Thanks to ecosan Flickr
Although Katie had been on her first international adventure at the age of ten months old, which she obviously can’t remember, the first time she realized that the whole world doesn’t look like it does at home, she was four years old.
I had been reading someone’s travelblog on which I found a beautiful black and white photograph of a cow walking in a rather unbothered fashion down a narrow sidestreet in Varanasi, India. I knew to Katie’s mind this would be ridiculous and incomprehensible. I called her over and asked her what she thought. After a little bit of surprise and some giggles she asked me where it was and I explained how in India cows are regarded as sacred and that it was perfectly normal for people, cars and bicycles to have to share the road with cows.
The first thing she asked was when we could go to India to see the cows. I can trace her wanderlusting ways back to that moment. From that moment she was always asking when we could go to India and it was what she answered everyone with when asked what she wanted for her fifth birthday. It raised some bemused looks I can tell you, although as 50% of her is from my gene pool, it seemed funny yet understandable to me.
So when we started to seriously plan this trip we both remembered about the excitement surrounding the thought of going to India had triggered a few years previously and factored it into our route. Great! She was finally going!
Until during a talking and planning session we found out that Western standards are all but impossible to find. This triggered a lot of anxiety on Katie’s part that no assurance from my end could relieve. It became a constant worry of Katie’s whether she would have to squat or not. I tried all different types of reassurance but nothing worked, so soon I looked to external sources for a solution.
Now, I will be the first to admit that I am into my gadgets. I can’t live without my iPod, never have been able to since the first day I owned one. It is my constant companion. I even go to sleep with it. Ok I mean I don’t cuddle up to it, I wouldn’t say it is what keeps me warm at night, but, I can’t sleep if I am not listening to it. There was a time that I had two desktops networked to each other, but even then it bugged me that I had to go into one of another two rooms to use a computer, they just weren’t portable enough. So I got a laptop, which came with me from room to room and slept beside me on the bedside table so it was there waiting for me to check my email as soon as I woke up. Bearing in mind, I am a single mother, there was only really me using these computers apart from the odd occasion Katie would check CBeebies.
I have all kinds of little gadgets in the kitchen too. But I never thought I would ever be driven into looking for gadgets that would help make going to the toilet easier.
Check my next post for the solution I found.
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Tags: Gadgets, Problems, travel tips
