And then it rains...

It's still monsoon season.

I woke up at five to go to laughing yoga, but the rain was pouring and pouring, so I sat in my room under my mosquito net instead and watched it fall. And it fell all day. In places the streets started to flood, but not too bad. I have heard that during the worst times of year the water can get calf high - or higher - and the only transportation that can make it down the streets are the hand-drawn rickshaws.

It's wonderful and strange sitting in my room listening to the rain - comforting really. Sounds like home. If just for a moment. And its nice to read and write and listen to the sound. But it's sobering when my thoughts go to all the people who sleep on the streets. Where do they go? I'm not sure.

Sometimes when we're walking, the rain will come, out of no where - fast and hard, and life freezes. Everyone huddles under the roofs and at the shop door steps and waits for it to past. And as soon as it does, they immediately unfreeze and begin moving as fast as before with horns blaring from the taxis and shopkeepers shouting and people passing by.

Yesterday at the school, the rain fell so hard that we had to pause for a second to make sure it was real. Everyone rushed to the windows and watched as the palm trees and coconut trees and banana trees were beaten against each other by the rain.

On the way home, three of us; myself, and a girl from Korea, and one from Switzerland, got caught in a heavy downpour. We could have run for cover, but were already so soaked within seconds that it seemed just as well to keep on walking home. We kept looking at each other and laughing, because it felt like being kids in a sprinkler. And sometimes, when soaked, it's best to just laugh.

Last night we sat in the courtyard and watched the rain fall. We were all huddled on small chairs in the only dry corners and must have sat out there for several hours, not really talking, just staring. I had been feeling lonely all day. Even though I know a lot of people, none of them are fluent in English (and I am not fluent in their languages), and I find myself so longing for really good conversation - I have so many thoughts that I want to share. And I want to talk fast and excitedly and not think about my words - but just talk and talk - and it's lonely. But sitting there, in the rain, not talking - I wasn't lonely anymore. It was just really beautiful.

Eventually one of the Frenchmen opened his door on the other side of the courtyard and proceeded to do silent pantomimes against the darkness - It was like watching a play and it was hilarious. My favorite night so far.

Today I decided to skip work. Aneita, my friend from Austria, thinks I'm working too much. I agree with her - I'm starting to get really tired, but I keep going anyways because I'm both afraid of missing anything - and I'm still a bit afraid of the loneliness that keeps creeping up.

The first room I stayed in when I was here - the one with the mouse- was like a small, cold, dark prison cell. And it was the worst claustrophobia of my life. Feeling alone and trapped. I don't think I would be able to survive prison, if ever I were to go, if it is anything like that - because the loneliness is terrifying. Deafening. And with no clear end.

And yet I find that everything has an end. Only you just have to let things be. And when I feel lonely, instead of trying to fix it, you just kind of sit with it. Turn it over in your head and your mind. And then the rain falls and you sit silently with people you barely know, and it is gone.

So today, I skip work. Tiphane from Paris and I sat in a cafe and talked about life while the rain fell. She said if I come to Paris I can stay with her. Maybe I will study French again. I hate it that everyone speaks English but I don't speak anything else. We talked about love and life and all the places we want to see (as one tends to do with the French, I suppose :) and then walked here to the internet cafe. Later I will buy soap to wash my clothes in a bucket, perhaps go look at fabric with Tiphane, and then I'm going to meet a girl from New Zealand. We met yesterday and she asked me to travel with her to Varanasi next Wednesday. It is a holy city to the Hindi and is known for its hundreds (or maybe eighty) ghats down on the Ganges river. I think we will stay three days and then she will go to Delhi and I will return to Calcutta. It's nice to have a room here, because I can leave my backpack and just take a small bag for travel. And it's nice feeling like I have a more permanent room to come home to and travel from. I'm thinking of staying two months in Calcutta instead of just the one, and doing small trips from here (then I can travel with people and don't have to lug the bag). Who knows though. Turns out - I can do whatever I want. :)

Which right now might possibly be going and taking a nap! Yesterday I finally got sheets for my bed. The first day I asked at the desk and they said they don't have sheets. The second time I asked, they just said no. The third time I asked, they said ok - and now I have sheets! Which makes it the best day ever! Sometimes, it's the small things. Huh?

Oh, here comes the rain again.