miscellaneous musings

I want to paint a few pictures for you:

Madhuri (our resident director)- What a firecracker! She is such a demonstrative woman, which seems odd since we have been told to avoid physical contact. She is quite maternal! I have never seen such an interesting face though. Her lips are frozen in a perfect triangle and don’t move when she talks! She just clicks her teeth, but surprisingly she has some of the best English I’ve heard so far. If you watch her speak, it is a complete mind game. You hear the noise and see the teeth chomps, but they are unsynchronized, so it’s a wonder how it forms recognizable sounds!!She would be the best ventriloquist! I have started turning my shoulder /back to her when she speaks to the group because I cant listen when im intently studying her gnashing and quick tongue movements. Her face is always completely serene. She never raises an eyebrow or twitches any face muscle that I have seen. All her facial expression comes from her eyeballs, which rapidly swivel around and bulge.

Indians love their socks- In the airport I noted the sock sandal phenomenon is quite the fashion statement. I don’t see this in the dusty city as much, but it still appears popular. I narrowed it down to 2 reasons: they take off their shoes for mosque or temple and we learned it is never ok to walk around barefoot (giardia, and assorted parasites), or Indians think its cold this time of year! It is maximum of upper 70s during the day, and mid 60s at night, so pleasant. But the Indians wear ski mask type face warmers, and complain about the cold!!!

Malaria medication- all the members of the Study in India Program (SIP) are on some kind of malaria meds. By far the most popular is mephloquine. Mephloquine is a once a week white tablet, which when taken without food makes me scrape my tongue along the roof of my mouth involuntarily from the bitterness. The side effects are nightmarish dreams, depression, aggression and anxiety. I have been having some wacky dreams, but have not experienced any other side effects…yet. But sometimes I day dream about all of the international students going on an aggressive malaria medicated rampage.

All the washing machines have a sari wash cycle!
Mothballs are placed in all of the sinks to prevent bugs from climbing up the drains. At first I tried to use any bathroom as quickly as possible to avoid its bitter odor, but I am growing quite fond of the scent! It’s kind of like the acetone experience in chemistry (ask me about this scent association if you are unaware). Soon the smell of mothballs will make me have to urinate!

The pollution in the air is giving me gnarly black boogers. For the first several days I thought I had a nose bleed because all of my boogers were opaque. Now I understand that is the result of the air quality in my nasal cavity. Mmm! And I have so many too!

The other day I was walking around in a bazaar and felt a burp well up inside of me. Once released, it pleasantly tasted of French fires!!! I have not eaten French fires since we got here. What a pleasant surprise! I never thought I would feel so enthused about a French fry burp that I would have to blog about it.