Day 19: Sapped

Today I had no energy. None left. It's like a huge weight hangs on my shoulders and I can barely get out of bed. Maybe my body is just exhausted not only from the constant heat, but also from the sickness, from the lack of familiar, so many things exacting a toll on this old body. People much thinner than me, people who are malnourished, they walk around like nothing bothers them. I see women and some men walk around with huge loads of brick on their heads, or children dragging buckets of water probably close to their weight, and they don't have the face of defeat. I feel defeated. I can't make my body get up because it doesn't want to. We wanted to buy lots of things for the apartment, but in the end, we ended up going only to the mall and the sheer madness and size of the crowd in there sucked out nearly the remainder of my energy. But we did treat ourselves to some Western food; our stomachs needed a break from the masala spice they had to bear everyday for nearly three weeks now. Surprisingly the KFC chicken was great! I would never eat there in the US, but this time it tasted great, either because I was craving for something different from Indian food or that it is really better made than the junk in the US. Then it's just rest. The next morning we would be waking up at 7AM for a trip to the village that I don't think I can participate. Now I am just glad there's an apartment to go back to.