Today I live for pineapples.

And the air conditioner at Oxford Books.

It's still really hot. But I think the evenings are getting cooler. It's not easy to say that at night when we're all still sitting around sweating, but it's easy to think that, and so I will.

And I refuse to be swayed otherwise. I believe it's cooler. And so it is. But oh lordy, it's so hot.

I don't feel upset today. But I was so upset last night that I have to pay tribute to my frustration through a blog vent. So if you are in a good mood, I really think you shouldn't read further. Just wait until tomorrow when I write something that uplifts your spirit and conclusively ends poverty and oppression through words alone. Just wait.

Until then.

Sigh. O.K. so here's the vent: I really fucking can't handle the adolescent males. I really can't. Maybe on a different day I'd have a more anthropologically unbiased nonviolent point of view. But today I fucking can't handle them.

And it's mostly them. Occasionally younger boys and older men, but mostly just the adolescents. Who think physical harassment of foreigners is an acceptable pastime, and have learned enough words in English so that walking down the street I hear at least four, five times a day, "I want to fuck you. You are a sexy machine goddess I want to fuck." It's gross.

It's worse when they touch you.

One of my friends was walking down the street and kept accidentally brushing her hand into the man behind her. She was embarrassed and apologized, until she realized he was following her on purpose for the cheap thrill of having his penis touched.

Another friend was at a restaurant where a man - no joke- was staring at her, took out his penis and started masturbating, right there at the restaurant. She got up and slapped him. And he said, "I apologize that you had to see that." She went over and told the servers, and they went and talked to him and came back and told her, "He said that nothing happened and you are making it up." She went inside and found the owner of the restaurant (thank goodness it was a woman) told her, and the woman went and screamed at him and kicked him out.

My same friend was riding in a bus or a plane (I don't remember which) and fell asleep and when she woke up a man was sitting there with his hands on her breasts. She started crying and told an attendant who, get this, told her it was her fault for falling asleep.

Another friend was walking down the street (this is my favorite story) and a man came up and full on grabbed her breasts. She screamed and then men around her asked what happened. She told them what he had done and they chased him down and held him for her as she beat him with her umbrella. (this is my favorite story).

Last night I was making a Veggie Chow Mien run for the house mates (15 rupees for a big bowl! 47 rupees equals a dollar, by the way). And I was standing there waiting for the to-go order and a group of adolescent males came up and grabbed my ass and ran away. And the frustrating part is that there was a group of other males just sitting around watching it and laughing. It was really humiliating actually to just stand there waiting for my food being laughed at.

But the worse part about all of this is how jaded it makes me. It puts me completely on my guard and I find myself, after a day of hassle and harassment, responding really shortly and rudely to people who are perfectly wonderful and kind and just trying to help me. And I think sometimes I miss out on really good interactions because of that. That's the most frustrating part, because for every asshole, there's at least ten really great people. With amazing kindness and I don't want to stop seeing that.

Luckily I have great house mates to vent to and luckily Brenden was there to play Speed with me, and I'm really good at Speed and I always feel better after beating someone at cards. And then he taught me how to play 13 and I won a rupee off of him, which felt even better and all was forgotten.

Until I lay in bed and thought about how frustrating it can be to be a female. And it took a while to calm down enough to sleep (women are so emotional, I hear)

One of the women (girls) at Kalighat is new this week. She's five months pregnant and has come here to have her baby. The sister was telling me that the girl says she's only 10 years old. The sister believes it because the girl has such a young sounding voice, but I don't believe it, her body, her hands, and her face look older. Her voice is young though. She could easily be 15. And the thing is, as they were saying, it is good she is here, because young and pregnant on the street she would get raped every night.

I like her. She's very much the teenager. Even though we don't speak the same language, I spent like twenty minutes looking at nails and shoes with her. Then when I turned to another woman (a cute old woman with a bald head and bottle-cap glasses, who I think was pretending to fly yesterday) the girl repeatedly hit me on the back. "Ow!" I'd say, "what do you want?" She'd point to the food plates getting ready for dinner. "It's not time for dinner, I can't do anything about that," I'd say, and turn back. And she'd proceed to hit me like ten more times. Because she wanted dinner NOW. It was really funny. Very much the teenager.

And another woman reached out her hand to me yesterday when I walked by, and I sat down next to her, and she curled herself into my side and cried into me. And I just sat there and rocked her, and she'd look up and kiss my face. It was so sad and so sweet and I remember being sick and wanting to do the exact same thing. I don't know why I'm saying all this. Just needed to.

But the best story yesterday (not that any story has been good so far) is from Anita. She was walking down Park Street in her never-ending pursuit of British Airways to extend her ticket. She walked past a man who was laying with no pants - completely exposed - on the sidewalk. She thought I have to do something, what should I do, and she said, "I looked up, and right there were a pair of trousers hanging on the rail, and I thought, this is perfect! they must have come from heaven! Look I need trousers, and here they are!" Gleefully, she took the heaven-sent trousers and gave them to the naked man. She said he was so happy and she bought him an egg and rice roll and walked home thinking how great everything worked out. And it wasn't until she was on the bus later that day that she realized the possibility that the pants hadn't come from heaven but she just maybe had stolen someone else's pants (hung out to dry after laundry) and given them to the man.

To which Felicity said, "Of course you stole them, and now that first man is beating the shit out of the other one." Which was just too funny - not that it's funny at all - but that Anita has such a good heart and tried so hard, and it was just such an innocent, albeit really obvious, mistake, and Anita was so distraught over her attempt to do good. And we've all done something similar. And we're all just stumbling along trying to do the best we can.

And men can be gross, and women can be dying, and people can be pantless but you just have to keep going and you just have to keep trying sometimes, huh?

Anyways, that's all I've got.