We arrived from Penang into Kuala Lumpa in the early
hours of the morning. I was dropped at the female ashram before
Simheswara and the young devotee, who had driven through the night,
returned to their Temple rooms just down the road. I had managed to
sleep most of the way back but welcomed the extra few hours stretched
out on a real bed in the office.
I didn't make morning arti that day but
I did make it down to the temple by 8am refreshed and ready to face
the day.
A wonderful Italian couple arrived a few hours later
complete with beaming smiles, backpacks and an eager enthusiasm to
work at the farm.
We piled their belongings into the
truck while the rain poured down once again. With Yokay's bags piled
on top of the Italians it was quite a squeeze in the back seats!
I
was graciously allowed to sit up front with Simheswara's bags and
mine around my feet.
(there are definite advantages to being a Mommy figure lol)
Once again time slipped by before we
left the temple. There was one more person due at the Farm, an
American girl called Leah. Like me she was coming from Singapore and
planned to go straight to the Farm. Simheswara was concerned that,
also like me, she might get stranded in Kuala Lumpa so we waited
until the Farm called to say she had arrived before we left.
Inside I
breathed a sigh of relief as there wasn't really any space left for
another passenger!!
At the Farm I happily introduced
everyone to their new home. As Alex and I had already discovered
where most things were by trial and error, it felt good to be able to
prepare the new arrivals and help ease their transition to farm life.
Rooms were allocated, Leah moved in with me and together we all piled
down for another incredible evening meal.
By nine that evening we were all ready
for our beds!
Outside the rain poured down and the night chorus of frogs and toads
was in full swing but within minutes both Leah and I were asleep.
Having had such an amazing few days on
the Rathyatras as well as all the incredible generosity I had
received from everyone around me, I was eager to attend morning Arti
as much as I could whether anyone else turned up or not.
I washed and dressed at 5.15 and in the
cool morning air walked down the slippery slope to the temple room.
Together with the young bramachari I
performed the morning ritual and enthused with happiness I finished
my meditation and headed off to the kitchens for a few hours of chop
chop.
At breakfast I discovered that everyone
had been over to the Chip factory making preparations for chip
production. I joined them for the final clean and watched in
fascination as defrosted tapioca was fed into the slicing machine.
Lesson Two re Tapioca – tapioca once
frozen and defrosted does NOT go through a slicing machine easily!!
Fingers were strained, wrists tensed as the rubbery, extremely
flexible tapioca was forced into the tubes of the cutting machine.
The end result was small flakes of tapioca that, due to the fact that
the deep fat fryer kept short circuiting, was cooked in a huge wok in
the middle of the room!
The ability other cultures have to fix
things, in ways that would cause a health and safety emergency shut
down in the UK, is a marvel to witness. At one point a little too
much water entered the hot oil with disastrous results but everyone
just backed away to a safe distance and then, once the oil stopped
boiling over, cleaned everything up and started again. Lesson learnt
and production preparations modified!
By the end of the day all the defrosted
tapioca had been made into chips. The few that hadn't yet been packed
into their small cellophane envelopes were stored in a large
air-tight bag ready for the following day of production.
Happy that
we had at last done something productive to help the Farm we returned
to our rooms for showers and a well earned meal.
The next day we arrived bright and
early at the factory to find a large pile of fresh and muddy tapioca
waiting for us. Instructions were given and this time, as I was wiser
as to the length of soaking time required, we soon had a nice
pile of freshly washed tapioca ready for the slicing machine.
(out of focus sorry but it is the
only photo I have!)
Fresh tapioca is firm like a potato
and, in comparison to the previous day, was a dream to put through
the machine.
Large crisp shapes dropped into the
catching bowl,
which was then emptied into another soaking bowl
before being well drained (lesson learnt!) and cooked.
Once cooked the chips were spun in a
wonderful machine to remove the excess oil, flavoured with salt,
pepper or lime and then packed into the bags that Alex and I had
lovingly labelled.
Three thousand packets were required
for the next Rathayatra
and three thousand packets were filled
and sealed over the next two days!
At lunchtime on our third day at the
Farm it was announced that we would ALL be going to the Rathyatra in
Klang just south of Kuala Lumpa the next day! I had barely done four
days of any sort of work in the two weeks since my arrival and I was
off to another party!
I had also not really explored the farm
as it had rained virtually every day since my arrival. That
afternoon, as the rain eased off, Yokay and I took the opportunity to
go exploring.
We walked north to the reservoir,
passing trees full of fruit I didn't
know.
We passed fields of sugar cane,
than ran along side trees full of star
fruit.
The roads were set out in a rough grid
so even though the crops made it impossible to see exactly where we
were we had a sort of rough idea.
That was until we came to the road that
the river had washed away! The rains had been extensive and water is
a powerful force!
Eventually this would be repaired and
the road would become part of the grid again but for now we back
tracked to the previous fork and found another way round.
Ants had built their own walkways
across the roads,
termites had built hotels beneath the
trees.
Birds called, cows mooed and everywhere
we looked there was life
and tapioca
…. and mud!
We made it back to the accommodation
about twenty minutes before the rains returned.
Water poured from the roof top, water
poured down the hill.
We labelled some more bags, read some
of the books from the vast Krsna library, conducted lessons in
English, Italian and Japanese and enjoyed the freshness of the rain
until meal time.
Then we just got wet!
The main difference between Welsh rain
and Malaysian rain is its temperature. In the UK rain tends to come
with a coldness that seeps into your bones and chills you to the
core.
In Malaysia the rain is just as wet but the air is warm, the
rain is warm, the breeze is warm or virtually non existent and once
you are out of the rain, you dry in a matter of moments.
That night the heavens continued to
empty upon the farm, the frogs and toads kept up their choir practice
all night and the dogs slept under the porch just outside our door.
Tomorrow we would be heading to Klang but for tonight we lay comfortably in our
beds........ and had dreams that involved tapioca chips!!!
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