New Digs
As I’ve written before, I’ve been here in Mayali long enough that I’m starting to feel like this is home. I know what can be bought at each of the different stores (quite a feat when every little hole-in-the-wall sells the most random (huge) selection of items), how much rice costs (and should cost), which jeeps go to which villages, when the line at the spring is usually shortest and can navigate around the room in the dark (necessary due to the recent weather pattern of huge thunderstorms every-other evening, bringing dark clouds and power outages). It’s a very different life than what I’m used to back home, and while I wouldn’t want to live here permanently, it’s kinda nice for awhile.
Today marks a change in the routine here, we (the boys & the kitchen) have moved out of our old room and into 2 smaller rooms next to the girls in the adjacent building. Ever since we took the large room I called home, we’ve never been completely satisfied and have been constantly looking for alternatives. With summer now upon us and the accompanying water shortages requiring constantly tripping down to the source below, we’ve been even more eager to find a better place to live. The fact that Hiralal has now joined our team (bringing us to 6 total), even the big room isn’t big enough for us anymore. When we arrived in Mayali this time, we noticed that the two little rooms adjacent to the girls’ were free, and it didn’t take long for us to decide to move. The rooms are all the same size (small – made for 2) and identical to the ones we passed on initially in January (saying they were too small then), but it’s OK now as we have 3 rooms for the 6 of us instead of 2 rooms for 5. The girls have kept their room as it was, Hiralal and I have moved into one of the new ones, and Bendari has the other (which now doubles as our kitchen). When Sunil returns from holiday next week we’ll have to find a place for him (likely bringing my room up to 3 occupants – something I’d rather not do due to lack of space, but can handle), but all in all I think it’s going to work out. The rooms are a little cleaner (the wall paint is more resistant here and takes a good rubbing to come off) and now that the water source is outside the rooms, we should be able to keep the floors dry and clean. The additional benefit for me is that I am no longer living in the kitchen, so don’t have to put up with the horrendous roaring of the kerosene stove every morning and evening, and I now have a place to retreat to if I want a little time to myself. Our room is likely to remain the office though (and Bendari is using the excuses that since he has to put up with the kitchen and now that there is actually space to sit on the (almost) clean floor, we’re not going to be allowed to hang out & eat on his bed anymore) so it’s not going to be the completely quiet, empty retreat that I would ideally like. Otherwise the rooms are nicer than the old one, there are screens on the windows (meaning I can open them bringing in cool breezes all day & night, and bringing in real daylight – a rare thing in our old room), they’re smaller (cozy), clean, and though there’s no tap in the room, the tap down the hall works all the time so water is no longer an issue. Though I’d become quite used to it and was almost starting to enjoy it, I’m not too sad that I’ll no longer have to go and fetch buckets of water from the source anymore.
Long-term plans are still in limbo (a little more so now), but it looks like I’ll only be spending one month in the new home. Basically, I’m starting to get sick of work (all the confusion, lack of vision, pointless work, bossiness from superiors, trekking 4km every day in the blazing heat of summer at midday, feeling like I’m not contributing anything valuable to the project, and the fact that I’ve been here long enough that I don’t feel like I’m learning anything more) and so am starting to consider calling it quits at the end of May rather than the end of June. We’ll see how the next few days go.
This is the online home of one Shane Warner, my place to attempt to tell some of my stories, as well as just spout off whatever comes to mind.
