Going Home and On a Jungle Safari

Today our hosts Ram Mohan and Puspa drove us to my first home in our Tharu village here, Devoli. To most of the world, a blip of ramshackle houses you'd miss in a blink. We arrived at Niru's house, where she grabbed me and pulled me inside where we sat inside awhile drinking chai. She brought out the old Gospel of Mark my dad worked on and another book that may have been a contextualized version of Pilgrim's Progress. A lot of talk about our time there and how the old ladies of the village were excited to see me as they used to carry me around like any old Tharu baby. It was a bit emotional thinking of that. We didn't get inside the house but this picture with Niru shows the backside of it. 
We had been planning a jungle safari and the time was getting on, so they all ended up coming along. The safari jeep picked us all up and went back for the guide
It was truly amazing and one of those experiences I store up to be in a jeep traveling through a jungle. We were all squished in, me next to Niru and Heidi with my feet dangling as we bumped and jolted around. Sadly, we didn't get to see anything but deer.
After a few hours of a fruitless search, they took us to see elephants, which was so amazing. There was a mama and baby who let us touch them with the trainer around. An elephant trunk feels really weird! We got enough of a full to decide we don't need to do an actual elephant ride.
So instead tomorrow we will go back to the village and spend more time with the family since we didn't see most people today.

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