Hopscotch.

Met Smeegs yesterday! We met at church and then had coffee, watched Blood Diamond (which was EXCELLENT!) then had some appams and stew for lunch!! It was great. So good to see her! And we did our little traditional book exchange and I finally got what I've been frantically looking for over the past two months!! Mere Christianity by C.S Lewis!!! YAY!

Anyway, after all of that we parted on MG road as she head back to the hotel and I went to buy some groceries. So I took my time, bought that ice cream I was really craving (and i'm paying for it now! I've got a sore throat!) got to taste some sample coffee buns or something at Spencer's and then on my way back I noticed these little kids selling roses and playing hopscotch so I stopped to take a photo and then bought a rose (they totally ripped me off! but they're just so cute, they had me!) and then I asked if I could play hopscotch with them and they kindly let me so I played a round and man it felt sooo good! I love that game! My friends and I in Zambia would bring out the charcoal and draw out perfect boxes and then find the perfect stone and play all evening!! And then I just hung around and talked to them for a while and tried to learn their names: Suhail, Laxmi, Sabrina... ah darn it that's all I can remember! Bless them! The first question I asked them is if they go to school and they said yes! And then I asked why they sell roses and Laxmi answered for school fees... She's in grade two. Isn't that humbling!? Anyway, so I had the best time with those kids and couldn't stop smiling as I walked away. I hope I see them again. If you're ever on MG road and you see them playing hopscotch, stop and play! Its a heart-warming experience!

So that was that. I finally decided I should really head home and so I get in auto completely oblivious to the fact that all hell had broken loose in another part of Bangalore that very afternoon. Riots. Some religious drama. Basically, there were some processions by muslim extremists AGAINST Saddam's hanging on Friday (He's already dead fergoodnesssake!!!) and then in the heat of all of that they started tearing down hindu posters and such like. Therefore on Sunday; the revenge. There was some hindu procession in which they were preaching about getting rid of the rest... blah blah blah. Nothing new. Hindus and muslims have been neck to neck from the beginnings of this nation. And you would think by now they would have learned that NOTHING good comes out of it. Innocent people die like that 11 yr old yesterday. Ugh. Infuriating. Anyway, due to all of that nonsense, the auto driver and I went round and round in circles because they closed off loads of roads. People warned us not to go that way because there might be trouble. Not the other way, cause of road blocks. I had no idea where we were, so I was pretty much sitting at the edge of my seat and praying. Police everywhere. Loudspeakers blaring religious jargon. Broken glass on the roads. People flying orange banners with Om signs. Burnt up autos. Blood on the pavement. Not a pretty sight.

What's funny is that there wasn't a sign of all of this on MG road so I had absolutely no clue. I had been gone from home since the morning and hadn't seen the news. While on the other hand my dad was seeing it all on tv half way across the world and calls me up saying, "Are you okay. There's trouble on the roads. What are you doing out!?!" And I'm going, yeah, I noticed, I hadn't a clue!!

Thankfully, by the time I was on my way home the violence had subsided. To think that had I not stayed back to play hopscotch with those kids and get stared at like a weirdo by the passersby, I may well have gotten caught in the thick of it. Mercy...

And now as a result of all that madness, my class has been cancelled today! So I am home all day, once again... Don't even have to cook today. But apparentely Abhi has a bone to pick with me. So laters.