Rain, Dab and Post Office Skirmishes

Rain is becoming a part of daily living--a welcome relief, even if only in the moment of cooler breezes and freshly smelling growth, since it's often followed by the same thick heat that came before the rain, which in itself promises more rain and more relieved moments.

Walking back from the post office as the late morning leaps into a fierce downpour, my heart is still thumping from the somehow necessary low-level skirmishes with post-office bureaucrats to get various letters started on their journeys. I don't have any fotos of the office, but I can try to describe it: there are 8 windows with cryptic signs that display various abbreviations and acronyms. These windows are rather capriciously occupied and it's entirely within the realm of reality that you will walk up to a window just at the moment when the person decides to have a cha (Bangla for chai) break or just go sit in the back room and watch you watch them watch you...and onward and so forth.

What makes the post office particularly exciting is that every step of the posting process takes places at different windows. First you convince the Auntie at the "weighing" window to weigh your letter even though she really really really would rather you go somewhere else. The Auntie scribbles the cost of postage on your envelope and sends you on your way. Then you go to the "stamps" window which may or may not at that moment have the stamps you need which means you must negotiate with another Auntie to go into the back room and get said necessary stamps. And THEN, you approach the "final stretch" window where another Auntie wields the all-important seal that announces the entrance of your letter into the wide world, and you watch as the iron fist holding the stamp hovers for what feels like hours over your wee little epistle, and as it finally comes down with a satisfying thwack you breathe for what feels like the first time in days.

(At least I can brandish a semblance of Bengali now, which though far from perfect, still gives me the advantage of shocking and surprising and occasionally stunning into silence my bureaucratic adversaries.)

So back to the rain... though it's coming down with increasing intensity, I'm determined to have fresh green coconut water (dab) to reward my thumping heart with something nourishing. So I stand under an awning in the silent company of a few men who let me be. The dabwalla hacks the top off the coconut with his long curved knife, puts two straws in (just in case I suppose). I sip the sweetly salted liquid, watch the rain change from torrent to almost gone to torrent again. Old men walk patiently down the street, their dhotis or dress shirts soaked through. A few young men run by, thin handkerchiefs tied around their heads. One men wears a plastic shower cap. But my heart takes on the rhythm of the old men, returns to a patient measured pace.

Paz y Amor,
J&J

Nothing Like An Ant Invasion to Get You All Wigged Out

DISCLOSURE: If the posting about half-eaten chocolate made you feel sort of creepy-crawly, you may not want to read any further. However, you enjoyed in some sick way being freaked out, double click on the fotos and get a serious close up of the action.

Way back in March, Josh went to Maharastra to wander through centuries-old Buddhist caves and bond with other Fulbrighters. I stayed at home to wander through Kafka and bond with Hemingway--a combination that left me feeling totally existentially distressed and craving large amounts of whiskey. But that is neither here nor there. Although my chosen company was a bit intense, I was appreciating the solitude and quiet space....UNTIL...

ANTS INVADED OUR HOME! I am not even kidding. This was not a matter of a few ants scrambling for food scraps in the kitchen or meandering aimlessly through the living room. I woke up one morning, went to the kitchen to make myself a cup of delicate Darjeeling tea and literally THOUSANDS of ants were moving their entire nest from somewhere outside the kitchen window to the hole behind the kitchen faucet. The busy little workers were trudging along with eggs on their backs and provisions for their new home. I was paralyzed with disgust. And where was my husband when I desperately wanted someone else to deal with this madness? AWAY!!



I proceeded to wave my hands uselessly and emit a sort of low-frequency shriek. And then I left the kitchen and pretended it had never happened. A couple of hours later, I snuck back up the the kitchen door and peeked in. They were gone. Phew. I took some deep breathes and made that postponed cup of tea.

BUT THE MADNESS WASN'T OVER!! Later that afternoon, I pulled my head out of Kafka and headed back to the kitchen where....the ants were on the move again!!!! They were quickly and methodically relocating to a crack in the corner of the bathroom, streaming by the thousands along the kitchen wall. At this point, I totally lost it. Maybe it was the Kafka. Maybe it was the Hemingway. Maybe it was the inch-wide trail of insects rampaging through my home. I decided to take action.

I calmly (sort of) filled up bucket after bucket of water and poured it over the ants on the wall and the floor and swept them down the drain as those who'd so far escaped the water continued busily on their way. I poured and swept and poured and swept. BUT THEY KEPT COMING.



So I left the house. And contemplated never going back. But upon further consideration, decided that I would NOT be evicted by ants. Back at home, the ants stayed (mostly) in their hole. I kept the buckets and broom at the ready. And my husband came home, which helped. There's strength in numbers. We all seem to have struck up a rather symbiotic relationship now. Josh put the trash can outside and they can dig through that as much as they like. But if they come into the kitchen, there is a flood of Biblical proportions awaiting them...


Paz y Amor
J&J

A storms' a comin!

So, its mid-summer in Kolkata. And all this heat and humidity has to go somewhere, and it goes up and out. And then down. Standing on our rooftop, I took some pictures of a building storm. Only some are in order (blogspot is unnaturally complicated in that regard) , but all of these were taken within about one hour. Some huge clouds to the north-west, about 3/4 through the building stage.
This was the south-west at the very beginning.
And the south-west after about 15 minutes.
And the after another 10 minutes.
And after another 15 minutes!! Crazy!
The northwest at the beginning.














The whole time I was on the roof taking these pictures, there was the distant rumble of thunder, and a heaviness in the air hinting at the rain to come. Hopefully we'll get some of natures air conditioning to cool things off here on the sub-continent. And besides, when it rains all the plants around our apartment grow a little, and some bloom. Maybe a little rain isn't such a bad thing after all.

Josh