Having a Bumpin' Time [Insert pun here]

--So freaking bumpy! My arms, legs, toes, neck even face--under one eye!--is swollen with mosquito spit deposits. There are also some small rashy bumps on right thumb and forearm. No dengue yet on the staff, cross fingers, though two are down with malaria. Mahendra is one -- the English-fluent, computer-savvy 25 year old who saves my life daily...

On the "bump" subject -- I am reaching with this blog title-- I am done with village roads, thank god, for at least a year. For my last field visit, I rattled out to Barwala and Aktali to see some old students of mine. Both girls want to keep studying but their grandfather won't let them attend the hostel Veerni runs in Jodhpur, so they keep, er, busy selling Parle-C biscuits at their dad's corner shop (it's not that they don't have the money--his grossly distended belly is downright bizarre in rural Rajasthan, where most people are thin-to-emaciated). Having taken sweet gingery chai and biscuits with Goury and Kalpna (who tried to take me hostage) I almost vomited in the car ride home on the one-lane gravelly road with the typically hair-raising games of chicken with gigantic Tata trucks.

Going to sleep -- last night the dog fights outside and sticky heat/mosquitos kept me up... Due to power cuts the fan(s) were off.