Friday, June 22, 2007

It has to be official!

And it is, the monsoon has started. It got a weak start early in the week but is in full force now. It storms every afternoon, and it is actually storming right now. We have been without power on and off for the last few days. Luckily, we have a generator here so we have power even if the neighborhood doesn't. And even better for me, the computers and the internet are run on a uninterrupted power supply which means they never lose power. It's great. The girls and I went out to dinner tonight and a huge storm came up. It started to lightening and then all of a sudden, it started to downpour. When it storms, the power also goes out. Julie and I decided that we should start carrying our flashlights with us when we go out at night. It may sound weird but they are going to come in very handy. Then we were going to wait for the rain to stop so we could leave the restaurant but decided that we would be there until October so we ventured out into the rain. It wasn't so bad and we even found a rickshaw very quickly to take us back home.

So I've had a lot of run ins with animals lately. The other day I was walking out to the linen closet to get some sheets and I had my tea cup in my hand. As I turned around to go back to the building, this huge bird almost attacked me right in the head. I totally ducked and almost dropped my tea. Mary T, who is career staff, was right behind me and starting laughing at me. It was very funny, just not as it was happening. Then the same night, I was upstairs walking back down to my room to go to bed and almost got hit in the head by a bat. I was carrying my computer this time and almost dropped it on the marble floor (which would not have been a good situation at all)! I had to walk the rest of the way to my room up against the wall because 2 bats kept swooping up and down the hall. Ever since I moved up to my room, I keep hearing a donkey from somewhere out my window. I keep hearing it at all hours of the day and night but I haven't been able to see where it is. I thought I was going crazy until I asked Julie, whose room is right next to mine, if she had heard it. She said no, but quickly came back to me the next day and said that she did hear it. So just yesterday we were going out and saw the donkey! It is tied to a light pole right outside the Sangam wall. I'm just glad that I know where the noise is coming from now. And if that wasn't enough, we have mice upstairs so the men put out a trap to try and catch it. And if all of that wasn't enough, the mosquitoes have discovered that I'm here and I'm very tasty. It has been so bad that I have had to start sleeping in my mosquito net. Good thing I remember to take my malaria tablets.

All this afternoon, the power keeps going on and off. I keep trying to charge my computer battery and both my ipods so at night when the power gets shut off, I still have something to do. I'm beginning to think that I should have bought that second computer battery. Luckily we had enough power throughout the day to charge it up completely.

I have 3 days off. Today was my first day off and I slept in, ate lunch, the power went out and it was pouring rain so I decided to read a book, which then lead to a nap. Tonight Darshana, who is the World Centre Deputy Manager but used to be a Programme Assistant, invited us to her apartment to eat dinner. It was a great evening and Julie and I decided that we will be having lots of sleep overs there on our nights off. It is a very nice place and within walking distance of Sangam. You can even see Sangam from her apartment.

Well, the power is going to go off in 20 minutes and I need to go and find my flashlight. I'm still working on posting pictures. As soon as I get it working, I'll be posting lots!

christa

ps: I wrote this post over the course of 2 days!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow, the animal situation does not sound fun at all, especially the mice and the bats. But it sounds like you are adapting just fine to everything and enjoying this great experience.
-Hannah