For the first time in a long time I am out of my comfort zone. I was teaching for a year in Korea and I never felt far away from home, in fact I was disappointed by how comfortable it all was. "Oh globalization!", I exclaimed. "..Oh westernization!", I naively protested.
I expected Thailand to bring me the comforting discomfort of feeling far from home, but that too wasn't quite the exotic wild land I had anticipated.
Having spent the latter part of Korea in a relationship, and the Thai adventure with my mom this is my first chance to feel alone and far away from home.
I arrived in India just 12 hours ago. My search for discomfort has come to a successful end.
To start, it is 90 degrees. With humidity, feels like 96 - Thank you weather.com.
My home for the next month is a glorified hut in pretty much the middle of nowhere. The nearest town is comprised of about 4 corner stores. The next biggest town is 3 times that. A church, an ATM machine, a few mini-marts, an electronics stores. I'll have pictures at some point.
I'm pretty sure that the ATM is only air conditioned building between here and the airport.
My riverside hut is adorned with mud dobber nests..inside, and furnished with a bed which doubles as an ant farm, and a fan that functions as a mosquito-proof wind tunnel but also chops up the air in such a way that it is akin to driving 65mph with one window open.
The daily menu includes morning tea, brunch, and dinner. So far, 50% of each meal has been bread and couscous. This poses a problem for the gluten sensitive.
I panicked a bit thinking for sure I'd starve to death. Only 2 meals a day, half of which is completely inedible!!
Thankfully they were able to give me some rice and curry from the kitchen.
A fellow student and I took a trip to the village. I had hoped to find some dried fruit and nuts to supplement the 2 meal allowance. I found some interesting looking chips and Limca! We went to every store in town, which, as you'd imagine, didn't take very long. We then explored the "big" town, which also didn't take very long. I ordered some weird salty soda that I couldn't bear to finish, bought some delicious ayervedic soaps, some dried fruit and nut loaf thing, had a fantastic, mango ice bar with cream in the middle. I should have got two, they were so tiny.
Excitement was building with this new scenery, new world.
We arrived back just before lunch. I put my things down on my bed and tried to wipe the sweat off my body. I left the room for no longer than 30 minutes, when I came back there was a trail of sugar ants marching in delight and confusion all over my grocery bags.
I quickly threw the them outside and watched in disappointment, this frenzy happening on my bed. It had been a long time since I'd seen sugar ants. I tried to follow their trail..."Where are they coming from?.... Oh shit, they're about to colonize my computer!"
In retrospect this scene is quite amusing, but at the time watching them play hide and seek underneath my keys was very frustrating. I began typing wildly trying to seek revenge, composing a symphony on screen. "Those bastards! ... Why is my computer so dirty? ...If only I had a can of compressed air.. That would show them."
Hoping they'd find my computer inhospitable, I continued my investigation.. I wanted to find their source so I could wash away the pheromone trail. My bed sits atop 4 narrow legs. I surveyed each one, finding nothing. This left me with 2 theories: Either they were traveling through a space portal of which I was completely aware OR, they were living in my bed frame.
After reading the Wiki page on the space-time continuum I decided that this theory was perhaps, too complex for me to attempt to falsify. So I took to the second, more horrifying theory. And to my dismay, I found evidence to support my hypothesis; my bed is home to a colony of ants.
I pictured waking up to them trailing into my mouth.. ugh!
"At least my bed isn't infested with scorpions." I tried to look at the upside.
Anyway, these will be rugged times and I am grateful to have this opportunity. Naturally, we seek comfort. And as we get older we get pretty good at it, narrowing our comfort zone. Comfort becomes the norm and things outside the norm become increasingly intolerable, allowing even the most benign things to cause anxiety.
I'll post again about the other reasons I am excited.
