At Jyotir Bhavan Retreat Center

Given the delays and changes in my itinerary, it’s not that surprising that my suitcase was lost. Unfortunately, the ticketer in Tel Aviv had mistakenly told me I had to pack absolutely all of my liquids and gels, so I arrived with no toiletries or medicines. But fortunately I had given a small bag of clothes and a few other things to one of the other travelers to bring for me from the U.S. rather than dragging extra stuff all over Israel.

So it’s an odd assortment of stuff I got here with: no toothpaste but three containers of mosquito repellent. No blue jeans, but two Nepali curtas. The French press I had bought just before going to the airport, but no coffee. An ipod without a charger; a camera without a cord. No prescription meds but a big pile of mail for Claire and Sajal. At least I don’t have to think hard about what to wear, and it doesn’t take long to pack.

The airport is on the north end of Bangalore and the retreat center is on the other end, with traffic in between. So the driver and three other people who came to get me were very kind to make the trip. We arrived “home” about 11:00, so very ready to be here. The retreat center is built as a two-story square around a pretty courtyard, with a rooftop over, covered for sitting in the shade. Trees filled with birds are all around. My room is very plain but quiet and sweet. I fell to sleep immediately and never woke till I heard voices in the morning.


After breakfast one of the men who works here offered to take me to “Total,” a department store about 10 minutes away. He said “can you ride the bike?” and I thought he meant bicycles. That’s fine, sounds like fun. But he meant the motorbike. So we were off. It’s about like riding a motorcycle in the dark in Kathmandu, except you can see the pedestrians you are swerving around, and on the open road instead of the city the trucks are bigger. Definitely worth the lost luggage.






We came back and several of us took a walk around the area, meeting some Franciscan nuns along the way. We also met four pharmacy students from Kathmandu.
We watched women winnowing a grain called “ragi,” with which rotis are made. They tossed forks of straw in the air and the grains fell to the ground in a pile at their feet.

The owner also took us to get a stalk of sugar cane to eat, and pointed the way to his “club”—i.e., his weight training room. Then we saw his Mercedes.

After lunch I washed clothes, Nepali style, with plastic buckets. This place has a fabulous piece of equipment, however: a rough stone slab about hip-height, which serves as a washboard to rub and beat the soapy clothes on, tilted slightly so that all the water runs away from you. It really works. Clean, sweet-smelling traveling clothes.

Several of us sat in the shade on the roof in the late afternoon and watched the finches flitting around in the treetops, and listened to the cattle egrets begin making their weird, spooky sound. These are the same birds they call “bokula” in Nepal. Several of them were following a cow around.

Tomorrow we are going to the state of Tamil Nadu, to a little village called Randham, where Father Nelson used to be a priest, and where he founded a school.