No more mud for awhile. Put Ganesh to bed. Walked around a mountain. Lazing around Pondicherry.....

The building project's done, as far as the workshop group is concerned. Most folks left a week or two ago. I stayed until last Sunday to make sure I finished the relief sculpture of a banyan tree I had been working on. The walls are all up, and they have to dry awhile before the roof can go on, then the floor goes in, and then the final plastering. Plans are already under discussion for another workshop next year. Ramu, the director of our host organization, really wants me to come back, but it's hard to envision what my life will be like in a year, so who knows?

My friend James stayed on at the building site until I left because he wanted to make sure I was OK. Very very sweet guy. We went in to Vellore and crashed at the empty house attached to Ramu's parents' place. The neighborhood kids instantly adopted us, and of course the rest of the neighborhood followed suit. On Monday, festivities began around the opening of a new temple a couple of doors down. James and I were "kidnapped by Hindus", as he terms it, for the next three days while Ganesha took up residence in his new temple. (Ganesh, or Ganesha, is the elephant-headed guy with the big buddha-belly.) We went through all kinds of walking around the temple 5 times, having colored powder smeared on our foreheads, prostrating ourselves on the floor, etc. etc.

On Tuesday, Ganesh was relocated from the old temple to the new one. I was called out of the house by James and the kids (they called me "Auntie") to watch the procession. At one point, the gnarly old guy with a white loin cloth who was riding on the cart with Ganesh called me over. I was then made to assist people in making their devotional offerings of food and incense, which was cool, and then I helped push the cart down the street. I got a big kick out of the whole thing, as did everyone else. Once at the temple, and after a lengthy ceremony of some sort, they actually made up a bed for Ganesh, and laid his granite statue down. It took 8 men to move it. Then one guy comes up carrying a granite statue of a rat, who is Ganesh's buddy, puts it down next to him, and tucks them in. I nearly expected someone to bust out a bedtime story! That would have been most excellent. Still, it was funny to help put Ganesh to bed.

On Thursday I took a bus to Tiruvannamalai, about 3 hours away from Vellore. Every full moon (Thursday was a full moon), tens of thousands of pilgrims come to walk around a hill called Arunachala, which is said to embody Shiva, one of the major gods of Hinduism. I thought "What the heck? How often am I in India?" So I kicked off my sandals and walked the 14km. barefoot along with everyone else. We were on pavement the entire way. Vendors and beggars and temples lined the streets. It was a relatively low-key affair, without much chanting or singing or other stuff that I assumed would be going on. When I neared the outskirts of town again, I realized that I would be shit out of luck for a place to sleep. I had thought we'd be *on* the mountain, and that I could snuggle up to a boulder or something to catch some zzzz's. So I doubled back a couple of kilometers and slept on the grounds of a large temple where a couple hundred other people were also sleeping. When I woke up at daybreak, the pilgrimage was still going on. Thousands of people began the walk throughout the course of the night, so that there was a steady stream from about 6PM until 8AM.

That same day, after finishing my trek around the hill, I caught a bus to Pondicherry, a former French colony about 3 hours away on the coast of the Bay of Bengal. I've been doing nothing in particular here, which is just about perfect. Lots of strolling, lots of convincing people that I don't want a rickshaw ride or a cheap rosewood necklace, lots of beer. All I want to do these days is EAT! Had some French fries the other evening that nearly sent me to heaven. It wasn't mushy spicy stuff on top of rice.... I hadn't realized just how much I've missed having some variety in my food. I could eat fries all day and every day for a week! But then there's pizza, with *real cheese*. And chicken with mushrooms and a creme sauce. Ooooh, and spring rolls! What the hell am I doing in front of this computer?? I need a snack before dinner!