Indian drama

A couple of days ago, I found out that one of the cousins of my host family read my personal journal. I was really upset, but now I'm over it. I've been feeling quite a bit better the past few days. I've settled into a routine here. Here is a typical day for me in India:

I wake up around 7:30, have breakfast and chat with my host sister and/or brother for a little while, then I head to CSI at around 9:15 am. Technically, they open at 9 am, but any time I've gotten there before 9:15 I've been the first one there and had to wait around for someone with keys. This morning was a nice treat: they were setting up decorations for a wedding. The office is in a community center, so sometimes there are other events going on.

At work, I tend to be more productive in the mornings because the weather is cooler and because the director isn't there yet. The computer I use is right next to her desk. My chair is literally about 1 foot away from her chair. And she yells really loudly in Hindi at everyone. I can never tell if she's angry or if that's just how she speaks to everyone. Whenever she's speaking to me, she is sweet, polite and somewhat quiet. I've been thinking of it as her "English personality" because she seems to change so much depending on which language she's using.

At 1 pm I go home for lunch for about an hour. I usually dread going back because of the said loud yelling and the stiflingly hot office. But I manage to get myself to go, and I try to be as productive as possible. Sometimes this is not productive at all. Today I finished the grant proposal project I was working on and, per the director's request, have started writing short summaries of each major project to be used on the website. Its not exciting, but I at least feel helpful. And tomorrow is my last day, so I really can't complain. And today my coworkers told me I look like a "very sharp Indian lady" because I was wearing a scarf on my head and shoulders. That pretty much made my day.

When I get home, I often have a headache from the Hindi yelling so I relax and read for a bit. I'm short on interesting books, so I'm halfway through reading Karen Armstrong's biography of the Prophet Muhammad for the third time. Yes, same book, third time in a row. Luckily its a complext subject, eh? After my headache goes away, I go play or watch a Hindi movie with the younger children in the family.

There's a power outage every night from 9 to 10 pm, so we usually sit on the roof or just in the dark living room chatting. At 10 pm I have a glass of whiskey mixed with water (not a huge fan, but I want to be polite) with my host father, and then dinner. Then we all talk for a while, then I go shower and lie in bed trying to avoid itching the imaginary mosquitos on me until I fall asleep.

Oops! I have to go -- just found out that the teenagers want to take me to a movie (at a real theater...oooh!). After some initial frustration, I'm actually really enjoying my time in India right now. xoxoxo