2/20

Father woke me up this morning with a phone call telling me the Internet was working. You see the past three days the Internet has been on and off. The early morning and late night seem to be the most reliable times for working Internet. I had a good chat with my parents this morning. We did quite a bit of laughing, and that is one of my favorite ways to start the day. I did find out though (from Puthumai) that I have eaten pigeon. I was telling my parents about eating the duck last night and Puthumai started laughing and said that I have eaten pigeon too. At the time I was under the impression that I was eating chicken, and no one decided to correct me. So it isn’t as though they lied to me directly, but it was definitely a lie by omission.
Class went well, I am beginning to transition away from playing games and simple confidence building activities and to testing the students listening comprehension and ability to edit for correct grammar, spelling, etc. Mostly it has been good, although there is one student who occasionally makes me want to tear my hair out. This morning we were reviewing the homework and she read a partial definition for a word, when I told her that her definition was incomplete she then read the full definition listed in her notebook. I was confused as to why she didn’t read the full definition the first time. When I asked her she started reading the definition again. I asked again only to receive blank stares. One of the other students tried to explain it to her in English, and then another student explained it to her in Bengali. Even after all of that, she still didn’t answer and just went on with reading the sentence! If Indian time wasn’t increasing my patience, then teaching certainly is.
I spent the morning finalizing the budget reports from the previous day. Once everything was finalized I gave it to Puthumai, and I am very proud of the job I did. I was very thorough and hopefully everything is correct.
For breakfast and lunch I got a fried egg, one of my favorite non-Indian Indian dishes. After lunch Hannah and I ran some errands. We went and got passport size pictures taken for our applications for a permit into Sikkim. Then we went to the clothing shop. Hannah wanted to buy some material for a dress, but they didn’t really have anything that she liked. She also wanted to buy some lungi’s which are large pieces of fabric stitched into a circle. You tie then around their waste and they act as pants and a skirt. They are only men’s clothes though. She wanted to buy some to bring home for male friends. She bought 7 of them, because she decided that she could use the lungi fabric to make her dress. I can’t wait to see what the dress looks like ☺. Although she originally wanted to make it out of fabric that I am pretty sure was meant for curtains, which made me laugh so hard my stomach hurt ☺
Then we went to the tailor to have the lungi’s sewn. We stumbled upon a men’s tailor, and understood about as much of his Bengali and he understood of our English. But after some intense gesturing we got the point across and he immediately started sewing the lungis which were done within an hour.
The kids at Chonditola were good today, some of the older girls and I were having fun playing a grown up version of patty cake. Hannah and Regina taught them how to play and when they do it with the kids they sing a song in German. The kids expect me to sing the same song in German, but unfortunately I don’t speak German. So I just make up German sounding words and say them to the correct tune. It was funny today because some of the kids were trying to copy my fake German singing. They singing my made up words ☺ I have also taught them how to play thumb wars and the game where you try to slap the other persons hand. Those are all good games to play with the older ones, and the little ones are usually happy enough being held or spun around. The older kids taught me a game the other day that involves two teams and a line in the middle. A team member from team 1 crosses the line into team 2 territory and says ‘cub-a-dee, cub-a-dee, cub-a-dee” over and over and over again. You say the words because you are only supposed to stay on the other side as long as you can hold you breath and if you are saying the words then you can’t breath. You try to touch a person from team 2 and then run back on your side. But if the members on team 2 hold you on their side until you run out of breath then you loose. Those are the rules as far as I understand them, and it is a pretty fun game, especially when you are 4 times the size of the largest kid and you can pretty much always win ☺
I took the auto home with Hannah to DDC. We got our laptops out and exchanged pictures, which we have been meaning to do for a while. We sat on the roof and watched the sunset while we took the pictures. I am really enjoying her company, especially the honesty that is common between the two of us. Then Puthumai came and we had mass. I like mass at DDC, because its just the 5 of us (Puthumai, the two DDC Sisters, Hannah and me). We all sit on the floor, its all in English, and the hymns are really pretty. I did the reading today and was really enjoying the service, until I got up to put my mat away and I got a stinging pain on my right ankle. I swatted at it a little and continued to put my mat away. Then the pain got worse, I started making a fuss and something yellow and large fell from my pants onto the floor. By that time my ankle was really hurting and I was yelling and pointing at what had just fallen out of my pants. It turned out it was a wasp (a giant 3 inch mutant Indian wasp). I got stung on the back of my ankle. The Sisters were trying to get the stinger out and I was standing in the chapel grasping my scarf and crying because it hurt and because I was still in shock. It hurt pretty bad, but after a minute I calmed down and we went downstairs and Puthumai put some ice one it. My ankle is pretty swollen, but I have been assured that I will go down by tomorrow and that as long as I don’t get a fever everything will be fine. I am kind of embarrassed for the scene that I made, but if I am being honest, I have to admit that I thought it was a scorpion (don’t ask why, I don’t know).
For dinner we had fish and I didn’t get any bones stuck in my throat. We took Father motorbike home and Hannah came too. She is spending the night at SWI tonight, we are going to watch a movie and we bought some late night snacks.
Sending love.