Obstacles assail the driver constantly, some created by others moving forcefully ahead of him, others by him attempting to create a new lane and ultimately becoming further ensconced in traffic. There is the mildest semblance of order: cars on the left of side of the road go one way, cars on the other side go the other way – most of the time. Additionally, drivers somehow manage to convert one-lane roads into two and occasionally three-land thoroughfares, plus a pedestrian on each side.

There are other non-gas powered residents of the road. Traffic will be slowed by the man in thin sandals pushing his wooden cart which artfully carries arrangements of fruits and vegetables. There are also brave souls biking, sitting upright, on their rusted, squeaking, dust-covered bicycles.

Then there are the cows. Today there was a large, regal beast, calmly camped in the middle of one of the busiest roads in Dehradun. She was confident in the fact that traffic would adapt to her. I wondered what it was about that location that satisfied her – the vibrations from the ground? the chaos of engines and horn-honking? the pungent odour and residue of diesel and gas? Or simply the fact that she had the power to be there, and human activity was secondary to her needs.

Another calm being was a little girl, maybe three years old, seated between her father and mother on a motorcycle careening through traffic. None of the riders were helmeted, a common sight, although occasionally there will be a helmeted driver with a bare-headed passenger, usually a woman sitting side-saddle or straddling the seat. This little girl had her cheek resting on her father’s back, her eyes closed, her soft mouth slightly open, small curls of hair waving against her forehead. Her mother held her in place with her arms forming guardrails on either side, hands clenching the folds of the father’s loose green shirt. Despite the precarious reality, the little girl looked like she couldn’t be safer.

Sometimes I following real time. When I was in Botswana I lay in bed at midnight with my laptop screen lighting up the room and knew immediately what was happening with Parliamentary House committees and in the House of Commons with respect to the contempt allegations against the Conservatives. I was even emailing with Megan [Megan Leslie, the MP I worked with in Ottawa] during the vote – that was intercontinental electronic communication overload.

When I was in Landour, my internet connection was strong enough to livestream the CBC radio broadcast of the leadership debate. That, along with CBC’s liveblogging, filled my chilly Himalayan morning, as a tiny heater worked beside me. I wrote in to the CBC site and was thrilled to get mentions from Kady O’Malley and Rosemary Barton (CBC reporters). (I originally wrote that I got “shout-outs” from them…but the phrase “shout-out” has forever been ruined for me by Sarah Palin’s use during the US Vice-Presidential debates…the winking didn’t help…)

Now my only political problem is figuring out where to vote. My mailing address is in Saskatchewan, my driver’s license has my subletted address in Ottawa, and I have an apartment rented in Toronto with no official ID indicating that. And I’m in India until the 25th and in Sioux Lookout on Election Day. But a vote will be cast somehow, in some riding…although my preference would be to vote NDP in northern Saskatchewan and try to break the Conservative (plus one lonely Liberal) stronghold there.

I was reminded of Canada’s relatively beautiful electoral process by my father’s travel schedule in India. He was going to visit Assam, his home state, but knew there was an imminent election. Elections in Assam often come with violence, bombings, intimidation. So he changed his flight to avoid election day. Voters don’t have that choice.

From the first night of the festival I realized I was not only going to learn about writing, but I was also going to look through a window to South Africa, and other countries (Zimbabwe, Senegal, France, St. Kitts, Nigeria, Angola, and several more), using their artists as a medium. There were large auditorium-filling sessions in the evenings, and smaller venues with 2-3 writers speaking during the day. I became known as a festival groupie as I made my way around Durban to attend sessions. And, of course, to buy books – with each author I heard, I felt I needed to read their words. (I had to buy a new bag to accommodate my purchases)

The writers spoke of how their lives, the personal and the political, shaped who they were and how they wrote. The township in black South Africa that led to a book trying to explain how a poor teenager can end up seeing carjacking as an option. The genocide in Rwanda that leads to a fictional novel with a spectrum of chapters of how different people experienced their personal tragedies. The science fiction/urban fantasy (the author doesn’t like labels – in fact no author did) where Capetown is ruled by a corporate-apartheid. The desire to have South African apartheid literature stop having a predictable format, to stop having everything written in the name of political activism – instead, to tell peoples’ stories, which are permeated both by the ordinary and universal as well as the net of apartheid.

I found myself drawing parallels to my life in Canada as a point of reference – when I could. From inner city Toronto to northern First Nations and Metis communities there were many connections: poverty, lack of options, desire for change, oppression, discrimination, strength, pride. I spoke with one of the authors who did not know that there were “indigenous peoples” in Canada – just he would struggle to comprehensively explain race history in South Africa, I was challenged to explain simply what it means to be Aboriginal in Canada, a topic that I am just beginning to learn about.

Now I am moving on to the next phase of my travels – spending time with physicians in Johannesburg who work with patients who have HIV. Another window into life in South Africa.