the beginning

Thursday marks three weeks in Varanasi.

Our senses are slowly getting acquainted to the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of the city: the communal bathing of the buffalo, the prayers and songs that start at dawn and continue late into the night, the smell of manure, the tooth-achingly sweet chai.

We are starting to get to know our neighbours: that one black and white cow, the prissy fluffy white dog--a sore thumb in a sea of mutts, the monkey that broke our rooftop planter, the endless hippies that come in and out of Ashish's Cafe.

It feels like the rickshaw driver knows our rate and now haggles for the formality, the children who beg along the ghats remember our faces and what country we're from, and the dusty streets are starting to recognize the sounds of our footsteps.

And every morning, I wake up to this: