2/17

I began my morning outing at the Post Office, because believe it or not my package arrived! We (Hannah and I) took at 20 minute rickshaw ride to the Post Office. I went further down Raiganj road to the West than ever before. Upon arrival we observed a front desk and a crowd of people standing parallel to it. We assumed their was some sort of system, of which we were ignorant of, so we sat down on some chairs in the back and waited for someone to tell us it was our turn. I now see that this was a very Western way to approach the situation. After 4 or 5 minutes of sitting we decided to approach the desk. Their was more of a crowd then a line so I stood in the crowd and tried to make eye contact with the man behind the counter. Just as he looked up at me a women squeezed in front of me on the right and he began helping her. I was now more determined then before. I stood my ground forcefully and upped by attempts at making eye contact. Luckily, the man looked at me next and I told him I needed to pick up a parcel. Blank stare. A package. Blank stare. I decided to mime a package. Blank stare. I then remember the slip in my pocket which the office staff gave me this morning indicated my package had arrived. I handed the man the slip. He looked at it and pointed to his far right. We headed to the right, and then he motioned no with his head, and pointed out the door. We went out the front door, and turned right, then into a very skeptical looking back door. Inside the door there were some men behind a door made of bars on our left, and what appeared to be a storage space for bicycles on our right. We made some noise and attracted the attention of the men behind the bars. Package, package. They pointed us towards the bicycles. So after careening our way through the bikes, past a vacated staircase, and around the corner in a hallway of doors we found ourselves behind the counter we had just stood in front of. We looked around. Then Hannah spotted it. Sitting in the corner in an office was my package! It was completely intact with no holes, tears or indications of rummaging or damage. I pointed and say that is for me! The women whose office my package was located in seemed a little taken aback. I looked at the package, pointed, and said that’s me, my name is Chelsea Krema. She seemed decently convinced, had me sign a few places and then let me (and my package) leave. After our first exit, she called me back for one more signature, but after that we were home free. I was so excited for the package I wanted to open it the whole rickshaw ride home, but instead I waited patiently until we reached SWI before I attacked it with a key and took everything out one by one exclaiming at each of the items and at how thoughtful my parents are. I would now like to send my apologizes to the Indian Postal Service, I appreciated your self-restraint in not opening my package, and I also appreciate that you delievered (of sorts) my package to me safely (and decently promptly, a 1 month turnaround time).
Then the shopping for the pizza began. We had bought yeast and wheat flour last week, but still needed ingredients for the sauce, and the cheese. The vegetable market is one of my favorites, as it is a larger area and all of the vegetables are sprawled on the ground in a rather artistic fashion. It feels like what a market should be, communal, on the ground, with tarps above for shade, it conveys the essence of marketing. We quickly spotted the reddest tomatoes and b-lined for them. We ended up asking the wrong man for the tomatoes, and he tried to communicate that we were asking about another mans stall, but of course we didn’t understand. Then the man (who belonged to the tomatoes, or the man to whom the tomatoes belonged) arrived and was more than happy to sell us his tomatoes. We also bought some red onions and garlic. Back at SWI we got plenty of looks and questions when we headed into the kitchen to make our sauce. More than one person came in, and inquired as to what we were making, why we were making it and how we knew how to make it. It was entertaining answering everyone’s questions, and I rather enjoyed being in the kitchen (even though cooking in an Indian kitchen is very different from cooking in an American kitchen). We made the sauce and it was actually quite tasty, although some basil would have made it tremendous! We packed it up, with the flour and yeast and headed out to find cheese. The Fathers were all out today (which is why we were playing hookey, no one to notice☺), so we asked varying staff members where they thought we could by cheese. Sr. T gave us some directions we were not quite clear about, so we asked Gabriel, the accountant, who had been helpful with the package and post office adventure of the morning. Gabriel asked the servant, (I temporarily forgot his name, I know it starts with a J, shoot) who does all of the shopping where we could find cheese. He was very helpful and even said he would go out and get it for us. But we were insistent that this was our pizza and we would be fine going on our own. We were directed to what I have dubbed, the Wal-Mart of Raiganj. I don’t mean Wal-Mart and all of its horrible connotations; I mean that you can find anything there. It doesn’t look too much larger than the other shops, but I am convinced that behind the front counter there are miles of storage space containing everything you could ever imagine. They had cheese in suspicious square packages wrapped in foil about the size of four domino squares stacked in a pile of two by two. We bought 10 packages and I took particular notice of the larger package which read: Processed Cheese. Yum.
We took all of the ingredients and some of the toys and socks that came in the package to Chonditola. We played with the kids and the bouncy balls that arrived today. They had a blast with them, although there was some conflict being that there were 6 balls and more than 6 kids. But that has to be a normal conflict at a place like Chonditola, there are never enough for one for each kid, so sharing becomes something learned early on. I had a lot of fun playing around with the kids, and actually broke quite a sweat (although with the increasing temperatures that is not too difficult). After Chonditola we went to St. Xavier with Regina because they are the only place in town with a oven. We had no proper measuring utensils and so we guesstimated on everything. The dough was made first and then we put the sauce and the cheese on before putting into the oven. The oven had to be scooted across the floor and plugged in, but it got quite hot (although there was no way to control the temperature of the oven). We played with the kids from the hostel while the pizza cooked, and had a lot of fun played volleyball with a group of around 20 middle schoolers. We made one pizza for SWI, one for DDC and two for St. Xaviers. Although we ran out of cheese early, the dough with sauce was an acceptable alternate.
In the evening Puthumai arrived back from Kumarganj, and took me to Jonathon and Ruchicka’s house for dinner. I thought it would just be the five of us, but when we arrived we quickly learned that the evening was a going away celebration as Jonathon has a new job in Quatar and the family is leaving for Calcutta tomorrow. I was shocked, and I have to admit a little selfishly sad. I know that they are very excited for the move to a metropolitan city, but it is sad that I won’t be able to go and hang out at their house anymore. They have been very good friends to me while I have been in Raiganj. Since the package came today I was able to give Trisha her birthday present, a pink stuffed bunny in a tutu. (Although I unfortunately learned the other day that bunnies are commonly eaten in India and Germany. To make matters worse, in Germany they eat them on Easter) She really enjoyed the present and we had a very nice time chatting and eating a good dinner. Puthumai and I walked home and had a nice chat along the way.
Hopefully tomorrow I will do some work, because I am starting to feel as though I am experiencing life more than I am working. I am in India to learn, but I am most importantly in Indian to learn about development practices.
Sending love.