today i heard something i have never heard before in india. total and complete silence. except maybe for a cricket.

welcome to Camp Auroville, a Summer Camp for Adults in India.

the only hitch is that none of the other campers have arrived yet, and all the counselors seem to have gone AWOL. the camp director met me in her housedress on sunday and said don’t bother me unless it is urgent.

i am on spacious rural grounds (i saw a mongoose hanging about) surrounded by gargantuan unfinished concrete buildings with stairways ending in midair, their sole residents, lizards.

Camp Life so far:

picnic lunch on bicycleback
picnic dinner on campus
after dinner i sang “the mongoose went over the culvert”
then i played charades (i won)
then i told scary stories around the candle
then i read with my flashlight under the covers after lights out

longer letter later