...Finally last night after the ten or so children sat with me doing math for over an hour, it was time to go. Artists sketching the ghats had been looking up to listen to the next math problem using life in India as a basis, and a cluster of 20-50ish-year-old people sat on the steps surrounding myself and the children. Carolyn snapped a few pictures and retired to the river-side hotel early; I never wanted the night to end, but buying ice cream cones for 20 children at the top of the ghat steps was a great way to do it! Our poor guide covered his ears and shook his head as he lined the gleeful dancing and skipping children up at the street vendor's cart, and reminded them to say "thank you"! Smiling faces licked white ice cream cones with a cherry on top all over the ghats...I bid good night to an ever-growing crowd of curious onlookers of all shapes and sizes. The beggars had stopped begging and the children had stopped asking us to buy their little baskets with candles. Everyone was happy and we went to bed.

Today I started the day with the same lovely little faces, and we made friends with a "see-er" wearing orange wrap and a long beard. As we sat and had tea on the second of four quaint balconies of our hotel, our new friend waved and gestured with beads and a kiss in our direction. Carolyn and I, equipped with the hippyish loot we'd acquired, in addition to the bed spread and numerous silk paintings, reminisced about the day over tea and banana lasses, while I rubbed the blisters on my feet and took the medicine from the traditional healer for my once swollen, but now pain-free ankles. Three days ago he had given me oil, powder ground with a mortar and pestel, and a third jar of herbs to cure my gargantuan-sized ankles. Now, nothing puffed the excellent henna design running from my toes up through mid-calf.

On the way home from all the temples our auto rickshaw was bypassd by a car of mourners carrying a marigold-covered dead body, and then we stopped at a residential facility for people with all kind of physical disabilities, leprosy among those most prominent. I got to make a sizeable donation, and, of course, photographed the visit to share with you later.