I am still alive. This is a living life, being lived while it is also being remembered. I tell many of these stories - such as the Ajanta Caves - because it is such a unique tale - but the gist of this journey isn't in the "stories" but is in the living in between the tales. That is the rub - how does one get into the internal struggle, the relationships that occurred and the thoughts that made the person?

This is where I think of it as war. Yes there was the real shooting war between Pakistan and India while I was there. The scrambling under the furniture when the air raid sirens wailed and the shortages of fuel. Message to those in prep for war - watch the fuel lines - the U.S. tries to hide the fuel shortage but in India when they were prep for war there was an instant line for kerosene that appeared overnight. Before one could just hear the guy yelling out his fuel call and a few appeared to get cooking fuel but just before the war broke out there was a line a mile long and he could only sell a little bit.

Even now as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down - in USA there was little impact of the war on general citizens. I see it in med shortages and we even were back ordered on saline. We still are limited on pain meds IV administered and antibiotics. Every time someone wonders why I scream THERE IS A WAR ON AND THOUSANDS OF GUYS ARE COMING HOME IN PIECES YOU IDIOT! - for which someone higher up grabs my arm and tells me to calm down and that starts an argument about who is the idiot - them or me? Since my son is in the thick of it all (although I know he is really above it all) I get a bit of slack - mine serves and theirs don't. He did his bit in Iraq and Afghanistan - I have the flag to prove it - flown over a war zone - terrific.

Anyway that is the war part - and that when this whole India thing was over I headed out through Afghanistan and traveled through it (Kabul to Herat) by bus. Not many white women can saw that - especially to have done it alone.

Where am I in Nepal? I am going to post this so I have it down and am in 2012 maybe I keep pecking away at it during the year and not leave such gaps. bye now.