Rainy Rainy ("Well I Usually Read Twilight")

India's seasons are as follows: Monsoon, Spring, Winter, Summer. We have been waiting on the rains since our arrival in mid August, and they have finally, finally arrived. This steady (glorious!) rainfall will continue for about twenty-five-ish days. That means twenty-five more nights of being sung to sleep by thunderstorm lullabies, twenty-five more days of polka-dot umbrellas and splashing through puddles, twenty-five more evenings perfect for snuggling up with a novel and hot cups of coffee (hasta la vista, chai), and twenty-five more afternoons heavy with the delicious smells-like-rain air. Sigh, life sure is tough sometimes.

In other news, if you haven't checked my facebook, some pictures are up of my adventure thus far, including some shots from last week when Swapna and her twin sister took my flatmates and I shopping for saris. Now, when I say "shopping" for saris, what I really mean is: "sitting on an ultra-comfy floor cushion and drinking steamy complementary coffee, while the shop keeper unfurls glamorous fabric after glamorous fabric directly in front of you, and your job is merely to say 'oooh' and 'show me another.'" Needless to say, I felt very much like royalty. After giddily admiring about dozens of these expensive woven rainbows, I saw one that was simply to die for. Soft and silky (pure silk, mind you), in a blue that matched my eyes, with a shimmering golden trim. The shopkeeper said, "Come. You will wear this. I will show you how." And he wrapped me inside the sheer beauty of India. It is here that I am standing, awe-struck and staring in the mirror, thinking I am looking very much like a princess indeed--until Swapna suddenly shouts "Wait!", leaps up, and pops a red sticker (out of nowhere, mind you) onto my forehead. "There," she tells me breathlessly. "Beautiful." Even princesses, it turns out, need stick-on bhindis.

{Side Note: I need to make an amendment to my last post. Swapna's sister is the fastest walker ever. Really.}

The weekend was nice. Restful. And zero homework. I need to make myself realize that this isn't summer anymore, and that the school year has actually started. I especially need to practice Hindi. I can't read, I can't write--ha I can't even pronounce half the letters... But it is incredible to learn an entirely different alphabet and to start decoding a few of the signs around the city. After Suddha ("sood-huh", my extraordinary roommate) heartily laughed at my general pronunciation fail, she helped explain a lot of the things I'd been missing. Turns out that she knows six or seven languages and is now teaching herself French. I can hardly speak English. Go figure. Anway, she was such a good teacher. Literacy here I come!

In other news, I saw a boy riding a camel in my neighborhood on Saturday. I know, right? A camel. The boy knew enough English to ask, "Want to ride?" but not enough to answer the all-important-question "How much?" Of course. I guess I'll just wait till next time..

Also, I would like to document the conclusion of what Erin and I have dubbed the Great Roach Genocide of 2010. I may or may not have told you, but our flat may or may not have been experiencing difficulties with a certain deeply-loathed insect. It came down to living with them or killing all of them. So, obviously, we blared the theme from "2001 Space Odyssey" as we emptied half the can of MAXO ("The Roach Killer")... And we haven't seen a sign of the enemy since. Victory, amigos, is indescribably sweet.

Lastly, stuff with the women at the hostel is still going splendidly. Every night, all fifteen of us have family-style dinner together. I am getting to build relationships with my peers half way around the world! It is filling a place of my heart I hadn't known existed. One story from tonight... Prachi (prah-CHEE), a hilarious eighteen-year-old who refuses to wear anything other than sassy Limeted Too-esque t-shirts, was leaving the dinner table saying how she was going to read the newspaper. "I just have to read it before I go to bed," she explained. I remarked how impressed I was with her worldliness and maturity. To which she responded, "Yea... Well, I usually read Twilight, but my friend stole my book, so I just figured I'd read the newspaper instead." Because the news is obviously the best alternative to vampire rom lit. I love India.

With love,

from India,

Jeannie

P.S. Foreshadowing: My Californian ecofriend named Allegra, Erin, and I are plotting to visit Darjeeling in northern India together over our travel week in late October. Said excursion would mean: tea plantations (home to the tea by the same name), a world-famous railway, possible tiger sightings, Buddhist monasteries, and, that's right, the Himalayas. Hold onto your butts.