Yesterday my friend Renata was looking at my blog. When she was reading the entry about going to the Zoo our friend LouLou came up behind her and only saw the photos of tigers and lions. So LouLou thought those were images from a normal day, like I encounter tigers in my every day life.
So today I didn't have a driver and I needed to pick up a package from my father at the post office, so I thought I'd show you what a walk to the post office looks like...
From my house...
...I cross the park at the center of Ozone (makes it very family friendly)
in the park, once you pass the palm trees, you can see the huge Forum Value Mall in the background
Outside the gate my favorite street dog, Chicken, is sleeping in the dirt (we put the collar on him - we wanted the locals to know he is special, not just an ordinary street dog)
When I'm going out the gate by foot or scooter I try to remember to bring some food for Chicken. Poor thing... you can see his ribs and hip bones. There was a turf war and now Chicken is not allowed to go to the end of the street where the food carts park - so that limited his access to food. (Although his ribs have always shown even when he could get to the carts.)
The food I bring for Chicken is food too old to give to people. I feel guilty about feeding him sometimes because there is a tent village outside the gate too and I'd hate to see a bunch of hungry little faces continue to be hungry while I'm feeding a dog - but I wouldn't give them this food anyway.
The tent village exists to support the construction of an apartment building... notice the way the concrete is supported while it dries. Families working construction usually live at the site or nearby. You often see small children running around construction sites barefoot and half naked.
I don't know if these men are selling what is on their heads or delivering laundered items to residents at Ozone but it looks like hard work for little pay.
The tea stall at the end of our street - the back is littered with the corpses of "tender coconut" - the young coconut you drink the water out of, then they machete it open and you eat the thin coconut membrane out of the inside. Costs Rps. 10 ($0.20) and it contains quite a bit of sweet, thirst-quenching, some say medicinal, coconut water.
The front of Forum Value Mall, it's been open about 6 months...
...but due to shoddy construction parts look like it's several years old already.
Rickshaw que at the mall - like a taxi stand
Street sweeper
Some kind of cable blocking my way on the newly installed sidewalk
Street dogs sleeping
Man selling sunglasses and baseball caps on the side of the road
Road workers widening and prepping the road to be blacktopped
The children of the road workers playing on the sand pile
Apartments where we lived during August 2008
Tent village, food stalls, concrete plant pots for sale (the concrete ones are the most plentiful but don't breathe like terra cotta and plants generally don't like them)
Ayurvedic Medical tent - nomadic Ayurvedic tents can be found on the side of road, I couldn't imagine actually using one but some people don't have a choice
This is where I had my scooter accident - basically right next to the parked black car. And the lady in the green saree was one of the wonderful people who stayed with me. She ran back to her corrugated tin shack and got coconut oil to apply to my wounds
This is her shack, her husband is in the foreground sorting plastic
The post office!! You'd walk right past it if you didn't know where it was.
Ahhh, there's the sign
The Whitefield post office, "May I help you?"
Dad's package! It's here and in relatively good shape!
The package was quite heavy and they couldn't believe I had walked and planned to walk home with it. Since I had brought my shopping bags with me we opened the package and emptied the contents into the two bags to make it more manageable. But I told them if it was too heavy I'd just grab an auto-rick.
My darling burlap and bamboo shopping bags - I had brought two; one for the package and one to stop at the grocery store on the way home. We ended up needing both!
Leaving Whitefield Post Office Road and turning back onto Whitefield Main there is always a Fish-Wala at the corner. He had a proper table and a make-shift awning this time... usually the fish are just laying on a tarp on the ground covered with flies.
This gentleman was sitting at the Fish cart, I asked to take his photo then showed it to him after... he was very amused by the attention and seeing his photo.
I needed to swing by Food World to pick up a few items. I usually avoid Food World like the plague but they have improved both hygienically and variety of products.
Popular Tropicana flavors... mango, pineapple and lychee. We love the lychee.
We can get baguettes easily now, such a treat! A few months ago you had to go downtown or order through a home delivery service to get baguettes, now they're quite common and quite good. THANK YOU!!!
It's still hard to get good cheese in Whitefield, this selection of cheddars is available at Food World but at Rps. 350 ($7.60) they're quite spendy. I can get cheese but have to drive for an hour to get it. I'll buy it if I'm in the area.
Check out. No conveyor belt and the cashier double checks EVERY ITEM scanned with what is on the price tag (drives me batty... what are the bar codes for then if you're going to double check every item?!?!?!?!), and of course candy at the check out to drive the kids crazy
Rickshaw drivers having some down time
Newly installed sidewalks, you can see the river of sewage/waste water flowing underneath
Fruit/vegetable stands are quite common
Stopped for lunch at Bhagini Park
Opted for a Veg Thali - Andhra style!
Bill:
Meal: Rps. 53
Mineral Water: Rps. 22
Total with taxes: Rps. 82 ($1.78)
With my belly full I walked home. Passing lots of fences made of stone - wood is not plentiful in the south so concrete and stone are used in many instances where we would see wood back home.
It was a nice outing. :-)
And tonight it will be Xmas from Grandpa in the Vignau household!
