sunday

Woke up to a refreshingly dry sort of day. New volunteers were coming in, and we met Lorraine, who I like very much. She's from England and has taken the commendably brave move of coming here to volunteer with children after the death of her husband. She also promotes techno concerts and parties (Dutch gabba to be specific) in England, which I am now rather eager to attend. She's a hell of a lot of fun and is eager to go out and enjoy life as much as possible - what a cool lady. In any case, she was tired from the inevitable stresses of the Third World Bus In The Sky (international flights) so we let her nap.


We decided to make yet another excursion to Commercial Street since Adam needed to buy some shirts. Thankfully, the weather was a bit cooler then the day before, meaning I felt slightly less need to dissolve into a puddle of miserable sweat then before. (Almost.)

We began to starve and ducked into the Bay of Bengal restaurant, featuring a wide variety of bizarre sounding seafood dishes we had never seen before. I was tempted to stick it out but the others have less tolerance for dodgy sounding sea life then I do (imagine that!) and we adjourned to the Chung Wah Chinese restaurant.

Chinese food is an obsession in India, almost as common as Chinese food in the USA. And just like in the USA, Chinese food has been merrily bastardized here, mainly in the form of making everything even spicier and adding gloppy sauce wherever it may be required. Indians also love chop suey, which I can accurately report does not actually exist in China. The premier ChIndian dish is chili chicken, which is of course delicious: fried chicken bits in a bright red sinus crushing sauce that happily blends Indian and Chinese tastes and proclivities.

In any case, I ordered a pretty good Beijing chili fish dish, which came with a nice pungent gingery sauce, not too sweet. Chris had a tasty version of salt and pepper vegetables (another mostly Indian chinese dish), although the other dishes were fairly forgettable- mushy vegetables and noodles in the disturbingly titled White Sauce.

We left the restaurant and shopped a while longer, finally giving in as the usual suffocating afternoon heat set in.

One thing I would like to make clear: I love the weather here because it is *just like* the weather in Sacramento, down to the dry hot heat mixed with occasional, worrying intervals of torrential rain. I have also adapted to it (much like a desert dwelling monitor lizard or snake), making sure to retreat to the comfort and darkness of my rock (well, room) during the heat of the day. I am attempting to make the English see the wisdom of this with limited success.

Aneesa, Lorraine and I decided to go out for dinner, to the little Kerela place I'm partial to called the Clay Pot. It's just down the street, and we moved quickly, hoping the ominous sky wouldn't open and drench us with extremely dodgy rain. We got to the restaurant and were ushered to our seats by the impressively mustachioed owner. We decided on fish biryani and a prawn curry (dirt cheap) and settled in, watching enviously as the women next door picked apart a whole tandoori pomfret fish.

The food proved to be, in a word, spicy. Possibly hellaciously spicy. Now, this was wonderful news for me. I love spicy food. It's a genetic perogrative - I am the granddaughter of a man who takes pleasure in consuming Indian Ghost chilis whole as an interesting after dinner digestive. I also love driving my mother crazy as I ladle more and more bright red chili paste onto whatever carefully prepared curry or soup she's laid out for dinner - "Why do you DO that? You can't even taste it anymore! Stop it!" I smile and keep on adding it until my mouth achieves that just-east-of-numb feeling I crave. In other words I am Asbestos Mouth.

Unfortunately Aneesa and Lorraine have not torched their taste buds into happy oblivion like myself, and ended up unable to eat most of the food (though they did say it tasted good until the horrible, horrible pain began.) I thought it was great, the sweet prawns floating in a downright malicious curry sauce flavored with two separate varieties of chilis - red AND green! The biryani was great as well, red hot spice coated chunks of firm white fish immersed in sauce and slightly perfumed rice...delish.

It began raining as soon as we finished eating, and we hurried down the street with plastic bags over our heads like the horrible disfigured, until we managed to find a grocery store willing to sell us a brolly (as They say).

Later that evening, we decided to go out, deciding on Couch on Residency Road. Couch turned out to be true to its name - a very nicely designed mahogany and wood accented lounge with, well, lots of couches - and unfortunately was profoundly boring, thumpy dance music eliminating any chance of actual conversation. We left quickly, heading for the hookah lounge down the street the others had been to before. I wanted to dance goddamit and felt rather frustrated, but the feeling lifted slightly when I spotted a sausage-fat gecko stalking mosquitos by the bug zapper. (I couldn't catch him. Damn.)