• N o • R o o m • f o r • S h o e s •

surprise orchids

2010-09-13T12:06:00.003+03:00

The house Smurray and I are subletting has a bunch of plants in the front porch area. We had no idea that most of the plants are orchids until they started blooming a week ago. Good thing we actually watered them and didn't kill any.

kitchen friends II

2010-09-03T14:00:00.002+02:00

There've be quite a few toads in our kitchen recently. I almost stepped on this guy, but he jumped out of the way in the knick of time.

drug abuse resistance education... in thailand?

2010-07-30T10:03:00.006+03:00

I saw 3 different people wearing D.A.R.E. shirts in 2 days in Chiang Mai, which I thought was kind of crazy and raises all sorts of questions in my mind. Is this some kind of trend? Or just a fluke? Are the shirts being manufactured in Thailand? Or did they just get the shirts from American relatives? Or did some elementary school in the States just donate a bunch? Do people like them because they like the word "dare"? Or do they know what D.A.R.E. is? Or are they wearing them ironically?

Kind of want to stop the next person I see wearing one and find out what the deal is. Maybe I'll do some qualitative in-depth interviews and put all that expensive grad schooling to work.

get me ben linus

2010-07-20T12:01:00.001+03:00

Doesn't this look like the island from LOST? The rolling green mountains, the Dharma Initiative-esque VW van? If I start traveling through time and you don't hear from me for a while, please go find Ben Linus. Thanks.

kitchen friends

2010-07-15T09:05:00.003+03:00

So our kitchen is sort of partially outside, which means all sorts of fun creatures come to visit (or decide to die on the floor). This little guy turns out to be a Tokay gecko. I found out later that they have a penchant for attacking people's faces... so in retrospect, it probably wasn't wise to get this close to him to take his picture. Anyway, he's been making quite a ruckus since he's looking for a mate. If you know anyone, let him know. His name is Mordechai and he's a good lookin' fella, don't you think?

sushi chips

2010-07-13T08:28:00.000+03:00

I love how Lays potato chips seem to have a foothold in every country. My favorite flavor in India was "Magic Masala," both because of its awesome name and its taste. So far in Thailand, the clear favorite is "Nori Seaweed." SO ADDICTIVE! Now if I could only find some sort of ginger sour cream dip...

greener than green

2010-06-24T22:27:00.001+03:00

I'm in a small town called Mae Sariang right now and it's pretty friggin' beautiful:

42

2010-06-22T12:10:00.001+03:00

In total, it took me 42 hours to get to my destination in Thailand. 42, besides being the answer to life, the universe, and everything, is also a pretty pleasing number, divisible by 2, 3, 6, 7, 14, and 21. With a number so awesome, I basically had to do some sort of geometric visual thing with it. So this is my 42 hour trip visually represented in squares of color, with each square representing an hour.

In total, I spent 20 hours on planes (blue sky), 7 hours on a bus (green land), and 15 hours of layovers (gray airport/bus terminal).

layover delirium

2010-06-18T19:43:00.004+03:00

My flight to Thailand had a 7+ hour layover in Taipei. In an attempt to not fall asleep and ruin my Zero Jetlag master plan, I kept myself entertained for a while by taking pictures in the airport. Most of them are crap. But here are three:

last day in india!

2009-07-23T08:47:00.004+03:00

Most important thing I learned by living in Cairo:
How to cross eight lanes of automobile traffic without dying.

Most important thing I learned by living in Calcutta:

How to cross eight lanes of automobile, rickshaw, autorickshaw, motorcycle, cow cart, and pedestrian traffic without dying.

my brain is melting

2009-06-09T16:35:00.002+03:00

My last day of work at SAATHII is a week from today, so I'm trying to wrap everything up, but it's been a little difficult the last few days because of the following reasons:

1) My laptop (finally) died. I guess all the sand in Cairo, and now the humidity in Calcutta, has finally gotten the best of it. I'm using a desktop at the office, but I can't take any work home.
2) There's been some major load shedding (aka rolling blackouts). Today, we didn't have power for three hours.
3) My brain is melting in the heat. There's no AC in the office and the load shedding puts the fans out of commission.

Can't wait to head to the mountains.

roof envy

2009-06-04T16:31:00.001+03:00

This is the green roof of a building next to ours. Who knew that Calcuttans are environmentally-conscious? I was thinking about trying to befriend someone in that building so that I could hang out up there. But then I remembered that I'm lazy.

where's my icy hot?

2009-06-02T11:56:00.001+03:00

I've turned into a Bengali Uncle. See before and after pictures below for proof:

more crafts!

2009-05-29T14:56:00.007+03:00

I collected toilet paper rolls for weeks, hoping to use them for some sort of to-be-determined craft project. Neela thought I was crazy and threatened to throw my stash out in my sleep if I didn't do something with them. Finally I came up with the idea of cutting cross sections and making a map of India on our living room wall out of them. Bangladesh (what what) is prominently displayed using bright orange origami paper. Take a look at the pic from this post to see where it is in relation to the rest of the room (its in the left corner).

BTW, can you tell yet that I use origami paper for everything?

do lizards make out??

2009-05-27T11:50:00.001+03:00

... cuz that's totally what these two on my kitchen floor look like they're doing. Either that, or one's eating the other's head.

squares

2009-05-25T14:46:00.002+03:00

Picture of the Guggenheim + Rasterbator + origami paper = memories of NYC on our wall.

let the countdown begin!

2009-05-24T14:09:00.002+03:00

Two more months 'til I'm back in the states and see the fam! Above: my parents, unknown date (though from the look of my mom's sari and the thickness of my dad's hair, I'd guess sometime in the 70s).

crafts crafts crafts!

2009-05-21T15:58:00.000+03:00

I love crafts. Neela has these bowls, which I commandeered I when I realized the colors match almost perfectly with origami paper I brought with me from Muji. It took a while for me to decide what I'd do exactly, but I finally settled on origami lilies. Pretty!

symbol of a home-away-from-home

2009-05-20T17:30:00.001+03:00

Having been brought up the US, where we're inculcated with a sense of revulsion at the mere mention of communism or socialism (until you attend an uber-liberal university, that is), living in CPI(M)-stronghold West Bengal and seeing the hammer and sickle everywhere was a bit of a shock at first. However, like all things, they eventually just become a part of the scenery.

But now that the communists have suffered major losses in the last election, I guess we'll be seeing fewer CPI(M) flags and posters and graffiti. I'll kind of miss it. Every time I travel outside of West Bengal, upon my return I really know I'm back in Kolkata when I see those hammers and sickles everywhere. Strange what we equate with home, or home-away-from-home in this case.

apartment pic

2009-05-18T07:21:00.003+03:00

Here's a photostitch of the living room of our apartment. Now that I'm moving back to the states, it's probably the nicest place that I'm going to live in the next ten years. Sigh.

RIP, jasmine blossoms

2009-05-16T13:24:00.004+03:00

I bought a jasmine plant months ago, and it quickly seemed to have blossomed all that it was going to for this year. But then some weeks ago, a few new buds appeared. I was excited for these to finally blossom and once again fill up the part of the living room that they inhabit with their gentle scent.

About a week ago they were on the verge of blossoming, but their young lives were cut short when savage winds from a freak thunderstorm blew them clean off their stems. Poor buds; they'll never have their debut as lovely, fragrant, fully blossomed jasmine flowers.

gottapostgottapostgottapost

2009-05-15T00:07:00.004+03:00

I just put up my mandatory post on the AIF Service Corps Fellowship Blog (recently renamed the W.J. Clinton Fellowship for Service in India), which made me realized that I hadn't posted on MY blog in almost two months. Even though I'm leaving India in another two months, I'm hoping to start a posting FRENZY, starting.... tomorrow.

current cockroach death count: 10

2009-03-26T13:03:00.006+02:00

Today's cockroach killing was the most traumatic of any yet. While getting ready to go to work this morning, I nearly stepped, with my bare foot, on a dead cockroach laying on its back in the middle of our living room. So I get some toilet paper from the bathroom to pick up the damn thing and dispose of it. I go to pick up the roach, but as I make contact, the thing COMES ALIVE and scutters away a few inches, at which point I have a mini-freak out. Now, I don't freak out over things very easily, but when you're mentally prepared to pick up something that's dead and then it comes alive on you, it's disconcerting. Still gives me shivers to think about it.

Anyway, I get my bearings, find a sandal, and give it a solid whack (I've gotten pretty good at whacking roaches hard enough that they are stunned or killed, but not so hard that they splatter and ooze blood and guts), poke it with the sandal a few times to make sure it's REALLY dead this time, pick it up, and flush it.

Lessons learned:

Cockroaches often play dead in order to try to induce freak-out heart attacks in humans.
Alway give ALL cockroaches a good shoe-whack before proceeding to dispose of them.
A cockroach's antenae are its freakiest physical feature.
Cockroaches are the true incarnate of evil.

current cockroach death count: 9

2009-03-25T13:38:00.000+02:00

current cockroach death count: 7

2009-03-20T12:30:00.000+02:00

the dark days

2009-03-18T11:24:00.004+02:00

I’ve killed 5 huge cockroaches in our flat in the last 3 days. And I mean HUGE. Before this week, we’d only seen one roach every now and again. Maybe it’s the season change? Or maybe the pipes in the building are being worked on, forcing the cockroaches to flee? Either way, this is no good and I’m waging a full-out war on roaches. Naphthalene balls, boric acid, that chalky pen thing, roach spray… I’m going for ALL of it. Those damn roaches will be sorry they ever messed with Flat 10F.

Current cockroach death count: 5

'hey' buddies, indian style

2009-03-16T14:07:00.003+02:00

Every other weekend, I've been going to Bhubaneswar, the capital of Orissa that's about a 7 hour train ride from Kolkata, to conduct some trainings for work. So far I've been twice and have to go twice more. On my way down there this weekend, I get on the train and find my seat, which is super confusing in 3AC now that they've added a 3rd bunk on the side, but maybe I'll do a separate post on that later. A guy walks on whom I instantly recognize and start saying hello to... except I don't actually know him at all. He happened to be on my train two weeks ago and we exchanged a few words about how confusing the new seating arrangements are. This time, we both had that weird moment strangers have when you recognize each other, have the urge to acknowledge each other, realize that you don't actually know each other, and try to suppress your urge to acknowledge each other all in the same instant, resulting in a meek and awkward exchange of grunts slash nods slash sputtering coughs.

So I now have an Indian train 'hey' buddy, which I think has been one of my goals in life without me really realizing it. I wonder if I'll see him again the weekend after next.

hot hot heat

2009-02-25T13:09:00.005+02:00

It hit 90°F in Kolkata today. And just to make sure you don't think that the date of this blog is incorrect, yes, it's still FEBRUARY. The B.O. is already noticeably worse on public transportation. NOT looking forward to sweltering for the next few months...

i like your style

2009-01-28T08:48:00.003+02:00

I saw the most amazing thing today: A middle-aged man on a bicycle wearing a hot pink jumper emblazoned with the word “JAZZERCIZE” on the back.

Not gonna lie: I kind of want one.

feeling like an adult in bengali

2009-01-27T08:45:00.001+02:00

I recently started reading Unaccustomed Earth, Jhumpa Lahiri’s third book. I’m not going to wax poetic about how much her stories “speak” to me (though they do), or how well she captures the Bengali-American experience as I’ve experienced it (though she does). But I did want to post a passage from the first short story about Ruma, a first-generation Bengali-American:

“By now Akash had forgotten the little Bengali Ruma had taught him when he was little. After he started speaking in full sentences English had taken over, and she lacked the discipline to stick to Bengali. Besides, it was one thing to coo at him in Bengali, to point to this or that and tell him the corresponding words. But it was another to be authoritative; Bengali had never been a language in which she felt like an adult. Her own Bengali was slipping from her. Her mother had been strict, so much so that Ruma had never spoken to her in English. But her father didn’t mind.”

I’ve often thought about whether I’m going to teach my kids Bengali. I kind of want them to know a bunch of languages (right now, the list is English, Arabic, Spanish, French, and Hindi), so who knows if they’ll even have room in their heads for Bengali. Also, I worry that my own Bengali isn’t good enough to teach to them and trust that what they speak won't come out as an unrecognizable Banglish mess.

“Bengali had never been a language in which she felt like an adult.” I hadn’t really thought about it in these terms before, but perhaps part of the reason why I wanted to come to Calcutta was to feel like an adult in Bengali.

emo emu

2009-01-21T13:26:00.003+02:00

I love really big birds that can't fly. Ostriches are awesome. Penguins are pleasant. But I especially love emus. So I was pretty excited when during the AIF midpoint retreat last week at Anandwan, a community living ashram for lepers and disabled people near the geographic center of India, Hemant (a fellow fellow) discovered a pen with a couple of emus. Emus! If I ever become an eccentric and reclusive pop star and have a zoo in my backyard a la Michael Jackson, I'm definitely going to populate it with more than a few emus.

holiday cheer

2008-12-20T10:05:00.007+02:00

There have been some lovely holiday e-cards and emails with fun pictures from the other AIF fellows circulating on our google group. Strangely, Neela and I don't have too many pictures together, so instead, Team Kolkata went with good old Microsoft Paint. Happy holidays!

in blogging, as in life...

2008-12-20T09:44:00.001+02:00

I’m going to Bangalore today (!) to visit Lizz (incidentally, also known to me as “LizzShoes”) and was packing last night. For short plane trips especially, I usually try to pack as little as possible so that I can carry on instead of checking in a bag. I’d successful gotten everything into one duffle – very much overstuffed, but everything was in there – when I realized: I hadn’t packed my nice pair of shoes. I had NO ROOM FOR SHOES. I ended up having to pack another bag. Damn shoes.

east coast express

2008-12-15T11:32:00.002+02:00

I was in Hyderabad for about a week and a half for work and just got back. I went by train, which took about 30 hours one way. Yep, that’s right, 30 hours. Some feelings about this:

Being on a train for that long kind of feels like purgatory.
Afterwards, you feel like you’ve lost a day of your life. Not that you've wasted a day, but more like that it never happened.
I accumulate more morning eye crust when traveling by train than in any other scenario. I’m not sure why this is, but I’m guessing it has something to do with the lack of circulation and the perpetually running air conditioning in 3AC train compartments.
I really like the smell of samosas wafting through a 3AC train compartment’s re-circulated air.

"oh, I don't plan on staying for long..."

2008-11-10T13:58:00.009+02:00

This is a blog entry I wrote in April for a blog Max was writing for (I ghostwrote a few entries) about Iraqi refugees in Cairo. I'm posting it here in solidarity with the work of Bloggers Unite and Refugees United (click on the image their site). I met the guys who started Refugees United while I was in Cairo, and they do really great work.

"Oh, I don't plan on staying for long..."

“In Iraq, I was a pharmacist,” the middle-aged Iraqi woman sitting before me said in perfect English. “I had a good job, a good home. Here I have nothing. Its difficult to even find work cleaning houses.”

She isn’t exaggerating, and her story is, unfortunately, not exceptional. Life is hard for a refugee in Egypt. On an official level, there are laws that restrict refugees and asylum seekers of all nationalities from obtaining work permits, and make school enrollment for children and continuing education for adults extremely difficult. On top of this, refugees and Egyptians alike struggle with a host of problems connected to development, including everything from access to adequate medical care to police protection to coherent and consistent governmental policies regarding many aspects of daily life (not the least of which is asylum and refugee rights).

Most of the approximately 150,000 Iraqis in Egypt did not arrive with the intention of seeking asylum and becoming refugees. In fact, only about 10,000 families have registered with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR). Many will tell you that they came to Cairo to wait out the war, hoping to be able to return home soon. Others know that they will never return home and came to Cairo as a pit stop on the road to resettlement in the West. While their reasons vary, most choose Egypt over other countries in the region because their Iraqi dinars will stretch farther here due to the relatively low cost of living. They sold their material possessions – businesses, cars, homes – before leaving Iraq in order to bring their savings with them. Yet, as funds dwindle, they are forced to rely more and more heavily on remittances sent from relatives still in Iraq or abroad. To make matters worse, most families underestimate how long they’ll be in Egypt and quickly blow through their funds.

But what is one to do once all of the money in the bank has been spent? Find a job?

This, regrettably, is not an option. “WORK IS NOT PERMITTED” is prominently stamped on every refugee’s permanent residency visa. Thus, refugees are forced to work in the informal market, most often as laborers and domestic workers. For the predominantly highly educated, highly skilled, middle-class Iraqis who previously held professional jobs, this is anathema. But even for the scores of Iraqis who have spent all of their savings and have no choice but to settle for working as menial labor, jobs are hard to come by in a country where unemployment is officially recorded as 10%, but estimated as 20% by academic and non-governmental studies.

Many Iraqis also come to Egypt hoping that as fellow Arabs, they will be welcomed here and feel somewhat at home. The reality is quite different. Iraqis face a large degree of hostility from their Egyptian neighbors, who believe them to be wealthy trespassers, here to take their jobs and drive up the prices of rent. In Cairo specifically, a city with the infrastructure to accommodate only a few million people but with a population of 18 million, resources are scarce. Egyptians have a hard enough time competing with each other in the job and housing market, let alone with Iraqis and other refugees.

Iraqis also are often disheartened when they realize how culturally dissimilar Egypt is from Iraq. An Iraqi man I met told me of an incident when four bearded men from his neighborhood knocked on his door and told his wife that she must start wearing the hijab. “In Iraq, women choose whether they want to wear the veil or not,” the man said, visibly confounded. “My wife has never had troubles such as this back home. We never thought it would be like this here. Customs here are so different.”

To make matters worse, the Egyptian government has imposed several restrictions specifically against Iraqis. For one, Iraqi children aren’t allowed to attend public schools. Unlike Sudanese, Libyans, and Jordanians who are permitted to enroll in Egyptian public schools (if they can jump through all the bureaucratic hoops), and some Somalis who have managed to enroll themselves despite the challenges, Iraqis have been completely prohibited from public education. Iraqi parents who want to enroll their children in school only have private schooling as an option. This recourse, however, often proves to be prohibitively expensive.

The Egyptian government also works to unofficially prohibit Iraqis from convening and creating community organizations. This prohibition on convening and organizing greatly hinders the Iraqi community, which has been divided and scattered since its relatively recent arrival in Egypt. Iraqis have been prevented from creating informal schools for their children and community associations to act as centers for information, resources, services, and social events. In addition, as predominantly Shiite Muslims, Iraqis are not allowed to organize their own mosques in this largely Sunni nation. This lack of community organization and leadership is also a barrier for aid workers and international organizations that often get to know the refugee population through their community leadership. With no community organization and leadership among the Iraqis, these international organizations have difficulty assessing the resources and needs of the Iraqi population.

In contrast, other refugee populations in Cairo have formed community organizations to help overcome the challenges of daily life. These organizations reflect the community’s cultural values and social structures back home. The Sudanese in particular, who have been a well established community in Egypt for years, have an extensive network of community support, with organizations in several parts of the city. The Ethiopian community convenes at certain churches in Cairo, while the Somalis tend to gather at certain mosques. These community support systems provide vital lifelines for refugees who have no other forms of support.

It is not only outside constraints that have limited the development of the Iraqi refugee community; the degree of distrust and suspicion between community members is also a divisive force. While they have all fled Iraq, they have done so for different reasons: some worked with the US, the occupation forces, and the current Iraqi government, others were employees of the former Iraqi regime, and others caught in the complicated mess of militias, criminal gangs, and other groups vying for control of Iraqi cities. And aside from political allegiances, the slew of ethno-religious tensions – fed by ongoing news of violence from home -- also run high. Even if the Egyptian government permitted Iraqis to organize, their intense internal divisions could very well keep them apart.

In the coming months, the number of Iraqis in Egypt is sure to increase, given that Jordan and Syria have effectively closed their borders to Iraqi refugees last year despite the fact that an estimated 50,000 to 70,000 Iraqis continue to be displaced each month. Many Iraqis – bitterly disappointed by life in Egypt and convinced that the situation back home will not improve in the near future -- ardently hope to be resettled to third countries such as the US, Canada, and Sweden. This hope is, at best, a long shot. The UNHCR estimates that 5 million Iraqis have been displaced thus far, and in comparison, the number of Iraqis that are actually resettled is miniscule. In 2007, the US committed to accepting 7,000 Iraqi refugees by the end of the fiscal year, but only 1,608 have actually been admitted. Similarly, the US has committed to accepting 12,000 Iraqis in 2008, but its implementation continues to fall short of its projections. Sweden has thus far been the most generous in accepting Iraqi refugees, their numbers figuring in the thousands for 2007. However, compared to the millions of Iraqis displaced, this is still a mere drop in the bucket.

As a result, the overwhelming majority of Iraqis are left in limbo, trapped in Egypt without real possibilities for work and integration, unable to return home to Iraq, and with little chance of being resettled to a Western country where they can build a new life. This aspect of the war, while lacking the drama of roadside bombs and armed militias, has enormous consequences not only for the tenuous stability of Egypt and other host countries, but also for the future of Iraq.

a surprise in every bag

2008-11-07T09:58:00.005+02:00

I found this in a sealed bag of dal. It's a piece of a large pill. There wasn't enough of an imprint code on it for me to search online to figure out what it is. But I'm going to go ahead and guess Perphenazine. Or maybe Minocyline. Yes, definitely Minocycline.

HE DID IT!!!

2008-11-05T12:11:00.006+02:00

(from www.patrickmoberg.com)

happy halloween!

2008-10-31T10:54:00.007+02:00

Kali Puja was on Tuesday, and the icon in the pic above reminded me of Halloween. Kali, the patron goddess of Kolkata, means “black” in Bengali and is associated with destruction. Unfortunately, I was pretty busy vomiting for much of Kali Puja as a result of some nasty food poisoning, so I was only out pandal-hopping for a couple of hours. I still managed to see some great stuff though. Full album here.

durga puja

2008-10-27T09:45:00.009+02:00

Durga Puja, the most important Hindu religious festival in Bengal, was earlier this month. It honors the goddess Durga’s defeat of the demon Mahishasura. Elaborate temporary structures called pandals are constructed to house intricate icons depicting Durga on her mount (a lion) slaying Mahishasura with Shiva’s trident. Durga’s four children (Ganesh, Lakshmi, Saraswati, and Kartik) are depicted as well. There are thousands of these put up throughout Kolkata. The creativity and engineering that goes into many of these is unbelievable. At the end of the 5-day festival, the idols of Durga are immersed in the Hooghly River.

Full gallery of Durga Puja pics (icons, pandals, immersion) are here.

civic dutifulness

2008-10-24T12:50:00.004+02:00

I dropped it off at the US Consulate in Kolkata this morning, and then ate some luchi afterwards to celebrate.

what's my deal?

2008-10-20T13:20:00.003+02:00

Before I arrived in India, I wondered how people would “read” me here. My Bengali is pretty good, but I definitely sound foreign, and my accent and much of my vocabulary are much more Dhaka Bengali then Kolkata. But beyond that, how would people perceive the way I walk and carry myself, the clothes I wear, my haircut? Would they think that I’m a Bengali who grew up abroad? Or would they think that I’m Bangladeshi? Or something else all together? I constantly want to ask people where they think I’m from, though perhaps a more apt question would be “what do you think my deal is?” Though I don’t go around asking this question to every random person that I interact with, there have been a few occasions when people have brought it up. Here are some situational examples, all within a few days of each other:

--------------

Scenario #1: At Metropolitan Supermarket

Me: Where can I find the gram flour?
Salesman: (leads me to aisle) Over here.
Me: Do you have smaller bags?
Salesman: (points it out, then takes a good look at me) Do you live abroad?
Me: (incredulous) Yes.

What I’m thinking after this interaction: Crap, what gave it away? I barely even said anything. I need to work on my accent. And stop wearing bright fuchsia t-shirts. And comb my hair. But who am I kidding, I’m not going to do those last two. I’ll just work on my accent.

--------------

Scenario #2: On Rashbehari Avenue

Me: Excuse me.
Bengali Vegetable Vendor: (looks to face me)
Me: Which way to Triangular Park?
Bengali Vegetable Vendor: (in Hindi) You go straight, and then turn right.
Me: (continuing in Bengali) The next right, or the one after?
Bengali Vegetable Vendor: (still in Hindi) The one after.

What I’m thinking after this interaction: Why would a Bengali guy respond to me in Hindi when I’m speaking to him in clear, albeit accented, Bengali? Is it that he can hear that my Bengali isn’t perfect, so he assumes I’m not a native Bengali-speaker, but perhaps a Hindi-speaker trying to speak Bengali? So is he just trying to be polite by speaking to me in Hindi? Crap, maybe I should learn Hindi, too.

--------------

Scenario #3: At the metro ticket counter

Me: Give me five four-rupee tickets please.
Ticket guy: All on one ticket?
Me: No, separate ones.
Ticket guy: (giving me the tickets) Have you come from Bangladesh?
Me: (less incredulous that in Scenario #1) Yes.

What I’m thinking after this interaction: Dammit, this guy can tell just from how I pronounce my numbers that I speak Bangladeshi Bengali. I really need to work on my West Bengali accent. But at least he didn’t think I’m from abroad. Huzzah!

they don't make passport pics like they used to

2008-10-16T12:26:00.011+02:00

Since instead of returning to the States I'm moving to Bengal for a while, a reverse migration of what my parents did several decades ago, I thought I'd share this pic to mark the transition. These are the passport pictures from the passports that my parents first came to the US with.

bharat

2008-10-15T12:09:00.002+02:00

So I've been in India for over a month and have been meaning to post, but I don't have internet access at home so it's a little difficult. I'm going to try to be better about it from now on.

Here's a pic that I think represents my transition from Egypt to India... a detail of Arabic calligraphy on the Taj Mahal.

packapackapacka

2008-08-29T19:09:00.002+02:00

I leave for India tomorrow and finally need to actually pack everything into my suitcase.

Of course, my choice of things to pack this time around has been greatly influenced by spending a year in Cairo. The following is a conversation that I had with a guy in a souq in Cairo, in my terrible (TERRIBLE!) Arabic. I'm trying to buy a laundry bag. Let's listen in...

Me: I need a big bag for my clothes before I wash them.
Guy: (blank stare) You want to wash your clothes in a bag...?
Me: No no, a need a bag to keep my clothes in BEFORE I wash them.
Guy: Why don't you just wash your clothes without a bag?
Me: Please, just tell me, do you sell any big bags?
Guy hands me a garbage bag.

Needless to say, I'm bringing a laundry bag with me to India.

limbo doodle

2008-08-25T15:28:00.007+03:00

I've been back in the US since the end of June and haven't really felt compelled to post anything, but figured its time that I start up again in preparation for my DAILY posts from India (wishful thinking, I know). But of course I'm too lazy right now (and kind of too busy) to come up with anything interesting, so I was pretty excited to come across some old notes from a high school art history class. It's a doodle!

last day in cairo

2008-06-23T13:14:00.002+03:00

Very sad. Don't want to talk about it.

shakalama

2008-05-22T15:47:00.002+03:00

One of the most delicious sweets in Egypt, shakalama are basically coconut macaroons but BETTER. Definitely one of the things that I'll miss most about Egypt.

kite, no runner

2008-05-21T21:55:00.002+03:00

The desert is great for flying kites. MG here has some serious aeronautic skill.

faux fresh and faux clean

2008-05-20T19:42:00.002+03:00

Drawing this one, I noticed for the first time how "Febreze" is spelled. And I realize that this annoys me a little. Febreze. Febreeze. Febreze. Febreeze.

I wonder how many focus groups they had to go through before they settled on this final spelling.

knab lanac zeus

2008-05-17T17:58:00.002+03:00

I like both scaffolding and crooked letters, so I had to take a picture. In downtown Cairo near our flat.

old tricks with glue sticks

2008-05-16T11:23:00.007+03:00

One day Max and I decided to do some crafts. We collaborated on this piece, our best received work to date.
Shmookler + Chowdhury (American, b. 1983)
UFOs Descend upon Yemeni Village while Volcano Erupts and Lake Runs Purple, 2008
Paper on paper; 5.5 x 8.5 in
Private Collection, courtesy of Ibrahim Nasher

window rubbings

2008-05-15T12:31:00.003+03:00

A rubbing of the pattern that’s on several of the windows in our flat. It’s the inspiration for the design we did for our sitting room wall:

posting again

2008-05-09T23:37:00.004+03:00

Ok, I haven't posted since november, and now I only have a little more than a month left in Egypt, but hopefully I'll post semi-regularly until then...

View from our apartment of a sandstorm rolling into Cairo. Apparently, we live in a desert.

nrrraaarrr!

2007-11-17T16:34:00.000+02:00

Max has the awe-inspiring capability of transforming himself into a velociraptor. Scary!

meh

2007-11-13T18:09:00.000+02:00

I went to the catacombs below Paris when I was there in April. Walls and walls of skulls and bones. Creepy, eh?

In other news, my head still hurts.

i feel gross

2007-11-12T21:19:00.000+02:00

Like I've mentioned before, pollution is terrible in Cairo this time of year and its really getting to me now. I've been having a constant sinus headache and generally feeling awful. I should probably irrigate my sinuses, but I don't really like putting things up my nose. Ah well.

pepper paper peepers

2007-10-29T10:43:00.001+02:00

I roasted some peppers last night. Mmm mm.

A restaurant we went to in Alexandria misspelled "peppers" as both "papers" and "peepers" in the same menu, hence the title for today's post... as well as the inspiration to roast some pepper... paper peepers.

saving myself from emphysema

2007-10-28T10:07:00.000+02:00

Ben, Max and I went up to Alexandria for the weekend. We basically sat around and ate and read and breathed in the fresh, unpolluted air. It was fantastic. Apparently, Cairo is the 2nd most polluted city in the world after Delhi, and the average Cairene ingests more than 20 times the acceptable level of air pollution a day. Yum.

you can't wish for more wishes

2007-10-23T23:57:00.001+02:00

Another picture from the desert, this time of an oasis in Baharia, with hot springs and everything. Also where Genie helped Aladdin escape to after being trapped by Jaffar in the cave where he found the lamp. For real.

squishy and fleshy

2007-10-22T22:14:00.000+02:00

I stepped on a dead cat today.

I was walking home from work around 7pm and when I turned onto my street, I stepped down from the curb and my foot encountered something squishy and fleshy. I stumbled a little and almost took a spill, and for the split second while it was still a possibility that I'd fall on my face, I thought that I'd stepped on a human body part, perhaps a thigh or kidney. I managed to recover and not make a fool of myself, and when I looked at what I had stepped on, I realized it was a dead orange and white calico cat.

:-(
.

daily dairy

2007-10-21T23:51:00.001+02:00

I eat laughing cow cheese a lot for lunch. It's good with tomatoes and bread. Mmm cheap and creamy.

what's this liquid falling from the sky?

2007-10-17T22:08:00.000+02:00

I woke up this morning to what I thought was a truck backfiring, but it turned out to be thunder! Yeah, it actually RAINED in Cairo today. And for more than 10 minutes too! You can't really see the rain in this picture, but look at those clouds.

Max doing what I can only guess is a rain dance. Or rather a holy-crap-it's-raining-in-the-desert happy dance.

back from london

2007-10-16T20:54:00.000+02:00

I look like an idiot, but Jon and Goutami look badass.

i'm going to london!

2007-10-09T12:28:00.001+02:00

My cousin is flying me to London for Eid! Isn't she grand? I'm leaving tomorrow morning and getting back on Monday night. We'll see if my bank balance can handle this...

now in color!

2007-10-08T21:01:00.001+02:00

I bought this journal from the bookbinders behind al-Azhar Mosque the other day. I don't actually journal, but it was too damn pretty not to buy. I have to figure out what to use it for.

green on green

2007-10-07T17:46:00.000+02:00

The other day, Ben found a worm in one of the green peppers he bought. It seems to have laid eggs and everything. Delicious!

symmetry is kind of rad

2007-10-03T23:19:00.000+02:00

Somewhere in Islamic Cairo again.

dammit there's sand in my eye!

2007-10-02T23:10:00.000+02:00

I need more contact lenses. Crap.

zippy

2007-09-30T20:05:00.001+02:00

The Cairo metro. It's surprisingly clean.

96% desert

2007-09-26T23:18:00.001+02:00

Laura on the crest of a sand dune in Baharia. The stars at night were amazing.

ohmygod i love your phone

2007-09-25T21:44:00.001+02:00

It seems like everyone in Egypt is obsessed with mobile phones. Here's mine, a Nokia 1110 or something. It's the cheapest one that they had at Radio Shack. Triple-banded GSM goodness. Mm hmm.

m.i.a.

2007-09-22T11:13:00.000+02:00

This has nothing to do with anything, but I love M.I.A. and especially love this video.

apartment (again)

2007-09-21T23:35:00.000+02:00

The sitting room again (view from the door).

apartment

2007-09-20T23:32:00.000+02:00

The sitting room of our flat.

loveliness

2007-09-17T10:35:00.001+02:00

It was Christal's and Nisreen's birthdays this week. We had baklawa cake! OK it wasn't a a cake, but really a tray of baklawa with some candles stuck in it. Still delicious though.

tart il-frawla

2007-09-16T23:36:00.003+02:00

Strawberry tart yoghurt. Delicious.

fanouseen

2007-09-15T19:57:00.000+02:00

We got Ramadan lanterns (called a fanous) to hang from our balconies. They're very pretty.

ramadan mubarak!

2007-09-13T20:31:00.000+02:00

Door to a mosque somewhere in Islamic Cairo.

ugh

2007-09-12T18:09:00.001+02:00

The building that AMERA is in is shared but several other offices. The other main tenant is a certain French bank which occupies maybe three or four apartment/units. Recently, they’ve been complaining about AMERA’s refugee clients using the elevator. According to them, “Africans don’t know how to use elevators and will break it.” Effing racist assholes.

mugamma-rama

2007-09-10T22:14:00.000+02:00

I had to get my visa renewed at the Mugamma again today and of course it took three-times as long as it should have. But at least they didn't lose my passport. The Egyptian visa itself is rather pretty.

delicious and nutritious

2007-09-09T22:01:00.000+02:00

All of these vegetables cost about US$0.75. Also, Egypt is apparently the third largest producer (or maybe exporter?) of tomatoes in the world.

nanu

2007-09-07T15:29:00.001+02:00

DHAKA. I was in Bangladesh last month for my cousin's wedding, so I got to see my grandmother.

useless trivia

2007-09-06T23:21:00.000+03:00

Everyone else read this years ago, but I didn't get around to it until now. I now know more than I ever wanted to about the subject. Good stuff to know if I'm ever on Jeopardy, though.

ben plays the oud

2007-09-05T16:41:00.001+03:00

Roommate Ben is back! He was in India for the entire month of August, but finally returned last night. I missed him like whoa.

politically incorrect fun with scarves

2007-09-04T09:23:00.000+03:00

Roommate Max is back! He was in the states for the entire month of August, but finally returned last night. I missed him like whoa.

a snickerdoodle of sorts

2007-09-03T10:38:00.003+03:00

There are some things that you can't get or are hard to find in Cairo, like Snickers Ice Cream Bars. As its incredibly hot in Egypt right now, I've really been craving them. Mmmm.

knick knacks

2007-09-02T09:38:00.000+03:00

Egyptian cabbies tend to decorate the dashboards of their taxis with crazy stuff. This is by far my favorite. Just to give you a better sense of the creepiness, the doll's dress covers the entire dash... I fear it may have formed a symbiotic relationship with the car and one day will engulf the entire thing. Also, the doll's eyes move, but they mostly just stare at the person in the passenger seat. Creepy.

inaugural post

2007-09-01T10:05:00.000+03:00

Ok, I know I said that I would start this blog months ago, but better late than never, no? The goal is to post something every day... most posts will probably end up being pictures, but there’ll be the occasional humorous anecdote or rant, and maybe even a few doodles here and there. I can't promise it'll be interesting, but I'll try my best. Yayaya!