Friday, July 16, 2010

chicken of the buttery sea

Listening to the rain pelt pelt pelt the tin roof
And gently swish in the leaves of the trees
A river of sound surrounding my mental spece
Growing louder…
Sitting on my bed moldy sheets that never seem to fully dry in the humid air
Legs extended
Candle light
Lights out.

Tonight we tried to explain what the state of being “hot” is to one of the workers here at the hostel… “beautiful. Is. Very beautiful is,” using what little Hindi we had to bridge the communication gap The fact that everyone speaks English here is entirely too convenient – but it’s fun to meet people that DON’T speak English, and that have just as limited of a vocabulary in my language as I do in theirs. It makes communicating more of a game. We both are human. We both are thinking. We just can’t transmit our thoughts in full fruition – we have to use the sparse tools that we have. And there isn’t any other way to excel in using them than to use them. To stumble.

How does everyone in this world seem to speak English? Daily I am reminded of America’s ignorance in creating bilingual youth.

Tonight we swaddled down the main road, 17 deep, to a restaurant bar named Sikoh. I shared a metal bowl full of “butter chicken” – a spicy tomato and cream dish that saturated pieces of chicken in a thick sauce. And some rice mixed with cumin seeds. A few times we were videotaped by men on their camera phones – right up to our faces. “Enough! Enough!” we yelled in Hindi. The amount of blatant staring that is socially permitted is overwhelming. I am trying to imagine what would catch my eye so much to videotape another human being having dinner at a restaurant…

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