P-C, what Kristin said. It's a mark of honor for you to notice. I thought I waited till after you got back, but I could be wrong. I can barely remember my own name these days.

And I'm still waiting to hear more of the International Adventures of Polter-Cow. Sounds like a good movie title, doesn't it?

I am eating an Odwalla "nourishing food bar." Once I got over my disappointment that it wasn't a cookie- (No cookies on campus!!! Urg!) I think it's not too awful.

No cookies on campus!!!

I've heard of dry campuses, but that's going too far!

iiieeee! I need this. Actually, I need to become fabulously wealthy so I can commission this woman to make many, many things for me. And bake goodies for me.

well, the students are more or less not here, and to be fair, I did not actually venture outside for cookies. I may have had better luck, but that would mean I'd spend like 20 minutes on the trail of a cookie, and that's just sad, considering teh amount of work I have to do.

Also? I re-evaluate my Odwalla bar judgement. I'm pretty sure it sucks ASS.

And bake goodies for me.

I am now in love with the Boo Berry Cake.

dh left an odwalla food bar on the table - for days. I will probabbly eat more of it at work. It was ok, nothing to write home about.

Instead of the odwalla, or other bars, I am a Breakfast Cookie junkie. The Boo Berry cake is probably better.

-t CONGRATULATIONS!

Technically, then, beth has a new tag.

And I'm still waiting to hear more of the International Adventures of Polter-Cow.

Your wish is my command.

---------------------------------

12/18/04

12/23/04

Welcome to Toli. The village where my dad grew up, and therefore, my hometown in India. Although I do look like I don't belong here, with my fancy transparent green clipboard and fancy spiral notebook and fancy blue-and-yellow Prozac pen.

We have an entrance, made of stone and over twenty feet tall, through with the road passes. People riding motorcycles give me looks as they pass. On the entranceway is writing, and I could read it out loud, but I don't know what it means. My knowledge of Gujarati is fairly limited. I can understand more than I can say.

By the side of the road are three mangy stray puppies, sleeping. Underneath a tree, a couple oxen eat some tall grass. To my right, the chatter of little schoolchildren on break from class.

And now I'm waylaid by a man (on a motorcycle, of course) who notices me writing and asks what I'm writing. I tell him I'm writing about how India is. He points out the obviously new house to our left and informs me that it's new. He asks to see what I'm writing, and I say, "No, it's mine," in Gujarati. He tells me to go inside the new house; a woman is inviting me in. I, frankly, can't remember how I know these people, but they all know me, my being my dad's son and all.

Inside, the floor is marble tile. It's a nice house, even by American standards. It's new, after all. I'm offered water (filtered). One of the women who passed me earlier asks me what I'm writing; I say a diary. She wants to see it, and I finally relent because she doesn't know English. These scribblings are nothing to her. It seems to be such a foreign, almost incomprehensible concept, the desire to write about things.

Outside again. Right next to the opulent abode with cable television is a dirty old barn constructed of stone and brick, the roof covered with corrugated sheets of metal. Two black buffalo with curved horns sit in the shade.

In this next spot, they're building something. There are piles of dirt, stone, and brick. A woman carries several bricks upon her head to the men with pickaxes.

Now onto the village proper. On either side of the unpaved road are buildings of a domiciliary (hey, don't question my tenuous grasp of the English language) nature. One or two stories, they are made of stone and concrete. Three or four residences to a building, with pillars or columns of stone or wood evenly spaced. They are painted green, white, pink, yellow, blue. The paint is wearing away, however. The doors are all two halves opening outward or inward. On the porches are wooden benches, chairs, swings. Motorcyles, bicycles, small cars, tractors. The houses are numbered sequentially on both sides, rather than segregating odds and evens.

Our house is R-51. The living area consists of a corridor maybe fifteen yards long. A bench, two beds. A small kitchen with a small table and a small refrigerator and a small stove. Upstairs, there's another room with two beds. The floor up there is cement rather than tiled, though. And you are right underneath the crosshatching logs that form the foundation of the roof.

Behind the kitchen, things have changed in the last eight years. Today, we have a gas-powered water heater that dispenses hot water in the "shower." To take a shower, you mix cold water and hot water in a bucket. Then you take a cup and pour the water over yourself. Before, we had to heat the water with fire. The bathroom has also changed for the better. Today, we have an actual toilet that flushes, along with toilet paper. Before, you had to squat above a porcelain-lined hole in the ground and then wipe your ass with your hand. The toilet does have treads for your feet in case you're feeling a bit nostalgic. Not everyone has these modern technologies. We're pretty well off. (continued...)

( continues...)

And behind that? Cows, grass, sugarcane. An hour or so ago, a truck drove in empty and left packed with sugarcane.

Next to our building is something else new: a temple. It's very nice, really, with a small fountain, the requisite bell, and idols for the major deities.

Down the road is more village. On a swing is Sukhoofoi, the resident crazy lady. Her characteristic behavior is rubbing her hands together gleefully and laughing with satisfaction.

This is a village where everyone knows everyone else. Where you can walk into anyone's house, the door is always open. Where you can, in fact, run through people's houses during a game of hide-and-seek so you can hide in their barn. Where you can run a tab at the local convenience store. It wakes before the sun rises. Maids cook and clean and do laundry. Stray dogs roam the road. Mosquitoes and flies buzz around the air, spreading malaria. Somewhere between squalor and luxury is where I am right now.

At night, I can see the stars.