Varkala - Mothering and Being Mothered

We have been hanging out in an awesome little town called Varkala that looks out over a cliff edge to the beach down below. We said goodbye to a few mates and as we waved them fairwell we heard this tiny little bleating voice crying for help and looked down to find a tiny tiny tiny little kitten who had been abandoned by it's mother and was on the verge of dying. She would have only been about 1-2 days old and so was absolutely miniature and soooo cute as you can see in the photos!

We vowed to look after her for the next few days while we found her a suitable home - this was quite the chore in India as there are stray and mangey animals everywhere and people struggle for survival let alone animals. Some animals however are pets in areas like Kerala and get treated quite well. So we became mothers for about 3 days feeding tiny Ozzie every 4 hours and giving her as much attention as was possible. We used a makeshift nipple that we made by poking a tiny hole in the corner of a plastic bag and bought a seringue to make things easier for feeding.

This is our makeshift nipple...

Whilst on an outing from being a mother we got mothered by a charasmatic Indian women who called herself 'Mama' and fed us in a group of 15 at her home a banquet of the most amazing Keralan food. We arrived and found her husband cutting banana leaves from the banana trees in the backyard to be used as our plates.

This was something we always wanted to master - eating like the Indians do with their hands off a banana leaf. Kristen kept elbowing the girl next to her as she tried to conquer shovelling the food into her mouth with her right hand (the left is reserved for wiping after other bodily functions - you do not dare EVER use your left hand in India for eating!). It was an amazing experience yet was quite scary at the same time as Mama was very forthcoming at showing her disappointment with us for not finishing the whole 15 massive dishes of Keralan rice, curries and pappadams. We normally share one between the two of us and are left short of breath with extremely full stomachs. It was quite the feast! Dessert was Masala tea and a huge amount of amazing fresh pinapple. Sooo good. We didn't need breakfast the next day! It was nice to be mothered for a night.