Pieces of Daily Life

I thought I should probably write something about daily life here at Visthar.

Because we're very close to the equator the sun more or less rises around 6:00 and sets around 6:00. We eat breakfast every morning and I love it. Toast, eggs, fresh fruit, coffee or tea. Watermelon, pineapple, papaya. Apparently mangoes are in season in May and I'm already excited. Lunch and dinner are similar: chapatis, rice, a few different kinds of dal, sometimes a meat curry, sliced cucumbers, carrots, tomatoes, sometimes yogurt (curd), and dessert such as pasayum or rice pudding.

It is spring here (strange to think about Holden still being sledable) and flowers and cacti are blooming all over. There are puppies and kittens on campus! The mama dog had four puppies, and I think there are the same amount of kitties. Hakash, our 3 year old neighbor, is very fond of them. I'm not sure if they are so fond of him, however. They are usually squealing quite forcefully as he awkwardly thrusts them our direction. This morning I heard a distinctive bird call on my way to breakfast and looked up to see a whole flock of beautiful green parrots. Apparently they are migrating. There are other interesting birds here, including white birds that surround the cow, something large and bright blue, crows and hawks. (Are you reading, Peg, Juanita or Allison?) I told you a little about the monkeys, which I'm not very excited about. They are big and although fellow primates I don't feel much kinship. A few snakes have been spotted lately. Apparently they are coming up out of the ground because the weather is changing.

Last night as I was brushing my teeth I turned around to see a pair of eyes looking at me from inside a rolled up shower curtain. My first thought was, "Oh, a frog." Then I realized a snake was a much more likely prospect. I realized that my options were to leave, toothbrush in hand and go to sleep in fear, go back in, or swallow my pride and get some help. The next thing I knew I was slipping on my sandals and marching down the path. I saw Mahadevi's beedi glowing in the distance and felt a wave of relief. I explained my situation to him and he replied, "Snake. Bathroom." He grabbed a large stick and took off down the path. He surveyed the bathroom and as he unraveled the shower curtain he jumped, because the large yellow tree frog had jumped out of the curtain and onto him. It was wet and sticky. It was actually quite cute, but I preferred it to live in a more natural habitat than my curtain. However, we couldn't get it to leave. I'm thankful it was only a frog, but a little jumpy at the idea that if a frog can get in, other creatures probably can as well. I learned to live with mice at Holden (well, maybe...Matt may disagree), so perhaps this is my current task at hand. However, the house is currently being mosquito proofed (thank God) so I may live alone again soon.

I'm really enjoying many little nuances of living in India. The most common greeting we hear in the morning from our co-workers is, "Have you taken your breakfast?" Rather than saying, "yeah" while someone is talking to you it is common to say, "acha, acha." I think of Matt Perry every time someone says, "Well, it depends on the timings."

There are differences of course, but Ambryn and I have exchanged many glances and giggles at the universal nature of office culture. There are the abstract leaders who rarely speak in specifics (and leave the staff who work for them wondering exactly what they expected to do), there is the young i.t. coordinator who is frequently being beckoned to assist in a technical emergency, rarely able to complete his projects, there are email forwards that give laughter mid-day (an elephant doing "exercises"), and there are birthday cards circulated and frantically signed moments before they are presented at a thrown-together office birthday party. There are eyebrows raised as tensions rise or as new projects are presented that no on wants the responsibility for. We've been loving it all.

We have a staff meeting with tea every morning and it has been very interesting. Sometimes it is very joyful with a lot of laughing and teasing. Sometimes we hear very sobering yet inspirational sermons (David is quite the orator). Sometimes the staff argue and stand up and say things like, "Don't tell me about..." From what we've observed, there is much love and respect amongst the staff. They use affectionate terms with each other, yet aren't afraid to disagree, sometimes vehemently.

And through it all, we sit here and look at this pond, or walk a few feet to stand in the sun, or drink chai while being inspired. We're very lucky to be here.

Thanks for reading!