Carol’s India Blog

Been neglecting the blog recently due to laptop being out of action for a few weeks and being proper poorly. Without my laptop I had no entertainment in the evenings so Anna (who left India last week) gave her short wave radio and if I lie on my bed holding the radio aloft I can sort of listen to the world service, accompanied by whistles and humming noises. Desperate or what! It’s much cooler now and the days of being woken up in the early hours by dramatic thunder and lightening storms have passed to give way to continuous rain. It’s been a bit like a wet bank holiday Monday and its impossible to get the washing dry as it seems to be almost as damp inside as out, and the roads are rapidly turning into rivers of mud! Oh the joys of the monsoon! Apparently this will continue until 15th September precisely! One of the trials of living in India is that I never feel really clean, even having several showers a day doesn’t seem to make much difference, and I can’t imagine my feet ever being clean again – maybe some hot water will help The main event of June was the big festival when the mighty Lord Jagannath goes walk about and gets over his fever. It was a holiday for so I went to join in the fun. I was just coming out of the gate at the Tribal centre to go down and watch the parade when one of the children who lives near the office came running over, took hold of my hand and dragged me off to meet her mother. She was on her way to the parade with her mum, auntie, sister and cousin so I was invited to go with them, which made the day much more fun The whole town seemed to have turn out and my new friends were keen that I had the best possible view of Lord Jagannath. There were  whallers selling all sorts of things including offerings for the gods (mainly coconuts and flowers –(what do they do with all those coconuts I wonder) cheap plastic toys and balloons for the kids, plus all sort of food – just like the Big Egg Weekend at Summerlee! I had great afternoon and really felt part of the community. Later on, back at the tribal centre, I met more new people including the deputy chief of police for Orissa who was in Koraput to organise the security arrangements for a government visit the next day, plus some of the festival VIPs and the husband of one of my colleagues – all of whom spoke excellent English. Sitting there in the balmy evening under the mango trees drinking endless cups of chai, discussing Indian culture all the weeks of discomfort in the guest house melted away and I was even tempted to say I loved it here – must have over dosed on sugar, at least 6 spoonfuls to every cup of chai! I also found out about the malaria tank Claire mentioned. It is a stretch of water up near my office (the ‘smart’end of town) The British were late in coming to Koraput and when they did eventually arrive in 1936 every stretch of water was a source of malarial mosquitoes so they cleaned up this stretch and built their houses around it, it became known as the’ anti-malaria tank’ Over the years the name was corrupted to be the ‘malaria tank’ but it is supposed to still be the cleanest stretch of water in Koraput. However, the really important news from here is that I now have a house! It is very big – detached with4 rooms plus kitchen and bathroom and I am sharing it with hoards of ants. The first day here I turned on the pump in the morning to pump water from the well to the storage tank on the roof and within 5 minutes there was water pouring under the door, a minute later my bedroom was ankle deep in water. I managed to save my belongings and eventually bailed out all the water – never dull moment here in wet Koraput!