Friday 14 May 2010

A round up of the week's news

A cockroach in the kitchen and a rat in the drain are manifestly NOT what a girl needs when she comes home tired late from work. It is a mark of how immune I have got to my living conditions that I just muttered a brief ‘oh dear’ rather than running screaming down the street. Although I might have had the option to move to another place further away, I decided not to: balancing rats and cockroaches against a daily hour commute in Kolkata traffic, I decided to take the rats. Not sure if this was entirely sensible, but so far I haven’t lost my sanity. What has been more annoying recently have been the number of mosquitoes – what with their bites and a nice prickly heat rash it looks like I have a severe case of measles (but apart from these minor inconveniences, Kolkata is a wonderful place to live!)

Last weekend all the volunteers in Kolkata met up at someone’s home, which enabled me to have a snoop around someone else’s living conditions. I think I may have pulled the short straw – although her place was basic, she has tiles in the bathroom, glass in the windows and natural light, all of which I am without. But enough moaning, the volunteer cooked the most amazing dinner, so much so that I am going to describe it in loving detail to you (cooking is not one of my strong points, and at the moment I am surviving off fruit and toasted cheese sandwiches, which is now beginning to pall). So, she had cooked a total of three delicious dishes plus rice: dhal with banana, tomato paneer and chicken rogan josh.
And all this with just two gas rings. I am now slightly ashamed that I haven’t ventured beyond warming up a tin of baked beans….

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