Disaster! Our previous night had been plagued by mosquitoes, so last night I had placed a burning mosquito coil on a chair behind our bed. It had done the trick, but when we woke up, we discovered that the stand had toppled + burned a neat 3” long cigar-shaped hole in the wickerwork seat. My first reaction was of sheer panic, but Val is made of cooler stuff, + immediately set to work to see how the damage could be patched, or even repaired. In fact, there was a bit of both. The strings going in one direction, along the cigar, could be removed + replaced, but in the other, thro’ the cigar, that would have meant too much replacing. It wasn’t satisfactory, but it served to disguise the damage. Our hope was that the disguise would last long enough for blame to escape us. Not that it mattered for ourselves – our concern was that vicarious blame might fall upon Shamshad, our sponsor.
The repair took us all morning, Val was the brains, me only the occasional brawn… + not very brawny brawn at that. We went to town to eat – not an enjoyable meal, I’m afraid – + then to do a little shopping. Not, I think, that we actually bought anything. We rang Shamshad in the evening – it was a dreadful line, but I was just able to understand his directions for meeting tomorrow evening. All very satisfactory, since the day tomorrow will be taken up with much business.
And apart from one unfortunate incident, very little happening, it would seem. But that was our life at that time… and come to think of it, my life at this time too, waiting for time to pass
Oh no! I did a similar thing when crossing over from Turkey to Iran–I put my towel on the heater to warm while I was taking a shower and when I pulled it off the heater, it was a toasty brown on one side. I left it, ran to my van in hopes that we could leave before the hotel people found it, but I didn’t make it–and they ran after us, down the street as we pulled out. But the night before, we parked in a hotel parking lot, and discovered the next morning that someone had stolen all our pots and pans that we’d put to soak under the car the night before. So I guess it evens out, even though the theft and my burnt towel were from different hotels. With the Iranian Embassy refusing you visas (I’m not surprised–I was surprised you even tried), I’m curious as to how you’re going to get home. The Moscow route sounds interesting, but I’m not betting on that choice. I should think you’d be pretty tired of India by now. It does seem that, right before you know you’re going to leave, the urgency to leave increases…