Election Day

November 4, 2008

It’s Election Day in the US… of course, I have no way of knowing what’s going on since I have no Internet close by… but anyway, it’s only 1 am on the 4th at home, so no polls are open yet… I’ll have to wait until the 5th and then go find out what has happened (please, please, PLEASE, don’t let McCain get elected! If he does, people in other parts of the world are going to think we are such idiots, which will be TRUE!!)

My day hasn’t been very productive, I must say… after a breakfast of rice/beans/potatoes/sauce (same as dinner), I went over to the Trust office and used the Internet and then got to work in the Mosaic workshop. There are around 15 workers between the ages of 16 to 18… all deaf… all delightful. My “vocabulary” has now expanded to maybe 5 gestures, but I did impress them by “signing” my name. I decided to try to learn how to do mosaics and spent three hours clipping/carving/ sanding tile to create two pieces of the parrot piece I’m tackling (probably has 500 pieces!)

When I showed it off to the others, they were impressed BUT …. Showed me where I needed to fine tune the pieces by clipping and sanding miniscule areas… I was so nervous that I’d mess up the pieces, I could barely bring myself to follow their instructions. Finally, one of the guys came to my rescue and quickly clipped away the offensive material. At this rate, I MAY finish this tile by the time I leave in three months! Boy! It’s gonna get a place of honor in our house!!

Lunch break is from 1-2 pm… a small bowl of what looked like Ramen noodle soup, but pretty tasty…. Bits of onion and garlic and hot pepper in it. The noodle soup lunch is the GOOD lunch…some days we only get 8 Ritz crackers!! Either way, I usually scarf down a packet of crackers with peanut butter on them in my room so I don’t starve to death while making two more mosaic pieces before quitting time (4 pm).

I did indeed make FOUR more pieces and was completely exhausted by 4 pm quitting time. I barely dragged myself down to dinner – same rice, vegetables and dahl but with a sliced onion for me, the guest of honor. And NO they won’t let me sit on the floor, so I’m still in my chair throne providing dinnertime entertainment.

Went to bed at 9 pm and was up by 4 am with the trots… Delhi belly…. Got to know our squat toilet quite well by morning….. just what I need!