My inlaws live in a very nice small neighborhood off some
decently busy roads that cross Hyderabad. The small grocery store is about 2
blocks away, and the husband and I occasionally walk down there to pick up some
cereal, jam or other such things.
As I have already noted, Indian streets are crazy jungles of
activity that require the utmost attention to navigate. This goes double for
pedestrians as you are the smallest, weakest thing traveling on the road. There
are very few places where there are sidewalks, people just hug the edge of the
road. There is also the honking method of communication to be considered, but
we’ll get into that in another entry. I guess it’s pretty apparent that you
need to watch what’s going on around you.
The fun part comes in when you realize that you have to
watch the ground in front of you also. There are stray dogs to be avoided at
all costs, potholes, mysterious puddles, bugs, and trash, not to mention the
people and random cars/autos parked on the side of the street.
One of these fine evenings, I was walking with the husband
and we needed to cross the street. I decided that watching the cars was the
prudent thing for my eyes to be doing at that moment. This was where things got
hairy. I had not noticed that something had used the bathroom on the side of
the street. I turned to cross the street and didn’t notice it until my sandal
clad foot had sunk in nice and good. Thank goodness I was wearing heeled
sandals, otherwise I might have had Hepatitis nightmares for weeks – after all,
I didn’t even know what left the pile of crap in the street. Husband, after he finished being mad that I
wasn’t watching where I was going and then laughing hysterically, assured me it
was just from a cow. This is totally reasonable because you do see the odd
inexplicable herd of cattle wandering down the street with the cattle herd in
the middle of super busy neighborhoods/streets. I just wonder where they keep
them…it’s all houses, where do you have space for ginormous cows??
So came home and thoroughly washed off my sandal, thankful
that this lesson didn’t come with skin contact or any exotic disease. But
still. Ew.
Becky
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