Sam and the Well

I'll have many things to say about treatment in future entries, but the funniest thing happened today, so treatment chronicles will just have to wait.

The doors here are kinda funny. Most don't have knobs or levers, they just have sliding locks on both sides, which one can put a padlock through to secure the space once on the desired side of the door. When you leave, you slide the bar on the outside of the door an attach a lock. When you come back, you unlock the padlock, come inside & repeat the process, or use the bolt.

Sam and Peter moved to the little white house that Gerhard and & I just vacated, and they're learning all the quirks of the house. One of the most interesting features of that house is that you still use the well outside the kitchen for drinking water (boiled, of course). The well room has a mini barn door halfway up the wall just large enough to lower a bucket down and bring it back up full of water.

Today, Peter left for practice and shut the door behind him as usual. What he forgot was that Sam was still inside the house sleeping. When it was time for Sam to go for treatment, he found himself locked in the house!

The windows all have wooden bars from top to bottom, so no escape that way, and all the other doors had locks with no keys. After much thinking, Sam realized only one way out: the well. He had to climb out the well window and scuffle around the edge of the well to finally make it to the outside of the house.

When he finally arrived and told us the story, I almost wet myself laughing so hard. Of course, the best moment was when Ramesh found out & in his usual way in times like this, laughed his head off & immediately told everyone around him (in Malayalam-the language spoken here) what had happened, laughing wildy the whole time.

Sam took it all in great stride (as did poor Peter, despite our relentless teasing) and we all had great fun imagining what the neighbors must have thought about the whole ordeal. If Sam is late tomorrow, we'll know where to find him.

Silly westerners...