticing about south Indian life as I think about leaving:

• turmeric on the hands and faces of women in the clinic - apparently it's for married women for good luck
• the different standards for space and touch here - you don't touch when greeting or saying goodbye, although some people will offer me the Western handshake, but you do sit right up next to anyone else on the bus or brush by anyone else without the expected apology in Western culture
• the temperature - it's definitely getting hotter than the warm but comfortable temperatures of our first week or two, and I'm not sure Zambia will be cooler!
• lovely colors and smiles of people in the OPD (outpatient department)