where I make fun of myself

My room is undoubtedly the hottest in the complex. It's a rooftop room - which is nice for the view -and also for listening to rain fall on the tin roof. But, with its situation, it gets almost no access to the cooler breezes of the day and it also seems to have an affinity for hosting all the hot air rising. Very hot.

But then, part of that (though not all of that) would be my fault.

I was in Felicity's room yesterday, where she let me sleep because I was feeling faint and we both agreed my room was too hot. And I was noticing how nicely her ceiling fan worked. And I sat there musing that it must be at least twice as fast as mine. And the same in Anita's room. "Oh well," I thought, accepting my fate, "at least I have a fan."

I woke up last night, unable to sleep. Restless. Perhaps from too much sleep the past few days. And I stared at my fan and watched it turn slowly, slowly round. By chance I looked over at my wall, and saw prominently displayed, right above my light switch, a large brown knob. I remember seeing it when I first moved into my room and thinking something along the lines of "hello little brown knob," and then giving it no other thought. But last night I gave it thought again..."hmm, I wonder..." I went over and turned it and watched my fan zap into high speed and my room immediately grow ten degrees cooler.

And I've been here a month. In a really hot room.

Sigh. Oh kate.

It reminds me of my first winter in that cat-smell apartment. My heater in my room was broken and I would call Poki late at night telling him how cold I was -too cold to sleep, shivering in my bed. He would plead with me to call my landlord to get it fixed. It's easy he would say, just a phone call. And for some unknown reason I would never do it, and instead just freeze and shiver in bed. (which is hard to imagine now. Cold, what is cold?) Until one night, in an act of greatness he walked through the rain and the cold at one in the morning to bring me a space heater. So nice. And the next fall the landlord happened to be over replacing the carpet and I told him about the heater and he popped a knob on in what took all of two seconds.

Sigh. Oh kate.

In other news in which I deserve to be mocked. I joined steffi last night to go look at all the Puja festivities. I ran upstairs to change (by run I mean I walked really slowly) and when I came back down I got really strange looks and stares from my housemates. "what?" I asked self consciously.

"It's just that we haven't seen you wear real clothes for like a week. Everyday you wear your red house dress. It's a bit of a shock."

This is true. And not at all unique to India.

Eight years ago, when I was in Morocco, I found and bought what I would later affectionately refer to as my red house dress. My college roommates would call it my Moomoo. And I have worn it constantly for the past eight years. All through college, it's the first thing I would put on when I got home. My sister is probably really sick of it as well. And - joy upon joy- I have a HUGE and abbundant supply of moomoos here! I've bought myself a new red one, and wear it from the second I get up and put it back on the second I get home. And my new housemates are really tired of listening to my daily plans to buy more. Maybe even branching out in color. Yesterday they were teasing that everyone looks to buy more cheap work clothes, but with my record all I need are house dresses (as I apparently don't work - just get sick and go on vacation.)

Lindsey was joking with me before I left for India that while most people come home with beautiful souvenirs, I would just come home with a bag full of house dresses. How well she knows me :)

But life is good in moomoos. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

And life is good in general. Puja is like Christmas. There are huge bamboo houses covered in fabric everywhere - and you go in and see scenes set up of Durga and Ganesh and the like - and it's very much like a nativity scene. And there are Christmas-ish lights all over the place decorating the streets. And everyone is walking around in their brand new puja clothes and giving presents.

My stomach is still a bit sensitive, but well, all in all. I might even venture to work tonight! All very exciting.

And I am so happy with my place in Calcutta. It's so nice to have a community of people around. I spend several hours each day just sitting with various people in the courtyard. Sometimes we sit and watch the rain. Sometimes we chat, I don't know about what, often we cook together, sometimes we read, or write and listen to music - but mostly we just sit. It's nice. And I wish we had that more at home - where it's so possible to live an isolated life.

But then I've also really appreciated the time to myself here as well. I had forgotten how much of an introvert I am. I had forgotten a lot about myself - things had gotten so turned around; my perspective askew. But I'm settling into the habits of myself and enjoying the space to do so.

Wow- what a terrible India blog! I talk all about myself and not about India at all! I guess that's the consequence for giving me such freedom - my inevitably tendency towards self-reflection (at the cost of noticing really helpful brown knobs on the wall!)

Oh well :)