This is what it looks like to build your house of dreams, hopes and aspirations on uncertain things as I have been doing. It is a fragile construct that takes little more than one of life’s hiccups to knock it to the ground. 

Yet we have a loving Father who calls himself our rock. He begs us to build on him, rather then on the shifting sands an shallow structures of our unopened hopes. But to give Him our desires in such a way is scary, like giving a treasured book to a friend.

“Will he take care of them? or break the binding? Take it to the beach and get sand in the pages? or treasure it as we have?” we wonder. And does he truly want what’s best for US? We are sure He will be able to bring Himself glory, but will WE be happy?

To me faith is not like building on a rock (although it may be prove rock firm in the end). Rather it is like kicking away the flimsy stilts beneath our house of dreams and watching it held up by invisible stilts instead. Sounds silly, I know. Who would believe that if they didn’t SEE it?

And that is just what faith asks of us: to believe without vision when the world calls us ridiculous.

It is a perpetual action, to again and again rest our lives and our hopes in His hands and outside of our control and worry. So once again I must turn over my worry and fear to the One-Who-Made-the-Universe and have faith that my house will stand.

“Now faith is the ASSURANCE of THINGS HOPED FOR, the conviction of things not seen.” -Heb 11:1

They say a picture speaks a thousand words, so here’s two thousand for you. There are more on facebook as well, but I thought it’d be fun to liven up the blogging space. Nepal is a such a gorgeous country and the himalayas are spectacular (himal means mountain). Kathmandu is TOTALLY different though and that’s where I’m spending the majority of my time. I’ll post pics of that too when I get some good ones. Its this giant city of kids and garbage and colors and pollution. Good things and bad and so complex.

Ok, the short version. My roommate got appendicitis so we went to the traveller’s clinic and then to Norvic Int. Hospital where she had an appendectomy, not exactly what you plan for as your Nepali Adventure. Bless her heart she was so scared before surgery. Two very nice elderly nepali anesthesiologists came in and tried to calm her down. She said she nicknamed them Willie and Nelson. Anyway, that was quite an adventure being on the patient side of the hospital system here….

After that, went on a 6 day trek in the Himalayas and I feel pretty BA just being able to say that.  We started out in Pokhara, a really touristy, but little town about a 6 hour bus ride from Kathmandu (I’ve described the bus rides already so you already know that part pretty much) unfortunately our bus ride was a little longer, closer to 9 hours because while we were stuck in traffic at the very beginning of the trip something flew up out of the road and shattered our bus windshield–as a consequence we had to switch buses later on. I sat next to an interesting fellow traveler, a girl from switzerland named Julie. She had been traveling around southeast asia by herself for about 7 months and talked about celebrating christmas by herself somewhere in India. It sounded rough.

Day ONE

Anyway, from Pokhara (and a hotel room with A TV!!) we got a local bus early the next morning to the trailhead. A little roadside town called Naya Pul. It was so funny because we were just riding along and the bus conductor suddenly got Mat (btw, Mat and Laurel were my trekking buddies for this) and said “here, get off” and basically dumped us by the side of the road in Nowhere, Nepal. We kind of looked at each other and then went in search of some milk tea. We had some difficulties actually finding the trailhead but managed to get off ok.

The trail here starts through a beautiful stone village called Birethanti–lots of stone on all of this trek–and is pretty wide and easy. However reading the guidebook (no guides, just us) we anticipated that the day would hold a set of “relentless stairs” after lunch and crossing a swinging Indiana Jones Bridge, we found the stairs. 3,327 of them to be exact. They were killer. At one point I sat down with Laurel to take a break and told her to just go on without me! It took us about two hours to reach another stone village, this one perched on the side of a cliff, called Ulleri. At this point I went into hysterics–kind of. I can’t explain except to say that I just literally couldn’t stop laughing. Mat and Laurel proceeded up a little ladder like staircase to check out the room at the first guesthouse we came to, while I sat at the bottom and just died laughing. The whole thing was ridiculous in a goofy I’m-Trekking-In-Nepal-What-The-Heck kind of way. Anyway the room was acceptable, or as Mat said “I;m taking a picture of this so I can see how crappy it actually is when I’m back to normal.” Regardless I loved it. They had a western style toilet that I’m pretty sure operated like an airplane toilet because it was over a cliff…they also had hot water and the beds, although they were just wooden frames really with a little two inch thick mattress, were possibly the most comfortable thing ever.

Because it was the first day, we spoiled ourselves with pre-dinner treats of milk tea and banana porridge and sat on the rooftop of another little guesthouse (we were trying to spread our money around because its the off-season there (monsoon season) and we were the only game in town tourist-wise). Later we went back to our own guesthouse and fried rice and momos and apple fritters (not the kind you’re picturing…) Anyway, during dinner we calculated out our money and began to worry that we wouldn’t make it out of that AtM-less land before running out of cash on hand. Hence the rest of the trip wherever we went we split an order of fried rice and an order of vegetable noodles.

(Now being connoseiours of the fried rice on this trekking route we planned to send our reviews to Lonely Planet to publish in their next guidebook–Ghorepani: the best fried rice you’ll ever eat on top of a mountain, watch your host go out into the garden and pick the herbs just minutes before it arrives on your plate. Trekkers Sanctuary Lodge: a little “earthy” for most tastes, but this is understandable due to the fact that it is cooked in a little dug out UNDERNEATH the lodge.)

Slept like a sack of rocks while Laurel claims that the rain threatentened to wash us right back down the mountain. I probably wouldn’t have cared except there was NO way I was doing those stairs again.

Day TWO

In what was probably the least eventful day of the trek, we left Ulleri early to climb more stairs and hills (this was an all uphill day). Through a rhodedendron forest and a Jurassic Parkesque jungle.

Here we first encountered the leeches. If they moved at all (they move like inch worms) we could flick them off, however if they latched on we had to get out the salt. Mat had found an old tin medicine container to carry the salt in however it turned out to be the most frustrating thing in the world to open so our leech adventures went like this: Someone (usually Mat) would look down and say “Oh I have a leech” I would run back carrying the salt and struggle for ten minutes to get the container open while the poor leech victim looked helplessly at the foriegn body sucking their blood.  It was really quite an interesting experience.

Anyway we only hiked for about 4 hours this day, making it one of our shortest. We arrived promptly at the small mountain village of Ghorepani. This was my favorite stop of the trip. The views of snow-capped peaks were incredible and the air was finally a bit cooler. We stayed at a tall yellow guesthouse called the Hungry Eye and had a top corner room that made you feel like you were living in a tower. We watched the local youngsters play volleyball down below. They were really quite good–with the added interest of playing around the donkeys that trotted through the court and an old Nepali woman who stood in the corner and did little dances whenever they scored a point.

Here I traded Les Mis, which Laurel and I had both consumed in our empty hours between trekking and sleep, for Jingo by Terry Pratchet at a little local bookstore.

Day THREE

This was my favorite day of the trek. We started out going up (AGAIN), passing many Lord of the Rings type stone porter stops. We exited the trees with a herd of horses and came into the most beautiful views of trip. We hiked to the top of the mountain and ate gummy animals at the top (a tradition in Laurel’s family) and danced to Mat’s theme song “Live your Life” (see the video on facebook) and watched the little adorable rodents, one of which we named Baxter.

From there the trail went pretty steeply down (more stone stairs)by a mile long waterfall. We got caught in the rain a bit and stopped at a little lodge for lunch. We did a double day this day so our hike was about 9 hours…the longest day of our trek. We got caught in the rain again at the end of the trek and arrived at Ghandruk in the rain. We stayed at a lodge with stone floors that made me feel like I was in a convent (Mat thought I said I felt like a “convict” haha). Our fellow trekkers were a group of very loud Nepali men who sang a lot of songs-including Baby, baby, baby by Jusitn Bieber.

Day FOUR

This was the most exciting day of our trek due to leaving Ghandruk on the wrong trail. According to the guidebook this day was an easy 2-3 hour hike so we set out sloowly (and very painfully due to sore calves) down stone stairs. Once again we stopped for milk tea. After four hours of hiking we began to think we were going VERY slow. We stopped and asked directions only to discover that we had been on the wrong trail the whole time. We headed down to a riverside village called Syauli Bazaar where we examined one of the handy billboard like trekking maps and talked to a local man and woman who tried to convince us to just continue on the path we were on and catch a bus back to Pokhara that night. Mat and I were offended, thinking they were underestimating our trekking abilities and while we were conferring Laurel heard the Nepali woman point to our path and shake her head and say “very steep.” What we learned from this (later on) was that when a Nepali woman says it is very steep she means it!

Obstinately we set out to backtrack our way to our original path. This meant we had to take a 3-4 hour trail up to the town or Landruk where we would spend the night. The trail took off through a cornfield and a herd of goats. From the very first we could tell that this was indeed a LOCAL trail and not used very much by the western trekking crowd (later it turned out that it was a porter trail used to bring water and beer up to the lodges). We crossed a river and a pasture, still feeling very “adventur-y” and then headed uphill.

This uphill was possibly the longest and hardest thing I have ever done. Henceforth it will be referred to as the Hill From The Devil. It took us about two hours to climb and the heat was oppressive. It was difficult mentally as well as we were never sure if we were on the right path and Mat and Laurel both ran out of water and I only had a little left. Finally we passed a little hut and a Nepali man in snow boots follwed us a ways to another hut where little girls were playing outside. Here we were able to get water and things began to look up. In a little ways we stopped for a rest and I noticed a leech on my foot ( I hiked mostly in flip flops). “It’s like a 6th toeee—I mean, you’ll be FINE” Mat exclaimed as we struggled with the salt container.

Finally, finally, we made it to Landruk. It had only taken us 3 hours from the river bottom (the Nepali man said it would take us four..that’s right we showed him!) but it was a VERY harrowing three hours!

Ate apple fritters as a treat and went to bed.

Day FIVE

Not much to report, hiked in the rain for a bit about 6 hours out to the side of the road where we caught a bus back to Pokhara.

The rest of the trip was composed of various other adventures including: When Your Hotel TV Starts Smoking, Awakening to a Two Inch Roach on Your Arm and Watching Futbol at a Nepali Pub (Cinderella Mocktail for me…)

And that’s all for now. Stay tuned for more of your favorite adventures!

Spent last weekend in Chitwan, which was an interesting experience. Not exactly what we westerners would usually think of as a comfy vaca spot!

We started early in the morning, around 7-ish, on a giant grey hound type bus. My traveling companions were three, Laurel, a pre-med/pre-art twenty year old who has already graduated from college, Matt, the only boy volunteer here and a psychology pre-med major, and Linda, a sociologist who is interested in studying human trafficking. At first I didn’t understand the early start but as the day went on and the bus got hotter and hotter I figured it really made a lot of sense. I thought we would drive out of the city and then approach the mountains, kind of like in Colorado where you see the mountains a ways off before you come into them. Here, however, things are different. As soon as we got out of the city we were in the mountains. I call them mountains, although my friend, Laurel, claims they are just hills really. Whatever they are they are SO tall. And they seem so young and sudden, compared to, say, the Appalachians. They are verdant and hot and shoot straight up from the bottom of the bus window to the top. Along the roadside little shops and brightly painted structures squat, seemingly teetering on the edge of the mountainsides. On our right the mountain plunged down to a wide brown river with giant smooth rocks that looked like oversized creek pebbles. Occasionally the river would be traversed with an Indiana Jones style swinging bridge, or, better yet, a cable with an unsteady looking box attached via which the locals would pull themselves and their merchandise across the river. Sometimes the landscape would open up a bit for wide green rice fields. Overall it was a beautiful and exotic ride, although a little air conditioning would have been perfectly acceptable! We stopped halfway by an open market and a couple of little bakeries and restaurants and I ordered a wonderful donut but forwent the typically accompanying “tato chai”–or hot milk tea.

When we finally arrived at Chitwan (6 hours hence) we were hot and tired. Our bus kept stopping to let the locals off at various roadside stands and villages and we looked at each other apprehensively, picturing ourselves and our luggage dumped on the side of the road at one such spot! Our drive ended, however at a little gravel turnaround with one building nearby. The only sign that this spot was used to accepting tourists was the crowd of Nepali taxi drivers that swarmed us the moment we debarked. We had already decided on a hotel-the Jungle Adventure World, which, as it said on all of its signs, was “highly recommended by the lonely planet” (apparently this is really the only guide to nepal out there!!). Having already decided this we went with a little Nepali man, Issoor who my friend Linda described aptly as looking like the Nepali version of a christmas elf. Anyway we transfered ourselves and our baggage to a little blue truck with bench seats in an open back and drove down the little gravel road, to the end of the road.

Jungle Adventure World (JAW as the backs of our keys stated) is a group of mint green “cottages” in a fenced in semi-circle. They also owned their own elephant, the youngster, Pinky Cully and there were always chickens and baby chicks roaming the grounds. The rooms were not air conditioned but there was the promise of a ceiling fan (ours didn’t work til the last night, but then again neither did our lights!!) and mosquito netting over every bed. Bewildered and tired we agreed to buy their package deal of two nights and three days which included canoing down the river, bathing and riding the elephants, a village tour, bird-watching and a “culture show”. Our cottages each had two beds a bathroom and really that was about it. Laurel and I were in one and Matt and Linda were right next door.

In order to ward off the heat we decided to head down to the river we had spotted not 30 yards from the road on the way in. There were little seats arranged all by it and taken in 2D it almost seemed like a scene from the seaside in Maine! Anyway, we found a spot and plopped down by the river, watching the almost naked Nepali locals (only men, mind you) float and frolick in the river. It started to rain lightly and Laurel and Matt headed back while Linda and I decided to stay out a little longer and bask in the cool water droplets. Then it started to rain harder. Afraid for Linda’s camera we sought shelter in a little porch under a shanty-ish restaurant on the shoreline. The local men, who had since become clothed joined us. The rain picked up rapidly and became spotted with hail. The wind blew fiercely and in a few minutes we were both shivering and freezing. We ended up facing inward holding a tarp behind our backs with a fair number of the locals. The men kept trying to convince us to come with them and have some Lossi with “helicopters” that would “make us fly”! We, being uncertain what that was but certain that it sounded drug related, declined.

Eventually the storm subsided and we went back to our safe little JAW to meet our companions and our guide for the village tour. Our guide was the most jovial and knowledgeable Nepali man. His name was Harka and he had been to the jungle training school in the village there for four years before being certified as a guide to the national park. He took us to the elephant stables (one set at least) where we got to feed the littlest of the elephants, Sweety Cully, grass wrapped around rice and molasses. After our tour we went to one of the local restaurants, KCs, that, although highly recommended resulted in some stomach problems for me! (that lemon sauce fish was just a little TOO lemony!)

The next day we awoke at about 5:30 to get started before the heat of the day. We got into what Harka the night before had called “the wobbly boats”, hollowed out bark canoes and poled off down the river. Harka sat in front watching with his eagle eyes for any movement. We actually did see two crocodiles and a number of cool birds. A little ways ahead of us we saw some researchers crossing the river on domesticated elephants–with the two elephant twins (the only KNOWN in the world). They shouted something to Harka and he in turn told our boatman to bring us to the river bank. We followed him up the bank and crouched in the grasses to watch a wild elephant on the far shore. Our boatman had apparently had enough for one day and he disappeared with our wobbly boat.

Left with few other options we began our hike back through the jungle. Harka darted off ahead of us and climbed a tree to look over the high grasses for rhinos. We saw some tracks and droppings but none of the actual beasts. We also saw some huge tiger tracks. At one point on this jungle trek Harka disappeared off the trail and gestured for us to follow. We gamely attempted to, crawling almost on our knees through the jungle foliage to where he was standing pointing at a group of red-faced monkeys.

Our jungle hike ended at the Elephant Breeding Stables where we saw more elephants and attempted to get the hang of hurling crackers like frisbees so that they would land within the chained elephants reach.

From there it was on to elephant bathing, possibly my favorite part of the trip. We stood on a overhang above the river and Linda and I jumped on an elephant’s back, with aide from the mahoute (or elephant driver). The mahoute then directed the elephant into the river where he promptly began calling out commands and hitting the elephant on the side of the head with his walking stick. The elephant responded by flipping his trunk back and spraying us with water. Then he laid down in the river and rolled over. Off we went into the somewhat quickly flowing river.  From there it was a scramble to grab the mahoute’s staff and clamber back onto the elephant’s back…where he would promptly dump us back off again! It was hilarious and wild and the water felt WONDERFUL.

Following this was lunch and a break and then the actual ride on the elephant’s back, which was not nearly as fun. The four of us crammed into a wooden platform about 3ft by 3 ft, each with one of the corner posts between our legs. The elephant then trotted off into the jungle. The main goal of the ride seemed to be to avoid the branches that were continually smacking us while straining our eyes for the hints of blurred, movement that turned out to be deer!!

The next activity was the “cultural show” which was really very good but started off a bit rocky with a stick thin Nepali man seemingly screaming at us in a very thick british/nepali accent, although I presume he was actually speaking english?? I think it was mainly the microphone’s fault, but the result was a little hilarious. Then the stage was overtaken by a group of about 20 teenage boys accompanied by drummers. The boys danced in a mix of dance and karate around the circle, banging their sticks together in an amazing show of choreography and stamina in the air-condition-less (who would expect it?) building. Their dances also included the “Lady-boy” dance, where one of them dressed up like a girl, and the peacock dance, where some poor soul in a lifesize and incredibly uncomfortable looking peacock costume took center stage. At the end of the show they invited the audience to join them and Matt, Laurel and I did. (Linda, had been feeling a bit sick the whole trip and had passed on the show that night.) It turned out that we were really the only non-nepalis who took them up on their offer, but I am so glad we did as it was really fun and a great ending to the night.

The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful and I will stop there as I am ready for a shower and nap and I am sure I have pushed even my most diligent readers to the limit!! Will write again soon.

Time seemed to move backward at this point as I waited and tried to keep my eyes open. Finally the time for my check-in arrived (still 3 hours early). After getting through security I sat at the gate–soon after I sat down however the dubious voice of an airport announcer came over the PA announcing that my flight would be delayed about an hour. Blast. It was at this point that I heard a voice from a few seats down from me–”you were on the flight from Newark?” it was the man who had been sitting in front of me on the 12 hour flight from america. It turned out that he had gone to America to go to school in Texas and he was returning home to see his family for the first time in four years. we talked the whole flight to Nepal (and I apologized for kicking his seat so much on the flight to Delhi!) and the trip passed fairly smoothly…

Jump to touching down on the tarmac in Nepal, descending the airplane President style with stairs and all…then I get up to the visa room and, surprise! discover that I did not have enough cash for a visa. I ask about the nearest ATM? there’s one downstairs. So I leave my passport upstairs and my baggage circling the baggage claim conveyor belt and dash downstairs out into the crowd of Nepali men wanting to take my bag and put me in their taxi–Some of them drop off however when they hear that I have NO money. Haha.. Try the first ATM-its out of service. And anyway I know now that I need to know how much I need in rupees–so back through security and up the stairs to the visa room…7,490 rupees. Ok, back downstairs and past the broken ATM to the next ATM about a block down the street-try my first Visa card…Cannot process at this time. And my backup card…Cannot process at this time. Panic. Remember that you changed some money into Indian Rupees, maybe that will do? back up to the visa room…change some money into Nepali Rupees, hand over all my American dollars…AND….I can go! Finally I am able to officially enter the country.

Mohan (the nepali man who helps out here) picks me up at the airport and we buzz off through the throngs of people for my first real view of Nepal…CRAZY. There are no real traffic lanes and horns are honking everywhere (here horns are used as a way of saying “I’m about to pass this bus on the wrong side of the road, so if you don’t move, Mr. Motorcycle, you’ll be flat as a pancake.”), cows in the street, buildings, dust, little children, garbage, more cows. It was really a new experience and wonderful in a crazy disorganized way.

I’m going to skip a few days to get to today–not cause they weren’t interesting, just cause I don’t feel like going that in depth right now!

Today was my second day at the hospital–I was trying to get there at 7 to work a typical nurse’s shift here (7am-1pm, 1pm-7pm and then night shift which is 7pm-7am)…however I was about ten minutes late-I arrived to find that my fellow nurse for the day was a girl named Sharila, who was probably around my age (I have some trouble estimating ages here for some reason). She was so sweet. Anyway, we had still, our little boy patient (who had been there for quite some time) who was from the Everest region and had been chasing a jackal that stole a chicken from his family and had fallen on some bamboo- after surgery to remove the bamboo he had spiked a fever and it was hanging around 100 (probably a hospital acquired infection since the hospital is basically the same thing as the street in terms of sanitation). Another interesting patient was an old lady who had arrived just as I left the day before. Her IV had become infiltrated so the nurse and I went over to try and start a new one in the other arm. The needle was huge ( maybe a 16gauge??) and long…As soon as the nurse got it in the woman’s arm a bump appeared an grew to about the size of a grape. No good. The nurse pulled the needle out. I went to throw it away…NO no no. They would use that same needle about eight more times as nurses and doctors tried to start an IV on the woman.  (interesting side note here–the hospitals here do not provide anything–the patients’ families have to take the prescription out of the hospital and buy the medications, needles, even sterile gloves, at a little drugstore right outside the hospital. Also food is all from the patient’s families.) Anyway, they finally started the IV. The woman’s BP continued to hang aroun 80/50 and without oxygen her O2 was about 80 as well. As I was leaving for the day the doctor came up and recommended her family move her to the ICU of a larger hospital where she could be properly cared for.

So that is a brief overview of my stay here in Nepal. Its hard to believe I have only been here four days.

Goodbye for now. I’ll write again soon with more adventures.

I discovered it when I found myself looking at tent “vestibules” when I don’t even have a tent, much less one that needs a vestibule.

And who buys a “vestibule” for a tent anyway? It sounds like something that would lead into a foyer and require at least one vase of fake flowers to fill it.

Well, that was after I had already perused the ice picks, paddleboards, and snowshoes, just to name a few of the really ridiculous things I would

probably never use that I suddenly wanted to buy.

I really don’t know why these things hold so much attraction for me, but they really really do. I must be REALLY white.

Anyway, the reason I’m telling you this is because I think we all have

two people that kind of war inside us.

The person we are and the person we COULD see our selves being. (And apparently, I could see myself being someone who needs an icepick.)

The one person is who we actually are, and the other, more superhero-like person is the glimpse we see of ourselves conquering the world, or learning to sail. That second person holds hopes and dreams about who we’ll turn out to be in the end.

The tragedy comes when the two become too disconnected. And the superhero person is so far away and unattainable that we give up.

We think we’re finished.

But there is tragedy at the other extreme as well. If we strain too hard to be that other person, that person who’s comfortable at parties and outgoing, and end up hating the person we actually are.

We become discontent.

All I can tell you in conclusion is this. That He who BEGAN a good work in us will carry it on to completion. We’re not a finished work yet. But at the same time, although unfinished, we know that from the start we were fearfully and WONDERFULLY made.

what I’m trying to say is

Don’t let your superhero side go, but enjoy who you really are too. Its a tough thing to do, but its worth it.

And maybe, just maybe I will buy that tent vestibule.

really not the “runner” type. You know, strong lung capacity, ipod armband…

Anyway, I like to run occasionally, but when I FEEL like it, not on a strict schedule, like people who actually run for their health.  What I’m trying to say is that if this were “Friends” I’d be a Phoebe runner. Ok, moving on though, this post was not really supposed to be about running…so I’m starting over.

I went running this morning on the Augusta Canal towpath, which is a marvelous running path, kind of like

an entry into another world, really.

Its guarded on one side by the Augusta canal and on the other by the majestic Savannah river. Its beautiful. As I was running I saw a bright white spot in a tree in the distance and this is what I thought:

(I knew cause I’ve seen them there before, big white, majestic swamp birds.)

And it really was a bird. So I just thought I’d share that with you, cause it was really wonderful to know.

Things aren’t always trash bags.

Sometimes they’re birds.

around my head like a merry-go-round horse lately “is this a wise choice? Is this a wise choice?”

Decisions like staying home from a party to rest, when you’re sick. Or calling a ride, to avoid putting miles on a car with a check engine light on, or not studying for a big test til the night before (I’ll give you a hint, this one was NOT wise!) There are more complicated decisions too, about how to balance investing in people and investing in school (because which one of these is God’s priority? people, right? but school is my job right now…something to hash out another time), about the wisdom of saying something, or not, about what advice to give and what advice to take.

All in all, decisions are tricky things and no one’s going around teaching a class on how to make them. We ask God to guide us in our decisions, or sometimes, we ask Him to make them for us. But He doesn’t, at least not most of the time.

He gives us…more choices?

He gives us guidance in His word, our consciences, His example, other people, but

he doesn’t make our choices for us. That’s our job.

I had a friend who took a survey recently that asked him to rate how grown up he was on a scale of 1-10. I would pose this test to you:

want to know how grown up you are? look at your choices.

The more wise choices you are making, the more grown up you are.

To put it another way, remember when you would

ALWAYS choose dessert over dinner?

You were a kid then (most of you, at least), now you might only choose dessert over dinner once a month, or on special occasions.

We’ve had it drilled into us since we were little, “make wise choices.” But when we were little most of the choices weren’t really ours anyway. We had a fall back, a safety net of parents or authorities, that saved us from making awful decisions, and that was as it should be.

But now, those decisions are our own. Yours, mine, his, hers….they are ultimately OUR decisions.

So the question we have to ask is “are we making wise choices?”

Summary:

This is a book dealing mainly with the stresses between Indian and British cultures while the British were in control of India. The actual plot involves the main character, a young Indian doctor, being falsely accused of raping a young British woman. It follows the story from the beginning-the “rape” the trial and the aftermath.

My Thoughts:

The plot in this book seems like a subtext to the ideas and tensions the author is trying to portray. I enjoyed parts of it, but got so bogged down in most of it that it lost much of my interest. One of my favorite parts of the story, however, and a part that did hold my interest until the end was the one British professor who sympathized and sided with the Indians. This character was easy to like and associate with and his friendships with the Indians and the tensions between him and the rest of the culture (both Indian and British) were intriguing and non-stereotypical.

Rating:

♦♦◊◊

Blurb: