{"id":752,"date":"2012-09-04T13:16:49","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T05:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/?p=752"},"modified":"2012-09-04T13:16:49","modified_gmt":"2012-09-04T05:16:49","slug":"high-as-a-kite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/?p=752","title":{"rendered":"High as a Kite"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/div><div class=\"flexslider\"><ul class=\"slides\"><li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"904\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_4584-904x500.jpg\" class=\"slide-image\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li><li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"904\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_4587-904x500.jpg\" class=\"slide-image\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li><li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"904\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_4588-904x500.jpg\" class=\"slide-image\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li><li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"904\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_4594-904x500.jpg\" class=\"slide-image\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li><li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"904\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_4601-904x500.jpg\" class=\"slide-image\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li><li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"904\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_4602-904x500.jpg\" class=\"slide-image\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li><li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"904\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_4605-904x500.jpg\" class=\"slide-image\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li><li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"904\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_4606-904x500.jpg\" class=\"slide-image\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li><li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"904\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_4612-904x500.jpg\" class=\"slide-image\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li><li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"904\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_4614-904x500.jpg\" class=\"slide-image\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li><li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"904\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_4620-904x500.jpg\" class=\"slide-image\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li><li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"904\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_4626-904x500.jpg\" class=\"slide-image\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li><li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"904\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_4639-904x500.jpg\" class=\"slide-image\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li><li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"904\" height=\"500\" src=\"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/09\/IMG_4647-904x500.jpg\" class=\"slide-image\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"content\">\n<p>We have been having lots of fun with Xavier\u2019s performance kite at high altitude.<\/p>\n<p>A blustering wind howls down the Leh Valley most afternoons, picking up dust and debris, and forcing us all to cover up and get in doors.\u00a0 It reminds us, despite the encircling snow capped mountains, that we are living in a cold desert.<\/p>\n<p>In our \u2018backyard\u2019 \u2013 the building sites behind us &#8211; Xavier has been flying his kite and providing entertainment to some of our less well-to-do neighbours.\u00a0 While we are living in a comfortable traditional Ladakhi home \u2013 a walled \u2018compound\u2019, there are a great many families of \u00a0\u2018summer migrants\u2019 living around us in quite appalling conditions.\u00a0 No electricity, no running water, their homes rented windowless mud brick bunkers.\u00a0They come from the Hindu south and provide the labour for the frenzied period of construction that occurs in the short summer. They are the folk wielding sledgehammers \u2013 the rock breakers &#8211; who work all day cracking granite into rectangular building blocks.\u00a0 Or they head off, men and women, in the morning to work on roads or building sites.\u00a0 Not earning much, but more than they would from where they come from in the south. \u00a0The children do not go to school, but play in the dirt or the local melt stream (now dry).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have been having lots of fun with Xavier\u2019s performance kite at high altitude. A blustering wind howls down the Leh Valley most afternoons, picking up dust and debris, and forcing us all to cover up and get in doors.\u00a0 It reminds us, despite the encircling snow capped mountains, that we are living in a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-752","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","hentry","category-chris","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2Afwe-c8","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=752"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":768,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/752\/revisions\/768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/josephinewilson.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}