Political and Digestive Bombs (yeah, I took it there)

October 28, Thursday
7:15 am

    I've spent the past 32 hours in a throbbing supine position, shivering with fever beneath a bed sheet while dozing in and out of consciousness.  This hibernation period was sprinkled with bursts of wrenching aches, and peppered with random bouts of digestive extremes of which I'll spare the details.  I'd awaken from dozing dreams long enough to pull my face from a pool of drool on my pillow, and gingerly roll over to a fetal position beneath the breeze of the fan.  I chuckle at my previous assumption from a previous blog: that the cold-like sickness that plagued me last week would disappear and I would magically become immune to India… there I go breaking rule number 1.  My wandering thoughts are jolted from me as I thrash upright in reaction to what sounds like several bombs.  I look outside my window to see the round-a-bout flooded with people, flags, un-recognizable traffic flow, motorcycles, honking buses, and very unsuccessful khaki-clad policemen attempting to disperse the crowd.  Its a dag-gon' jubilee!  Everyone is cheering, music is blaring, and caravans of men on motorcycles sport a waving kelly green flag with the Muslim symbol (crescent moon and star) in the upper left corner.  I glance around and notice that all shops are closed.  Ok, the results of the election must have been announced.
    While I'm in my bedroom flicking spiders off my bare shoulder, flinching in bone-deep aches, and watching these political shenanigans outside my window, Colleen is at school getting the low-down from Aaliya.  Aaliya explained that "Sometimes if a political party doesn't win, they will set off bombs.  I hope that doesn't happen today,"…and then later approached Colleen to say "the UNF party was successful.  Sometimes they set off bombs if they win."  With all puzzle pieces placed together, one could deduce that the bomb-like sounds outside my window 1. were, in fact, actual bombs, and 2. apparently celebratory "good" bombs.  Mmmk time for the mental note of the day: Elections in Kannur =  Bombs…..comforting. 

    This morning, I have emerged from my quarantined space to make some kapi, in hopes that it will melt away the atrocious bags beneath my eyes, along with the co-morbid exhaustion.   It hits my stomach with a piercing jab, as the two tiny pieces of bready pizza didn't stay in my stomach for long.  While I still feel achy, I'm definitely a lot better than yesterday, and am preparing to go into school to at least start making puppets for the Montessori program.  I'd like to give a shout out to Colleen for getting me some Sprite yesterday---it made me feel at home because whenever I had a tummy illness as a kid, Barb Ryan would let me have soda :-).  I'd also like to say thanks to Aaliya for calling to see if I was ok, and offering to bring anything I needed.  It was so sweet (as we've talked a lot about the many cultural differences between India and America)  when she said "Do you want me to bring you some bread? Here when people get sick, we give them bread to eat… I don't know what you people do."  Hehe, I simply reply, "thats the same 'round the world, sista!"