Free Journey From the Summit by Lorraine Ereira Page B

someone to talk to. Adam had booked a nice hotel for him and Cathy, so they disappeared in a cloud of togetherness to their love nest, leaving Daniel and I to go to a cheap guesthouse that he had found for us.
    We came out of the airport into the hot, dusty city and felt immediately over-whelmed by the sights and sounds. Car horns beeped, bicycle bells clanged and people were shouting everywhere. Cows and chickens wandered in the road being narrowly dodged by rickshaws and taxis. Once again I was struck by the extreme squalor these people lived in. There were little shacks made from cardboard and corrugated plastic, lining the sides of the dusty roads strewn with rotting fruit. There was even what resembled bookcases, with people lying on each shelf as their beds; their homes. People were defecating by the roadside where others fed their newborn infants. Never had I witnessed such hardship and destitution. My life was another world, another planet away from this. I felt like an alien witnessing an inconceivable life form, not being able to really process what my eyes beheld. Although people approached us for money, they were not as scavenger-like as they had been in Dakar. I didn’t feel so intimidated and, although I felt revulsion, my heart went out to them. Daniel grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the big brown eyes that implored me, warning me that if I gave to one I would be hunted down like an unwitting deer by the rest as soon as they detected a soft touch.
    We jumped in a cab that took us to our humble abode for the night. It was a single story building with small rooms opening onto a long thin veranda. The room itself had narrow twin beds separated by a small locker. It was basic but fairly clean.
    That night we sat up drinking chai tea and talking about Saul. Daniel was so worried for him. He had left his job and his life back in America to try and help Saul here.
    “I think Saul’s into hard drugs,” Daniel confessed worriedly.
    “What? No, that’s crazy! Why ever would you think that?” I said.
    He told me how he had found syringes in Saul’s bag, and was worried it was because he was taking harder drugs. I laughed, perhaps unkindly at Daniel’s troubled expression.
    “Oh Daniel!” I said relieved to discover the reason for his fears.
    “Before they left, when they were having their vaccinations in England, the nurse who was administering them told them if they needed any medication by injection it was safer to carry your own needle, as they didn’t use new ones here, and the risk of AIDS was high. Look,” I said reaching into my own bag, “I’ve got some too!”
    He laughed with me, shedding at least some of his worry, and we took the first of many steps towards building a friendship that would help us through perhaps the most trying time in both our lives.
    The following morning we found Adam and Cathy taking a late, leisurely breakfast in their comparatively lavish hotel dining room. We sat with them drinking tea whilst we waited for them to finish so we could make our way to the airport.
    As we stepped outside into the mounting heat of the day, we were once again taken aback by the cultural differences between India and the UK. Every time you looked around you, you were surprised, appalled, disgusted, or amused by another unfamiliar sight, sound or smell. One such sight, which at first repulsed us, but we soon became accustomed to seeing, was Indian men holding hands. It seemed that, irrespective of age or class, everywhere you looked you would see another male couple with their fingers entwined. At first we thought maybe homosexuality was just rife in this country, but we soon came to realize that actually these men were heterosexual, and that it was a totally acceptable social behaviour. Conversely, it was not acceptable for a man and woman to show affection between each other, even if they were married. Perhaps this was why the men sought affection from their own sex, as it was frowned