survived

I survived the run. I had to sit down for a while afterward, but it was mostly just precautionary. I don't know how far we ran last night, but it was long enough and hot enough to work up quite a sweat. I could have filled a bucket.

We also got an interesting view of the city from afoot. India is a crazy place for many reasons, but mostly because you can walk out of the lobby of a 5 star hotel and almost straight into a slum.

Also, I didn't have to go through the humiliation of receiving my hash name. That's for third timers, so I guess I have a few weeks to look forward to that.

But we won't be running for a while, because on Saturday we're heading for the hills of Sri Lanka, where we'll stay for a week. Then we're heading to the beaches of Sri Lanka, where we'll stay for another week.

I ♥ two week spring breaks!

look at this!

Yellow watermelon!

It's watermelon season here and everywhere you look there are melons stacked to the sky, but who's ever seen anything like this?! The yellow watermelons are smaller than the pink, and taste different too, I don't know how they're different, just different. They taste...yellower.

I'm going to eat a bunch of watermelon in an attempt to get hydrated today, because tonight we're going back to the hash. I have a whole list of things I'm going to try not to do, beginning with faint and puke, followed by, get splattered by a rickshaw. The hash starts downtown, so I have a feeling it's going to be kind of hectic and full of traffic.

I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.

food poisoning?

Maybe. And if it is, I know the culprit: yogurt. Or old almonds, one of the two.
This morning I called home and Dad asked, "Do you want us to come get you?" Answer: yes.
But first I'd have to find the strength to walk down the stairs.
The sounds I made last night while throwing up were terrifying. I felt like I'd turned into some sort of ferocious monster HUUUAAAAEEEE, pause for breath, do it all over again, ten times.
I can hear every sound the neighbors make when I'm standing in the bathroom. So you know they heard it, probably thought I was transforming into the Incredible Hulk, or some Indian equivalent.
Every time I get sick in Chennai, the thought strikes me: I could die here.
This morning I couldn't even get the door open to retrieve the Gatorade bottles the driver left for me on the porch. Between getting down the stairs, finding my keys and opening the door, I had to lay down to rest three times.
If I fainted on this marble floor, I would crack my head open for sure, brains everywhere.

not much

There's not much new here. Well, there is one thing, but Brad and I are afraid that if I write about it, it will be spoiled. But now you're probably all wondery and giddy with excitment, so I should say, it's not that great. It's just that Brad and I have found a secret spot, where everything smells nice. We love it, but we're too selfish to share. So that's all I'm going to say about that!

I'm off to Mumbai again tomorrow. This time I'm going with the girl's basketball team. Those of you who've known me forever are probably having a good chuckle about that. I am the world's WORST basketball player, I don't know anything about it. I'm just going to chaperone and cheer. And shop.

See you Monday!

FRIENDS!

Our Colombian friends Adam and Joel, from Kansas and Missouri, now living in South Korea, visited us over a long weekend. I can't tell you how nice it was to see familiar, friendly faces.
We had a great time, but I think Brad and I forgot how much stamina is needed to hang with the Colombian crew. It was really hard to return to work after 4 days of partying with these two! We're only just now recovered.
We did manage to do some cultural things, the picture you see above is from Mamallapuram, an ancient temple an hour or so south of Chennai. There Adam and Joel perfected the surfing jumpshot.

Dune

Over Valentine's Day weekend, Brad and I went to Dune, a beach resort just north of Pondicherry. It was perfect. I want to live there.

here and there

Wednesdays probably aren't a good day for me to blog. I start the day sitting in a rickshaw, wondering how a city, a country could let itself get to this point: overflowing dumpsters blocking a whole lane of traffic, kids squatting next to the dumpster doing their morning routine, a man using a tree branch as a crutch....Sometimes I can enjoy the novelty of it all. Today it just made me feel depressed.

It used to be that home was a haven from all of this. But India is encroaching on us. Every day I fall asleep and awake to the sounds of cat sex. Apparently our back yard is a cat brothel of sorts. Frisky males gather to stand on our wall and call for a mate. Have you heard this sound? It's a cross between a meow and a moan, repeated over and over until the call is answered. That's when the real fun begins. I once listened to the sound of feline intercourse all afternoon before finding out what is was. A phone call set things straight:
Me: Do you hear that sound? The neighborhood kids are torturing a cat. It's been going on all day.
Dad: It's probably the cat having sex.
Me: What? No. The cat is out there yowling, like it's really in pain.
Dad: Yeah. That's how cats sound when they're having sex.
Me: Oh.
27 years old, married, and still learning the birds and the bees from my parents.

Brad and I have been feeling a lot better about India since coming back after Christmas, but there are still days when I sit for a while, mentally calculating the time it would take to pack up and get to the airport. On really bad days I don't even pack, just make a clean break for it. I think about how quickly and easily I could settle back in to life at home, where any day I might find myself in an aisle in the middle of a clean, sterile-smelling grocery store, with everything I could ever want right at my fingertips.
I always put this fantasy to rest by reminding myself that home isn't perfect either, that if I went out the back door of that grocery store, I'd bump right into an overflowing dumpster, interrupting a pair of yowling cats.

But it won't help much, thinking about home and its imperfections, when I take to the streets in a rickshaw again this afternoon. I live in a place where nothing is clean, everywhere is crowded, and sounds and smells are an actual, physical assault.

If I dig down, deep, past this terrible mood, I can find two bright spots:
1. tomorrow the driver is back, everything will be the same, but I will be safely insulated in steel and glass
2. kittens!