Well, clearly I’m not quite celebrating Shavuot as they would at, say, Chabad, but I’m enjoying my free time in my own way: with (surprise surprise) a bagel and coffee at Bagel Shop! Hey, at least my bagel has cream cheese… and my coffee has a little milk. So I’m following the tradition of consuming dairy on Shavuot. And I might go make blintzes at a friend’s apartment tomorrow…
Life has a nice mellow feel to it today. It helps that I have just done whatever feels right today, which we all so rarely do. I slept in until about 11, relaxed in bed for a bit, went to the gym for a good 1.5 hours (complete with 15 minutes of running, which I’m trying to do a little more of…), showered, and came to Bagel Shop. What a beautiful way to spend a day.
I spent the past week readying myself (and the Szarvas youth) for next week’s day camp. I reviewed their peulot (plans for activities), made supply and task lists, and made lots of decorations, along with Sarah and Natasha.
Rooting through the costume box
I made sailor hats out of newspaper, so Sarah willingly tried one on...
So much preparation! I really hope that we get a good turn-out. Right now, we’re only scheduled to have about 25 kids at this camp, but I’m crossing my fingers that the numbers continue to grow. It’ll be more work for everyone involved, but so much energy and thought has already been put into this… I just want the maximum possible impact.
At any rate, it seems like we’re in a very good place for camp. I’m looking forward to seeing the kids experience Jewish history!
I’ve spent my evenings relaxing with good food and the past four seasons of How I Met Your Mother, as well as the second season of Veronica Mars. I sometimes take for granted the great food I have here – and how cheap it is! – but I realized I won’t have it anymore soon, so I’ve started taking some pictures, and I’ve also started enjoying the low, low cost. The meal pictured below, for example, only cost me and Sarah about 100 Rs., or $2, total. So I spent only $1 on dinner.
Indian food: cabbage chana dal, dalimbi usal, pea paneer, chappati, and onion bhaji
I finished reading T.C. Boyle’s “The Women,” and I’m starting in on Thomas Hardy’s “Far From the Madding Crowd,” though I don’t know if I’ll be able to stick with it. Since I finished the Boyle novel, I have been switching from book to book every day, not liking any of them. I tried “Three Cups of Tea,” “Son of the Circus” (John Irving), and “Made in America” (Bill Bryson), but none of them really struck me right now. Maybe it’s one of those not-in-the-mood-to-read phases, but I rarely have those, so maybe I just haven’t found the right book for my mood. I need a really great piece of fiction, with characters I can identify and empathize with. I’m trying the Hardy, but I’d really love another Boyle work or the new Philip Roth. I also have one more Erica Jong book saved up on my shelf, but I was planning to leave that for my flight home to the U.S., since I’ll need something addictive that I know I’ll love, for that long trip.
Enough about books. You’re probably all wondering how I can ramble on about books for a paragraph while I’m living abroad in India… And the reason is that, with the very hot, uncomfortable “summer” weather, that’s pretty much what there is to do.
This is one of the hard parts of living in India, I’ve found. People tend not to want to do things because the weather is so beastly most of the time. It takes lots of energy, and the conscious decision to deal with the heat and sweat and dirt, to get up and go anywhere. Often, I’ll chat online with friends who are a 15-20 minute cab ride from my apartment, or call friends who live 5-10 minutes’ walk from my apartment, and we’ll talk about how we should hang out, or go do something, but when it comes down to getting up and out, no one wants to. My friends are always saying, “You come over here!” To which Sarah and I reply, “No, you come over here!” You can see how this goes around in circles…
Another hard part of living in India is that, even if we decide to get up and do something, there are a limited number of things to do. There aren’t conventional parks in Mumbai, like there are in New York. There’s one bowling alley, a few malls, a bunch of places to go out for food or coffee or drinks. But as for activities? No public pools… Nowhere to rollerskate… Nowhere to bicycle (without fearing ending up in the emergency room, anyway)… No libraries to browse… You get the idea. And I’m sure you understand now why I spend a lot of time reading, watching tv, and hanging around Bagel Shop in my spare time.
Unfortunately, I still have no updates about the visa situation, but I did speak to the woman at the FRRO this week. I wanted to come in this week, so I wouldn’t have to miss a day of day camp next week, but she said it’s not possible to come in before the “15 days” before visa expiry (though I could come in even a day before the visa expires?? does this indicate that it’ll be no problem for me to get this extension??). So I’ll be going in this Tuesday, June 2 (otherwise known as the second day of day camp – and Sarah’s 24th birthday!). Hopefully, Sarah and I can celebrate her birthday, and my visa extension, that night!
It’s also been a strange week, in some ways, because I’ve been having to acknowledge the fact that this year is, amazingly enough, coming to an end already. Some of my Jewish Service Corps colleagues around the world have started to ready themselves to leave. One has already returned (though, due to the tenuous situation in her country of placement), another has a ticket home in hand, others are started to think about their final reports. Interviews for next year’s JSC volunteers are apparently underway.
I’ve known this would happen – obviously, it did last year, for me (since about this time last year, I had celebrated my college graduation and bid some of my family and friends adieu already). But, as Sarah and I talk about all the time, it’s pretty unbelievable that the time has come. We spent the first few months talking about how we never thought the year would end, how time felt like it was digging its heels in the dirt, how we had so much time left… And now, we’re on the brink of June, and the beginning of the end (but with that, of course, comes the beginning of the next beginning). Funny how the passing of time works, hm?
That’s all I have for now, folks, so tune back in next week for the latest adventures in the beginning of the end of my year in Bombay.
