sickly...

I would first off like the reader to know that this city is still just as gross and dirty as ever. However, I think my body has adjusted relatively well and gotten used to all of the pollution and dirt. I am really one of the dirtiest people ever while living here. This reminds me, there are a bunch of little ponds by my house and the Indian people that live near will bathe in the ponds and also wash their dishes in the ponds. My roommate, Nokchi, was telling me that after peeing into that pond the day before, he thought this was quite gross. I think I'm going to go ahead and agree. It reminds me of Katrina when everyone said they were bathing in lakes and stuff. Indians have some mad skills when it comes to this topic of hygiene. The people who live in slums will somehow come out of them looking like perfectly normal people. I don't think I could pull this off. I would not be good at taking showers in a public little area as many of them do. They have wells all around the city, obviously a ton of them, this city is big. And a lot of times you will be walking around the city and see a group of guys bathing right there on the sidewalk. This is just how they live. There are a couple of girls here who work for an organization called servants and they have a company called connexions which employs people in poverty to give them a source of income. They live in a slum and take baths with all the women in a public place like the sidewalk. Pretty interesting, and different from American living. I must say, a little less comfortable. I, though, have a shower...and although our bathroom is infested with mosquitoes and spiders, it is indeed not public. So, I am livin large in India. But, this morning as I was using the bathroom, a spider definitely hopped on to my foot, which caused me to give a little yell and kick it off into the squatty potty. Fun stuff....he was huge too. I forgot to mention their size. I can't think of a good size to compare it with, maybe the circumference of a tennis ball. Most of them are a little bit smaller than this. But they look quite scary. Living in India means you will probably come in contact with a lot more instects. This reminds me, at beth's apartment they always have problems with cockroaches, which are exactly like the ones in hattiesburg. So this doesn't phase me, because I lived in the same house for over 15 years and each year we experience a massive attack from cockroaches. But, my dad would spray and then we would have hundreds of dead ones lying around. So, I'm rather used to insects. I'll just say here too, I think its much easier to be a boy and live here. Girls just have to deal with so much more. There is the risk of them being grabbed by some random Indian pervert, and then they have to deal with a bunch of gross things. Typically, I think guys are better at dealing with gross things. So yea, more power to you girls who live in Calcutta. For reals.

Ok the title of this post is sickly because I got sick for the first time yesterday. I talked to a long term volunteer at Kalighat the other day and he told me that he doesn't like a particular resturaunt that I do like because it made him sick multiple times- Blue Sky Cafe. On wednesday, I went to blue sky and had a nice little pizza. And of course, this pizza equaled food poisoning. I ended up passing out and waking up in my bed. The naga guys took very good care of me. After passing out I quit throwing up and began to feel better. Being sick in a foreign country makes you homesick for sure, not to mention I'm almost 2 months in. But I'm feeling a lot better now, Praise God.