I painted for over eight hours today. Very irritated painting, by the way, because most of the people have quit over drama (boys and nun fights - same old same old) and new people have come. And new people don't paint inside the lines. Which is very irritating, as I am quite attached to one particular whale.

So there was my vent. And all the thought and space I'm going to give to it. Instead:

I was looking through my camera today. I have only one week left, and I've realized that I've hardly taken any pictures of daily life in Calcutta, which is what I wish I could share the most. The problem is, I can't really take those pictures because every time I want to, I never do; I get too embarassed; it feels too obnoxiously touristy; too intrusive into daily life. So, you'll have to do without, I'm thinking. And instead make do with the mental notes I took on my walk home today.

walking through the Muslim section: most of the women are wearing sari's but a few of them are in burkas and all I can see are their eyes. And they avoid my eyes. I wonder about them. I wonder if they like it. If they choose it. Or if they are forced. I would like to talk to them, perhaps more than anyone else in India. But I can't. They seem off limits.

Most of the men are in white undershirts and lungis (cloth worn around the waist). Shopkeepers, butchers. Huge slabs of meat; mostly beef. Large chunks of wood and giant butcher knives, swinging and cutting them, raw and bloody, then hung up by rope.

Boys hold hands. You almost never, never, see a male and female touching (unless you're in the richer, more westernized neighborhoods. Or at certain parks - where they kiss behind umbrellas). But the boys hold hands. All the time. To my eyes it looks like boyfriends, but in India it is officially against the law (as in, you can be put in prison) to be gay. So the handholds are just friends friends. Maybe...

People everywhere. always cars, rickshaws, people, bikes, motorbikes buzzing around you. It's hard to remember what an empty street back home looks like. I'm used to the crowds now and I wonder if the space when I return home will be unsettling. But here, hundreds, thousands of people pushing past you around you everyday. All day. And night. Because 15 million people have to go somewhere. So they are here. Everywhere.

And lines. Everyone waits. In lines, in their shops, on the streets with their hands extended out to you, "yes sister, money, sister," waiting for customers, chai, to sell fruit or newspaper, hundreds of people for hundreds of hours, if not pushing past you, are waiting.

Forty chicken tied upside down to a bicycle, being taken to market. Or piled upon each other in a small wicker cage.

Dogs, dogs everywhere. Mangy and with fleas. Half their fur bitten off in fights. But happy - walking like they own the streets

Cows tied to poles.

Goats. A hurd of goats walking down the street with men in lungi's with bamboo sticks to keep them in line.

Men bathing. All the time; gathered in groups around the water pumps with soap and pails poured over their heads.

The traffic. It'll kill you. Really. Either through emissions (slowly, daily, every breath in-an-out. I've been back one day and the inside of my nose is black again already) or quickly. In that it will hit you. I haven't been hit. Katerina has been hit (but not too hard) five times now. Because pedestrian's don't have the right of way. It's everyone for themselves and every space is fair game. Only usually the biggest things win.

Fruit for sale. Men swatting the flies off with fabric. Beautiful fruit; bananas, apples, pomelo's, sweet limes, oranges, pomegranates, pineapples, asian pears, and the sweets; sweet shops, with sugar and spice. And bread. Men frying roti and potato paneer; vegetable paneer. Chai shops everywhere served in tiny clay cups that are smashed on the grown when the tea is gone. So good the chai. Really really good.

Anything you want here on the street; shopping bags and magazines selling sexy bollywood stars (who bare everything on covers but still can't kiss on screen - too taboo. the kiss.) shoe shines, wallets, fabrics, bracelets, cold water, warm water, yogurt and curd, milk trucks.

Small boys chase small boys. Men laughing and snap each other with fabric. People sleeping on the streets, always someone, curled up on a small piece of blanket with the extra cloth pulled over their face. Or not. Face exposed to the sun and everyone steps around. Small children in school uniforms pulled by a rickshaw driver or walking hand-in-hand.

Taxi drivers lined up by the water pump to throw buckets of water on their bright yellow cars.

Men waiting outside the mosque dressed all in white.

Hindu women with bright red bindi dots on their foreheads and more red at the hair part to show they are married. Nuns and priests; catholic, jain, hindu, muslim.

People with limps. Old women and men being walked by their adult children. Bent backs and crooked hands. Beautiful sari's, deep bright colors. Every color.

Restaurants, hotels, round the corner and I'm home.

And Katerina says, take a picture of the cat for felicity's going away party tomorrow! And I shower and then take a picture of the cat. Write emails and Carmel is home and it is so good to see you, and let's meet for dinner (and I can't believe I told the soccer players from Nigeria that I think I'm faster than them, and now all of a sudden I have a race on Thursday. the same day that my knees and ankles will probably start to hurt so I won't be able to race :) and a game on Saturday - only this time I watch, and one week left. One week left.