On Tuesday, I went to Babai's friend Sharvani's house for lunch, but I ended up staying there all afternoon. She is a really sweet girl, and I like hanging out with here. Also haning out with a group of friends my age is really nice. Lunch was huge and delicious. Everyone was delighted to watch me eat with my hands. We had rice, dal, okra curry, egg curry, paneer curry, cucumber salad, and tomato chutney. I had sweets upon arrival and ice cream for dessert. So I was STUFFED. Shravani is 20 but she sleeps with her mom in one room (in the same bed) and her dad sleeps in another room. This is so different from America! She told me she used to sleep alone, but then she had insomnia problems so now she sleeps with her mom again. But appartently her 23 year old boyfriend still sleeps with his mom too. And not for lack of space. Its so interesting. So strange to what I've known.
Wednesday was Bengali new year. (shubho naba boyar; happy new year!) In the morning, I wore a beautiful green sari which I borrowed from Bobby to school. I didn't wear it because of new year (rather because I complimented her on it and she asked if I'd like to wear it and I said yes) but it fit nicely with the holiday. It was fun getting all dressed up and wearing make up and jewellery. I wrapped the sari 100% by myself. Kakoli told me it was perfect. So that was exciting. For craft that day, the kids painted beautiful designs on handkerchiefs, and for GK we swabbed their cheeks and looked at their cells under a microscope. The boys thought it was really kool but the girls were uninterested.
In the afternoon, the girls came over to watch a movie. They rented Mon Mane Na, which is a really popular Bengali movie. Its actually not even out of theaters yet, but they had a bootleg version. The songs have been on the radio for months. It actually wasn't bad, and I love the whole soundtrack, so I really enjoyed it.
Piya told me to go shopping yesterday because for the puja (the new year) all of the shops were giving out sweets to their customers. So in the evening, after going to the Iway, I went to Piya's house and asked if she'd like to help me pick out some jewellery to give as a gift to one of my friends back home. She said yes, she would, so we went. We were indecisive and in the end, a man at the shop gave us a box of sweets and told us to come back another day when its less crowded. Then Piya asked me to walk around to the shops with Puja (her sister) and Kajal and Kajal's sister. Puja and Kajal were all dressed up and looking beautiful. Our first stop was the photo studio where they each got portraits taken. Then we walked around and browsed a little bit. Last, we walked to Manisha's house to tell Manisha's mom something (most of my students' families don't have phones).
As I was returning to the flat, I stopped to talk to Tabla Man's son, whom I hadn't seen in awhile. He's a nice kid.
Sanaa, a new volunteer who is Indian but has lived almost her whole life in the US arrived. She's 21 and she's really nice. Her boyfriend Abid (also American Indian) is staying at the guest house in Kolkata. They're here for three weeks. Its nice to be with some American young'ns.
At school today for GK we hooked up batteries to light bulbs with wire. The kids enjoyed it quite a bit. After that, we played BINGO and the kids won different prizes.
Its freakin hot here now, and its only supposed to get hotter. Today it was ungodly humid, and the power kept going out, which meant no fans. I sweat up a storm just sitting in a chair.

Still lovin' it here.

~m