Relativity

We’ve only been here a week.

We’ve established what we’re doing, where, how…got a dentist, found a tattoo artist…made some friends and been adopted by a wonderful family.

This is Bijoy, Soumia, and their children, whom we’ve been directed to call Appu and Ammu. I’m wearing jasmine flowers from their front yard, tied together with a strip from a dried coconut palm leaf. Soumia pulled it from a tree in their yard and showed me how to make the garland.

We’ve walked about 30 km.

We’ve eaten some amazing food, and we’ve reintegrated ourselves as part of the community of Kerala.

We’re sleeping full nights and we’re slowing down on the food, shedding the feeling that we have to eat everything we see because the opportunity might disappear.

Since we met Prakash, it’s been in the back of our minds that going into business together could be a good thing. The most obvious thing from our point of view is boating. As we stated before, the industry of sailing is practically nonexistent on the West Coast of India south of Mumbai. There are major changes coming to Kerala with the international seaport they’re putting in at Vizhinjam and the new highway that’s passing through to hook those containers into the marketplace.

We think it would be a wise investment to establish a recreational sailing community in this beautiful place. We don’t see any signs that there’s anyone more qualified to start a club than us. We’re excited about it, good at it, and the market is wide open.

Maybe we could make a better boat club than this one.

With all the terrible shit going on in the US, maybe it is time to start thinking outside the country in a more enduring way.

For now, though, the primary concern is getting James the new teeth he needs.