Out & About

There's a reason why you find yourself in a situation that puts your patience to the test. It's all karma. Things don't just happen to you, they happen for a reason. I've just been told by a priest in India that karma is actually worked out over seven (!) generations. Quite scary, isn't it?
One of the biggest tests of my patience presented itself when we were going up into the Himalayas. I knew there was only one road. I knew there are landslides during monsoon. But the human brain works in funny ways - yes, other people had been affected, but we won't get stuck. The more you repeat it, the more you believe it.
We got stuck after about four hours driving. The long, long queue of trucks and people having their picnic by the roadside were sure signs that thing wouldn't be moving any time soon. This wasn't your ordinary landslide in Europe, where you just bring in the big machinery and it's all done within a matter of a couple of hours. This is India, a remote corner of the Himalayas, with hundreds of people stuck on the only road to their destination.
The landslide itself wasn't all that exciting, but people's reactions to it were. Where Europeans frantically tried to find a solution (why not trek down the valley and up on the other side, with the luggage on our backs?), Indian people displayed their amazing capability of being absolutely unperturbed by any sort of inconvenience happening to and around them. Be it in trains, buses or queues – patience is the only solution.
Left with no choice I decided to work on my patience, and I would have plenty of opportunity to do so. Naturally, nothing happened that very day. We did find a place that might have called itself a hotel in a fit of self-confidence. Many people had to sleep sitting up in their bus seats that night.
We got up at 6am the following morning to be the first ones to get through – in case it had cleared... Late afternoon the road was finally free. Just about when every one had stopped caring.