I know we should be posting photos and videos…. but to get them off the iPhone or video camera onto the computer and then get a wifi connection and then post pictures with text…. it’s a bit much… like keeping all your hundreds or photos organized. We get cameras and phones with cameras, but never take a course in being a librarian, so few of us have a way of organizing the photos to make them useable. Anyway, we’ve gone the past few days without a post (it feels like it’s been more than a week…. for that matter we haven’t been out of New York for two weeks and it feels like we’re in a timeless world right now and it’s hard to remember
how long it’s been without looking at a calendar… and then we have to study the calendar to remember….like in Shangra La wherepeople lived for hundreds of years or Brigadoon where 24 hrs passed like 100 years in the rest of the world.
Getting a cab to this Ashram in the mountains was a drive into the 1700’s hundreds…. like we were going back further in time with each minute. The driver had to stop a few times to find out where to go. When we arrived at a very fancy hotel in the mountains the drivers was impressed…. as we told him to keep following the signs to the Ananda Yoga Center Ashram. He couldn’t drive up the final road (his car would probably have broken down on it… it’s only fit for motor cycles).
Hills are all around us…. cows, chicken, ducks…. some beautifully colored buildings as well as shacks, many buildings being built…. and many very small fields of crops. We were shown our room – a very small room with two small beds, a mattress (more like a mat), a slight sheet and a heavy blanket… we have a deluxe room, one with a sqwat toilet. It’s been a day and neither one of us has tried it yet. I finally asked someone how to flush it… they said, “fill the bucket with water from the sink and dump it in…. several times. It’s an experience we haven’t taken yet… but I’m sure we’ll have to try since we’re staying here for the week.
The lunch was merger, but the diner was very nice. There are about a dozen young folks (in their twenties and thirties) here with us. Some from Chili, from France, Switzerland, Holland, California…. we’re the “older couple”. When the yoga teacher watched Annie in class last night they were impressed, when they heard she’s 66, she became a living legend among the teachers. As we began I gave my usual statement to some of the beginners in the yoga class – “if you get intimidated seeing what Annie can do , just watch me and you’ll feel so much better about your abilities.
There’s a family that lives next to the Ashram… they cook for us. Last night their children were in the room (an open roof top) as we ate, so I took out balloons. Then we came down stairs for a campfire chanting/sing-along. The head guy led a few chants and then gave a laughing yoga demonstration (it was like Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins singing about various ways of laughing). I took out the video camera and shot some footage using “night-vision” so an image (a blue image) could be seen). When the singing was done I turned on the projector part of the video camera (this is the feature that talked me into buying this camera) and projected the video on a wall so all of us could see some of it. That worked wonderfully.
We decided we’d spend the night before committing to the week…. In the morning we were told they’d bring Annie a second mattress for tonight… and we decided we’ll stay for the week.
I saw the head guy playing chess yesterday…. maybe I’ll get a game with him later this week.