Songs, Stars and Sore Legs

Here is the fifth entry to go along with the last four (our time visiting places I have lived). Our last stop on this portion of the trip was in the town of Satnure where "Door of Hope" a home for boys is located. My parents worked here as well.

It was a fun trip, as little towns like Satnure aren't exactly on the guidebook route. We caught a couple local buses, and then wandered through the town on foot using a rough hand drawn map and stopping for directions every so often. It was a beautiful walk.

One of my stonger memories here is of a tree full of white blossoms at the gate - which sadly I didn't find, but when I mentioned this to Francis (who runs the home with his wife Shanta), he pointed out the frangapani tree and even found me a few blossoms still on the ground. I also rediscovered the taste of fresh tamarind and can't get enough! It seems that Scott too has developed this new addiction. (Oh dear - does it grow as a house plant?)

We arrived in the late afternoon and had just enough time to have a cup of tea and get a tour of the grounds before the sun went down. The boys have a small piece of farmland to work on and run a small dairy (both projects near and dear to my dad's heart), which we spent lots of time talking about. I did my best to attempt to represent my family of dairy farmers. The cow shed looks like this.

We had supper outside with all the boys and 3 little girls (overflow from the girls home) as well as David and Annette Fazer (my second cousin and his wife) and their kids. It was a fabulous meal (biriyani, veggies, homemade yogurt and piasum for dessert) and we finished off with a rousing sing along, including a song my dad introduced 20 some years ago "When I first came to this land...I was not a wealthy man...." It's a funny little song with actions to go along. Sadly, my dad seemed to have lost his song teaching abilities after I was old enough to learn, as this was the first time I had heard the song. Very embarrassing as it was sung with much gusto in my honour and I was expected to join in with equal fervour. Thanks dad. Luckily it is one of those repetative ones you can pick up fairly easily, so the last time around, we managed to contribute.

The little girls serenaded us with a few songs before they went to bed and then we had a great chat with Francis and Shanta hearing stories about my mom and dad, and taking a look at the extensive snake skin collection Francis has accumulated through many years of keeping the scary snakes of the grounds. Pretty amazing - sorry no pics of this.

That night, the rooms were pretty full with all the extra people, so Scott and I opted for the delux suite on the roof of a building under the stars. Scott managed to take a picture by waving a flashlight around and "painting the picture" - there were not lights around only stars. Take a look.

David talked us into going on a "little" hike the next morning and found two of the boys willing to make the 6 am excusion with us (if we left early, we would be back in time for the boys to go to school). Turns out it wasn't as "little" as we expected.

It started out with a 6km bike ride through a villages and a stone quarry to the base of the hill.

We then climbed the hill, which theoretically is not so bad except for the very steep angle. At a certain point, steps are carved into the rocks as it is too steep to go up otherwise.

It took us a bit longer than the 20 min it was suuposed to take. The fascinating part of this hike is that the hill was used as a hide-out by Tipu Sultan (an Indian king fleeing the British). He built a small palace on top of the hill, a temple and a prison.

The steps were carved out in his time as all supplies needed to be carried up the hill. When we finally reached the top, we had fun exploring the ruins and imagining life here in the past. The boys did an excellent job of tour guiding. If you are interested in Tipu Sultan take a look here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tipu_Sultan There seems to be no mention of this particular hideout, but ...I'm sticking to my story.

We made it down the hill at a much faster pace, but despite our best efforts, the boys were late for school. Yes I know, not very responsible what with us being teachers and all...oops. We did have a flat tire to deal with, which didn't help matters. Ah well. Life is too short to worry about such things.

We had a some time to play with the little ones before saying our goodbyes and stashing a little fresh tamarind for the road.

On the way to the bus stop, Francis pointed out some silk production - which is pretty incredible when you think about how worms in cocoons like this:

(the worms are the little white lumps you see. They are kept in these spiral baskets to expose them to the sun and speed up their cocooning process)

are then unwound in hot water and seperated on a spinning wheel like this:

To make one one silk thread, 4 or 5 coocons are unwravelled and spun together. Then think about how many threads it takes to make some fabric like this: