rough week
It has been almost five weeks that I've been in India now, and nothing so far has been as difficult as this week has been. Matthias has left Sambhavna, leaving me in this room completely alone. The isolation has left me my mind's eyes and ears wide open to the previously almost invisible and inaudible mefloquine nightmare lacing the backdrop of everything. I have an absolutely crushing amount of work to do and I'm beginning to feel far too much like Jack Nicholson in The Shining, except with torrents not of blood but diarrhea. Sanam toilet paper has blood dripping from its logo, though, of course. Yes, sanam, darling. It's good that I am still able to make myself laugh a little because I've really been in a completely humorless hell this week. Really, it's just very quickly become a waking nightmare.
Yes, I have a crushing amount of work. I've been working almost continuously from the time I wake up until past midnight, and there's just no way to get it all done. Once the sun sets there are so many mosquitoes and flies in my face it's hard to even type. And Bhopal's sole broadband internet service provider has decided to take its second 2-day vacation this week, making it very hard to do any research. It wouldn't be such a problem except that the march is leaving in less than 72 hours and they need this stuff, which is the equivalent of writing a 75-page, single-spaced paper on every aspect of the Bhopal disaster and its effects. Or at least collecting that much text and laying it out with photos and all that. I'm not anywhere near being done.
I have giardia. Positive diagnosis would involve taking several samples over a week or so and doing all kinds of tests in a lab, but who needs it. I have every symptom, a textbook example. Two weeks of diarrhea. Not just any diarrhea -- liquid steatorrhea. That's when you don't absorb lipids properly or at all and they all end up coming out in the toilet. I won't describe that in any more detail. I don't know why the parasite doesn't just eat it all, but I guess it only likes carbs and protein. There are a bunch of other symptoms, too, but I think I'll skip them for you. It should pass soon, and then there's a chance I will develop immunity.
I walked for a few miles tonight, down to the end of Hamidia Road and back, to try to reconnect to my situation and be able to get work done tonight. On my way back it was dark and I didn't get a single stare or "hello", which was just amazing for me. Almost like home. I am begging just to be ignored again, just for an hour, even. Is a compromise to be found anywhere? In New York, weeks could pass without a single person looking at my face, much less into my eyes. Here, though, it is impossible to hide if you are not Indian. And even if you are Indian, individual social/personal space is just a different game here. It basically doesn't exist. I'm realizing that it's really sort of an artificial concept to which we in places like New York falsely ascribe some sort of holy natural history.
Walking through Bhopal is very difficult by several things, one of which is the air. It's so thick with dust and smoke (more smoke than dust, by far) that tonight's walk, for instance, left me hoarse. I just cannot imagine being one of the many people who work along Hamidia or Berasia Roads all day, every day. It just hurts to think about -- that anyone would have to spend all their time breathing so much pollution. It's not like anything anywhere in the U.S., not even in the most polluted places. It's like being in a burning house. It hurts my eyes, it hurts my throat, it hurts my nostrils. They all burn. Everyone coughs. No amount of care and compensation could save your health if you had to spend your life in air like that. It's really sad. Cars and burning trash are really killing places like Bhopal. It's been the same everywhere I've seen, but worse in Bhopal. The smoke is suffocating. There is little to no municipal trash disposal system here so whatever doesn't get eaten by animals must be burned. Luckily, Sambhavna is set back far enough from Berasia Road that the air is much different here. And I spend almost all my time on the second floor, which gets more wind from places even farther away.
The weather is changing fast. The middle of the day now is extremely hot and I have to move very little and very slowly if I want to stay cool. The mosquitos are almost double what they were when I arrived. Lizards are everywhere. They are geckos, plump and delicate, a little bigger than the ones in Miami, and a very peaceful presence. I feel cooled just looking at them -- they are so still and their twisting bodies are so silent when they move. Last week an army of spiders emerged from some winter retreat. I don't like them as much as the geckos, but they can be pretty attractive, too. I respect their work. They sneak up on flies with more patience and stealth than a cat and jump surprising distances to kill them. I watched this today, the whole thing, in detail. I hate flies so much. The spiders worry me a little because they are absolutely everywhere and I'm sure it wouldn't be good to get bitten by one of these. But I have adopted a policy of respect and alliance, reciprocation of which is my aim. And the death of all flies. Go spiders. Katil makriyaa.
The mosquitoes have doubled in the time I've been here. Just going to the bathroom in the middle of the night means getting at least a dozen bites. We sleep under mosquito nets here, that's why I mention going to the bathroom. This is the place where the word mosquito is derived, actually. Our modern word mosquito comes from Spain, which got it from the Italian word 'moschetta,' which derives from the Latin word "musca," which comes from the Sanskrit word "mashka." India knows mosquitoes, and mosquitoes know India.
Yes, I have a crushing amount of work. I've been working almost continuously from the time I wake up until past midnight, and there's just no way to get it all done. Once the sun sets there are so many mosquitoes and flies in my face it's hard to even type. And Bhopal's sole broadband internet service provider has decided to take its second 2-day vacation this week, making it very hard to do any research. It wouldn't be such a problem except that the march is leaving in less than 72 hours and they need this stuff, which is the equivalent of writing a 75-page, single-spaced paper on every aspect of the Bhopal disaster and its effects. Or at least collecting that much text and laying it out with photos and all that. I'm not anywhere near being done.
I have giardia. Positive diagnosis would involve taking several samples over a week or so and doing all kinds of tests in a lab, but who needs it. I have every symptom, a textbook example. Two weeks of diarrhea. Not just any diarrhea -- liquid steatorrhea. That's when you don't absorb lipids properly or at all and they all end up coming out in the toilet. I won't describe that in any more detail. I don't know why the parasite doesn't just eat it all, but I guess it only likes carbs and protein. There are a bunch of other symptoms, too, but I think I'll skip them for you. It should pass soon, and then there's a chance I will develop immunity.
I walked for a few miles tonight, down to the end of Hamidia Road and back, to try to reconnect to my situation and be able to get work done tonight. On my way back it was dark and I didn't get a single stare or "hello", which was just amazing for me. Almost like home. I am begging just to be ignored again, just for an hour, even. Is a compromise to be found anywhere? In New York, weeks could pass without a single person looking at my face, much less into my eyes. Here, though, it is impossible to hide if you are not Indian. And even if you are Indian, individual social/personal space is just a different game here. It basically doesn't exist. I'm realizing that it's really sort of an artificial concept to which we in places like New York falsely ascribe some sort of holy natural history.
Walking through Bhopal is very difficult by several things, one of which is the air. It's so thick with dust and smoke (more smoke than dust, by far) that tonight's walk, for instance, left me hoarse. I just cannot imagine being one of the many people who work along Hamidia or Berasia Roads all day, every day. It just hurts to think about -- that anyone would have to spend all their time breathing so much pollution. It's not like anything anywhere in the U.S., not even in the most polluted places. It's like being in a burning house. It hurts my eyes, it hurts my throat, it hurts my nostrils. They all burn. Everyone coughs. No amount of care and compensation could save your health if you had to spend your life in air like that. It's really sad. Cars and burning trash are really killing places like Bhopal. It's been the same everywhere I've seen, but worse in Bhopal. The smoke is suffocating. There is little to no municipal trash disposal system here so whatever doesn't get eaten by animals must be burned. Luckily, Sambhavna is set back far enough from Berasia Road that the air is much different here. And I spend almost all my time on the second floor, which gets more wind from places even farther away.
The weather is changing fast. The middle of the day now is extremely hot and I have to move very little and very slowly if I want to stay cool. The mosquitos are almost double what they were when I arrived. Lizards are everywhere. They are geckos, plump and delicate, a little bigger than the ones in Miami, and a very peaceful presence. I feel cooled just looking at them -- they are so still and their twisting bodies are so silent when they move. Last week an army of spiders emerged from some winter retreat. I don't like them as much as the geckos, but they can be pretty attractive, too. I respect their work. They sneak up on flies with more patience and stealth than a cat and jump surprising distances to kill them. I watched this today, the whole thing, in detail. I hate flies so much. The spiders worry me a little because they are absolutely everywhere and I'm sure it wouldn't be good to get bitten by one of these. But I have adopted a policy of respect and alliance, reciprocation of which is my aim. And the death of all flies. Go spiders. Katil makriyaa.
The mosquitoes have doubled in the time I've been here. Just going to the bathroom in the middle of the night means getting at least a dozen bites. We sleep under mosquito nets here, that's why I mention going to the bathroom. This is the place where the word mosquito is derived, actually. Our modern word mosquito comes from Spain, which got it from the Italian word 'moschetta,' which derives from the Latin word "musca," which comes from the Sanskrit word "mashka." India knows mosquitoes, and mosquitoes know India.
posted by Michael M. at 7:56 AM
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