Walking in monsoon season

It's been raining heavily (nothing like the dazzling downpour of Monrovia) since yesterday. Kavita and I put on our walking clothes and set off for an afternoon walk, rather than wait for the evening. So, we set off at about 3:30 PM just as it had stopped finally raining. It was still cloudy.

We cut some wild flowers and, some dangling bougainvillea off peoples' perimeter walls. Kavita said let's cut the roses in the forest. The roses were in front of the huge cake-house and, I explained to Kavita we couldn't cut those roses as they belonged to that house. There are many trees on that part of the street and, last time she said it had a 'foresty' feel to it. 

I saw a dead bird on the footpath and, pointed at it. 

"Who would kill a bird? This is so sad." 

Kavita was extremely shocked and sad. 

"Maybe someone who hits and screams at their mother."

Kavita is very cranky sometimes because of the medicines she's on and, when we have tickle fights, she gets extremely upset if she loses. So, one has to be careful as not to ignite her cute little temper. 

"Are you calling me a murderer?" Kavita screamed in a very shrill voice. She's very shrill these days. And, she doesn't get dark humour either. After this sense of injustice, she descended into tears. I laughed a little and, she cried more. At the top of her voice. "Say sorry!" she screamed. I hugged her and, said sorry and, then had to try very hard not to laugh. 

A little while later, she said she wanted to become happy again and, started chatting about how much she was enjoying the walk. There were snails everywhere and, I said, don't step on snails and murder any. Again, more tears. Then, she forgave me and, we enjoyed cutting flowers and, collecting them in my bag. 

Later, she saw a bee happily buzzing around the lush, intensely fragrant flowers of the Rangoon Creeper (or Madhumati in Hindi). She said she had never seen a bee taking pollen from a flower and, she said this was the "best adventuring walk ever".

There's a stretch of the walk that goes by the park. It's parallel to the service road parallel to the one we live on. It's overgrown with bush, grass, mud, and also stinks. There is also a beautiful trash dumpster overflowing with garbage.

I'm pretty sure we saw 2 snails devouring an earthworm. It was fascinating. I even managed to get a closeup 'Animal Planet' picture of this vicious slaughter. Shortly afterwards, though, Kavita started screaming and, said there was something squishy and slimy in her rain boot. She became frantic! We stopped and, she flung her boot off and, out came a snail. She didn't realise that whatever it was out and, she kept screaming "Get it off, get it off!" I was amused and, laughed, which of course did not help. I managed to show her the poor dead snail and, then Kavita put her boot back on. She meekly said she killed the snail "by accident."

We enjoyed rest of our afternoon stroll. What a lush green neighbourhood. It was very humid, though, and we were drenched in sweat. We stopped at the park and then went home.

I love seeing purple squashed jamun everywhere on the foot path. I showed Kavita and, she exclaimed "This is the first time I've seen a fruit tree!"