MRS. NIRMALA LAXMAN
I was a Guide in Lusaka (Zambia) at that time. I and my friend were taken into a European Company as there were no other Indian girls old enough to start our own Company.
Once there was a camp being held at Mulungushi, Broken Hill (Kabwe). As I had never been to camp before my enthusiastic Guider persuaded me to come for three days. At camp I told them I was a vegetarian. They said 'fine', but I suspected they were rather worried and wondered how I would exist for the next couple of days. Come supper time; we all sat around a big table outside including a couple of young children who had come with their mother.
Soup plates came around announced as "vegetable soup". It tasted alright but a few brown specks floating on it made me rather suspicious. Everyone was talking and laughing when suddenly one of the tiny girls piped in, "Look Mummy, I have pieces of meat floating in my soup." The mother tried to hush her up and an embarassing silence followed. Needles to say my Guider apologised to me the next morning, not that I was annoyed. Far from it, I could sense their concern for me, a lone Indian Guide amongst them. My Guiders were the kindest, loving and most encouraging ladies ever to be found.
I have always looked back fondly on that camp, firstly because of the soup episode and secondly because I froze with cold at night on the hard uneven ground!
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