The bottom isn't so bad.

India finally cracked me. I've been holding and treading water, but this last week the undertow got me and sucked me down. First thing to reach bottom was my spirit and overall desire to continue. Next, was my health. As of now, I am alternating my sitting area between the desk chair and my throne room! My evening was actually going great and I was talking to Jeannette via Skype (great invention, by the way) and then out of no where I had to take a quick trip to the throne room. During my quiet time of reflection in my alternate office room, I think I am able to narrow down the cause of this illness. Are you ready? I live in India now. Shocker huh! Took me all of about 2.5 seconds to come up with that one. Actually, it's slightly more complicated than that.

The food is great and I don't think that it's the main cause. Nor the water, because I am very careful about only drinking my filtered water. REI assured me that the filter would take out any nasty stuff. Bacteria and viruses! No, I think it's a combination of lack of sleep; time zone change; the poisonous gasses they call air around here; stress like you wouldn't believe; the change in diet; and the evil Costco truffles that sneaked into my luggage when I wasn't looking! Those things will kill you faster than all the others put together. They lull you into just having one more. Just one more; it wont hurt.  Not then it doesn't. But just wait about 15 minutes after eating the 27^th piece! Yeah! I can hear the remaining 3 pieces chuckling to themselves in that golden foil bag they call home.  Trouble makers.  How come Costco doesn't put warning labels on those things.  They should have to print and paste warning labels like those on cigarette packs!

Went out by myself today! Scary. Came home in the dark too. Even scarier.  No actually, it was easier in the dark cause no one noticed that I was white. No beggars or little kids following me asking for money or food. The dark does bring out the evil plastic fires though. The dark, winter landscape is dotted with these little devils.  Because it's winter over here, temperatures dipping into the low 60s, people think that they are going to freeze to death during the night. So, they build themselves fires to stay warm.  Problem is that most of the fuel for the fires is nasty stuff like plastic and garbage. The acrid smoke lazily curls up and hovers a couple feet off the ground; choking everything in sight. Combine the plastic fires with the 2 million, environmentally non-friendly, three-wheel taxi's and you have yourself a nice thick cloud of noxious gasses. My throat has been burning for the last couple of days.

Oh, the power just went out again. For the 9^th time tonight.

So as I was saying, I went out. Bought an “internet dongle” as they call it in India. Basically, it's a wifi card that slips into the usb port on the computer. Gives me internet access anywhere I go!  Cool huh!  Kind of like a smart phone with internet, except my 'smart phone' (computer with Skype) now weighs in at around 10 pounds (about 4 kg)(I'm starting to learn things in kg now) and the battery life hoovers at 3 hours. But my screen is huge!  I just pay someone to carry it around for me.

Power's back.

I'm getting used to the way people operate around here. The learning curve is incredibly step. I feel like I'm not make any progress, but I am. Once I can relax a little bit and shed some of my fears and stress, I think India can be an OK place. Not heaven on earth like my little home in the NW, but nice. Need to do some more paperwork, so later everyone. Take care of yourself and your clean part of the world. You have no idea that the air you breath on a daily basis is so luxurious until it's gone. Don't loose it. Protect it.

Darin