Does anyone know what the date is?

I seem to have mis-placed my calendar and the date thingie on my watch is broken. Seriously. I could use an update. I know tomorrow is Saturday . . . . . That's about it.

Do you remember the movie, "Castaways" with Tom Hanks? If you don't, here's a short synopsis: After a terrible airplane wreck, Tom's stranded alone on a desert island with just himself for company. After a lot of hard work, he manages to crack open a coconut and get a drink of water. Then he goes on to do his own dental work, make his own loin cloth, and engage in some serious fishing. Along the way, he becomes great friends with a soccer ball named 'Wilson'.

I don't think about that movie in the same way anymore. If I could find a soccer ball, I would paint a face on it and talk to it. I understand Tom's motivations now. I need my family and friends. I will appreciate all of you more, hug you more, tell you that I love you more often . . . . . . I miss your familiar and understanding faces, your cheerfulness, your love, and the warmth of your smiles. You are all my special 'Wilsons' and my life would be so empty without each of you. I have had an opportunity to spend time without you now. Though I can return home to all of you knowing that I worked hard, loved much, and left a little corner of India better off, I know now that I can't live without you. Any of you. I am alone without you.

So . . . . . . . . I never said it often enough, seldom let it get so sentimental, and heaven knows, was rarely deserving of such friends and family, here is my love to each of you. Thank you. Thank you so much for everything.

So please. Could somebody please tell me what the date is?

I've been too kind.

I was feeling kind of bad about my last post. Now that I've watched food being brought in that I haven't seen for months, been kicked out of my room to accommodate the 'visitors', and been cornered three times today by Board members, I've been too kind.

Honestly, at the moment, I am so tired, I could fall asleep standing up. I taught the regular schedule today, tutored Vennila, and then I had to move out of where I have been staying into another house. Every kindness done for me today has been at the hands of the housemaids and staff. They have been kept hopping trying to meet the demands of the board, yet they found the time to help me move. I didn't ask. They just did it. They looked sorrowful and that's how I felt, too. How I will miss their quiet grace and graciousness. I still get to see them, but no new English and Tamil words for a while.

This morning, at the request of the Program Director, I wrote an email outlining  some improvements and changes that should and ought to be made. All hell has broken loose. I've been cornered three times today for a little 'chat'. I've been asked to attend a meeting tonight. It's not going to be a picnic. The Principal has been less than honest. I have kept a log of her responses, rebuttals, and resistance to implementing a school curriculum and a student behavior code. She's all smoke and mirrors. I'm going to attend the 9th-10th study hall as I always do instead of the meeting. Right now, I'm exhausted and hungry. I've lost so much weight, my watch falls off of my wrist. I'm disgusted with the dog and pony show going on around me. I'm at breakpoint. If I attend that meeting tonight, I won't be nice and in order to leave these kids with something, I have to be tactful and nice.

On the bright side, there is a small, but glimmering hope that I will be able to help Vennila get her passport. We are going to have to ride an awful bus into Chennai, but Vennila has single-handedly killed a Krait snake. In my book, that makes her near god-like. She's worried about me on the bus because I'm white and it's such a novelty among the general Indian population to see someone white, particularly in this area, and particularly a woman. With me along, Vennila's chances of obtaining a passport will skyrocket because I'm white, brassy, and bossy. At heart, all Indian men are subservient. It's a carryover from the British Raj. I intend to use that knowledge to my advantage. I knew my pushy self would come in handy some day. Say a little prayer for Vennila. I'll pay the fees and the bribes. Just hand over her damn passport.

I'm so tired. I'm sorry.

I've been very bad.

Okay, so I've been bad. No surprise there. Right?

We are in the middle of an awful head lice epidemic. Imagine dozens of little girls frantically scratching their heads, picking lice out of one another's hair, watching head lice jump on tables and desks, and you get a picture of how bad it is. Thankfully, I don't have head lice yet, but it's only a matter of time. The children get as close to me as they can. Today, I drew the line when they wanted to be near me and started picking head lice out of one another's hair while they were sitting on my lap. ENOUGH ALREADY.

Here's the part where I start to go bad. I noticed that there are about 50 head lice kits in the Harry Potter closet. I asked the Principal if I could give the housemothers the head lice kits for the children. She said, "No, those kits are for the volunteers." I asked her what the children were using to help control the problem. Her answer? "Nothing." WHAT!!!!!! Long story short. The head lice kits have gone missing. I know where they are.  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Update on the bug bite problem. I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner, but I prayed about it. I asked specifically to be shown some kind of remedy for the worst bites. I needed help. I went to bed. In the morning, when I awoke, I looked toward the ceiling and there were two HUGE spider nests built of clay. They looked a lot like the wasp nests we see in Oregon. My bed is pushed against the wall where the nests were. Apparently, at night, they were crawling down and having quite a feast. Problem solved. I moved my bed away from the wall and destroyed the nests. Thank you, God. Credit given where credit is due.

Being in love with India is like being in a love affair gone terribly wrong. India is a demanding lover and absolutely irresponsible. You know India will get you in the end, and yet you still hang in there. You love the person, not the creep. Right? That's why I love India. I'm a schmuck.

"The earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed. - Mahatma Ghandi

Okay. India, (especially your corrupt government), here are a few statistics that tell the REAL story about you:

You're in denial. And here's why. You have a dark side. It's the poverty of your people. You account for over 36 percent of the entire world's poor. Nearly 40 percent of the world's malnourished children live with you. Over 77 percent of your population has been classified as 'poor and vulnerable'. Your chronic caste and religious tensions pale in significance to, and are often the result of, poverty.

India, you suffer from some short-sighted optimism, both at home and throughout the world. You are drunk on visions of grandeur. You will never become the world's "next superpower" until you do something about your millions of desperately poor. Instead of waiting for the wealth to 'trickle down', how about you try generating wealth from the bottom up?

You can start by cleaning out the rampant corruption and graft of your government. Then you can find a little national pride and stop relying on foreign countries and NGOs to care for and feed your poor. Get a little gumption, India. Step up to the plate and assume responsibility for cleaning up the stinking cesspool of your non-existent programs for the poor.

Okay. Enough editorializing. I just had to say it. India could be a beautiful country if it weren't a massive garbage dump in all but a few enclaves of wealth and power.

Done. Mom, I'm going to get arrested for sure for writing this post. Please send peanut butter.

Please Steal Me

Back to my cranky, cynical self. What a relief.

This place sucks. I would give a top ten list of reasons why it does, but I'm up to about a hundred right now and it's hard to choose the ten worst.

Lately, I have been rating my bug bites on a sliding scale. Numero Uno is the absolute worst, swollen, red, ugly, mean, no good, low-down bug bite that ever bit a human being, and Numero Dies (whatever) is just a good insect effort to irritate and annoy me. The Numero Dies' usually end up dead because I have learned to outwit them. I turn off all the lights in my room except for my computer screen. Then I KILL the little buggers when they are attracted to the screen. I can type, kill bugs, and scratch, all at the same time.

I have about 100 bites that rate a Numero Uno. I think I may be allergic to those little Satans. Scratching does no good because the bite area swells to a lump the size of a golf ball within about a minute and  scratching only irritates it even more. I feel like I'm in a horror movie about to give birth to a hairball with teeth. A hundred little hairballs with teeth running around. Nobody in India would give them a second glance.

Please don't tell me to put on bug spray. Have you ever tried to sleep with bug spray on? It must be comparable to being alive while the mortician is trying to embalm you. This is off the subject, but have you ever had that dream where people think you're dead and you're not really, and they try to embalm you and bury you and you keep trying to get someone's attention, but nobody seems to be listening? No? Well, okay. I've shared too much.

Okay, so I'm cranky. I hate, no DETEST, the food here at the 'dining hall' for reasons I have already mentioned in great detail, (please see The Three Stooges) Someone stole a whole package of my flour tortillas that I was counting on for survival. I know who she is and I know where she lives. Right next door. (Cue horror movie music here). I'm going to get her. Why she took my tortillas and left my horrible homemade spaghetti sauce, I just don't understand. I left a sign on the spaghetti sauce that says, "Please steal me". Nobody will.

Don't get me started on the shower accommodations here. Just don't.

And what in the heck is the MATTER with the power supply???? We have had, count 'em, NINE power outages in the last three hours. I'll bet whoever is in charge of the power grid around here just sits around and flips the power on and off again and gets the giggles thinking about how many people must be in the shower or on the potty in TOTAL blackness. Indians. What a sense of humor.

Later. I'm going to get my tortillas back. During the next power outage.

Falling in Love

If I just hadn't gone up on the roof tonight . . . . . .

 In the still of the cool and quiet evening, it is late and I cannot sleep. So I walk up the stairs to the roof and I stand gazing at the stars. There are millions of stars that seem so close, it feels as if I am standing in stardust. Orion, with his sword raised and belt blazing, ready to do battle. The North Star, directing sailing ships loaded with spices. Cassiopea. Jupiter. Venus still visible through the beautiful Palm Trees. This is the night when I, alone, seem to own the stars.

Alone. At one with a reverence and a comfort I cannot name; a longed for peacefulness of spirit and soul. I am humbled and awed before the majesty, splendour, and beauty of Heaven. I am forgiven. Peace at last. Imagine that.

In a heartbeat, I have fallen in love with India.  

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!

Valentine's Day is celebrated in India! Imagine that. It could explain why India has 1.2 billion people, but I'm not sure everyone's birthday is in October. I'll get back to you on that.

I'm still trying to figure out India's weird moral standards. If you pay any attention to the huge movie industry over here, nobody gets past the holding hands part of a relationship. Onscreen kissing is strictly forbidden. However . . . . . . . . for the men it's okay to grope women wherever and whenever getting caught won't be likely. For example, my first introduction to India was being groped on the airplane as I dis-embarked. As I said, figuring out how things work around here is like stepping into the La Brea Tar Pits. Hey, it's Valentine's Day! What better day to discuss being groped by an Indian?

Here's another thing about India that takes some getting used to. Because there are so many people, a person's individual space is non-existent. I LIKE space. Giving up my personal space has been an adjustment. For example, there is no such thing as a closed door for privacy. At first, I was a bit uncomfortable when the housemaids just opened the door and walked right into my room for a little tea and crumpets. It didn't matter if I was in various stages of undress. Nobody seemed to notice. I'm not sure whether I should be insulted or not. You decide. I have had the most interesting conversations in my underwear with ALL of the housemaids. At first, I grabbed a sheet, a towel, a curtain, blanket, anything. How fast we adapt. Now, I'm resigned to teaching English to the housemaids in whatever I may be lucky enough to have on. I don't notice it anymore. I don't think the housemaids ever did. Either that, or they're home drawing pictures for their large, extended families and everyone's having a gala time.

The housemaids are campaigning to dress me in a Sari. N-E-V-E-R. American women look dumb in Saris'. They look like mummies dressed up in Grandma's favorite head scarf. Just let me have my Ali-Babas' and let me be.

This is my official Happy Valentine's Day! blog entry. May you be groped by the one you love. Peace out.