Fever, Radha, coconuts, maude


This post catches us up on some recent developments. Luc still has a fever (day 4), we have a new cook (Radha), some yummy smelling coconut shrimp is cooking right now, and our good friend Maude is visiting.

I slept with Luc last night, and he slept fine until about 3 a.m. After that he was up every 30-45 minutes. The doctor told Marion that fevers last longer in Kerala (maybe she meant hot climates in general). It's pretty unbearable dealing with him. He asks (signs) for milk or something to eat but then won't take what you offer. He wants to be held most of the time. He's just in a lot of discomfort.

Last week our neighbors found us a better cook. Suchi's cooking was decent, the bigger problem was her cleaning. She just didn't clean very well, and seemed to be wandering around a lot not really sure what to do. We wanted someone who we did not have to direct, who could come in, cook, clean, and be in charge. Radha, our new helper, has something like 17 years experience doing this. She came in the first day and went right to the kitchen to start cleaning and then cooking. She tells Rahul what she needs and he goes and gets it. With Suchi, we had to decide what to get, and then ask her to cook something with it. Radha has made us some delicious dosas, chapatis, and iddli. The fish lady brought more shrimp today, so right now Radha is frying them in some coconut flakes that she prepared this morning (for the coconut chutney we had with our iddli.

Luckily, our landlady brought us a coconut scraper. In the pictures below, Radha is demonstrating the technique for using it.



Yesterday our good friend Maude arrived on an overnight bus from Bangalore. It's her first time in Kerala, though she has spent a lot of time in Northern India, including Bhopal. Maude is also an excellent photographer, so I'll see if I can convince her to let me put some of the pictures she takes while visiting us on the Zavelogue. Below is a picture of Maude trying to shoot Luc, but Claire the attention hog kept jumping in the way.



On Tuesday we plan to spend a day or two in the vicinity of Kollam, a town just north of here where Kerala's famous backwaters begin. Marion and Maude will go to the ashram of Amma, a famous spiritual guru in India known throughout the world for hugging. Hopefully Luc will be better by then.

Posted: Fri - December 30, 2005 at 10:19 PM          

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