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January 2009

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Suitably Chastised

Tuesday, 13 January, 2009

I shall consider myself told.

Each night we are made dinner unless we decide to go out to eat. Each night that Gaury brings us food, she leaves to go home. When dinner’s finished a pile of dishes are left in the sink.

For the past couple of weeks I’ve been shaking the jet lag — after dinner I usually get sleepy and fight sleep until about 10pm. Anyway, a couple of nights ago I felt well enough to do the dishes because as most of you know, I hate going to bed knowing there are dirty dishes in the sink…most of all, you know I hate waking up to a sink full of dishes. It’s a reminder that I should’ve done the dishes before retiring for the night.

In short, I did the dishes…and the next morning when Gaury arrived to make breakfast, she was horrified.

Gaury:  "Ma’am, I do dishes," she said, pointing to herself furiously. "You do not."
Me:  "But…"
Gaury:  "Ma’am no."
Me:  "But, but…"
Gaury: "Ma’am no."

Colin watched with amusement…and as we sat down for breakfast said, "Consider yourself told off."

Who would’ve ever thought I’d be scolded for doing housework?

-Carinae-

Uncategorized

Day 13

Friday, 9 January, 2009

 

Ok, crudeness aside, who knew the rumblings of the gas crisis in India that started a couple of days ago would actually come to fruition?

I know I sure as heck didn’t anticipate it. Talks have stalled and now most the cities throughout India are 80-100% completely out of gas – even restaurants who have gas piped directly to them are effected…so the crowd that loves to go out on weekends to eat can’t – they can’t drive to their destination and they certainly won’t have food when they get there. Our driver warned us of the gas crisis a couple of days ago and we filled up the tank on the car…but last night was absolute mayhem for Colin in trying to get home. A fifteen minute drive became 2 hours because it seems the police/traffic wardens were on strike, so it was absolute chaos. Traffic was gridlocked and oh, Colin saw an elephant standing next to the car while waiting in traffic. No picture was taken, though…but he texted me, all excited and happy about what he had seen.

Of course, I thought the gas crisis wouldn’t directly affect me – I’m here in the apartment, happy as a clam and completely warm. WRONG! It does hit me – directly. The power went out a couple of hours ago and usually about a minute to two the generator kicks in, ensuring me that I can get on about my day of watching TV and making sure my laptop stays charged. Heaven forbid I listen to my iPod through the earphones! I don’t turn on the main PC because the monitor is a massive drain on the UPS charger. So anyway, electricity goes out and I waited for the generator to kick on…and I waited…and waited. Ten minutes later, I realized, “Craptastic…the generators probably run on diesel fuel. Faaaaaaaaaaabulous.” Not. I was right, they do run on diesel fuel. Eventually the electricity came back on. I think they’re trying to conserve the gas on the generators. I’m fine with that.

But wow…I joked with my friends about ‘damn this third world connection’ phrase, but little does anyone know how close to the truth it is.

Quirks and oddities aside, I do like it here a lot.

-Carinae-

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