More about the Guest House

Ramesh picked me up late Friday morning. He got held up by something important. I felt that he was stretched too thin so I wasn’t too upset about all the down time I had in Mumbai waiting and sleeping at the guest house. I’m also surprised how accepting I am of the living situation as the one I was used to in California was personally far more favorable. I think a lot of it has to do with me hoping that things will be better in Bangalore, haha. Also I think things are just different here for better or worse depending on who’s perspective. For example they don’t think it’s a bad thing that they don’t have toilet paper, they just prefer using water.

I’m super grateful for Santosh, our thin, very dark skin inn keeper, who has a talent for cooking delicious non-spicy Indian food. When he’s not cooking or cleaning he’s in the living room watching Indian movies on TV. I wish he spoke English so I could see what’s on his mind and so I could tell him to stop feeding me so much! Haha.

The other two guys who are here are also nice. They seem like they are in their late or mid twenties. They greeted me the other evening when I sat down at the kitchen table for dinner. They were on their cellphones the whole time but occasionally they would mention some things to me. They were pilots in training and apparently they had spent some time (less than two years) in Texas so they understood how different everything was to me. I was unsurprised to wake up that night to find my room floor flooded. It was raining pretty hard so there must have been some sort of leak. I just picked up my wet bags from the ground and went back to sleep. I hope nothing was damaged. One just has to get used to the constant loud noises coming from the streets, surprises, bugs crawling around, things looking old, worn, and dirty... like the bathroom.