Our House, in the Middle of the Street

After seven weeks of living out of my suitcase in a two-room guest house with four other people, I finally moved into a house with my roommate, Priya.  We are living in the same village, Kadod, but now we are in the bazaar, in the middle of the main street.  Word in the village says we are in the coolest section of the bazaar.  We have super-friendly neighbours, everything we need is within a minute’s walk and our house is comfortable, and quirky.

On moving day, our neighbours came over to welcome us and since then, they walk in whenever they please.  Thankfully, I was prepared for no privacy in my first seven weeks.  And we are fortunate to have a neighbour who sells every kind of candy in the whole village.  There are probably one hundred different penny candies to choose from and I have yet to try them all.  Sometimes, when I stop by her shop to say hello, she lets me try one or five of the new candies, so needless to say she’s my favourite neighbour!  And the other night, when our new kitten ran away, our whole street formed a search party to find her.  This was more than generous since most people here regard cats as no more important than pigeons.  Also, the women around have been my saviours when it comes to wrapping my sari.  The official dress of Indian women is extremely complicated and every time I try to dress myself, it falls off me immediately, which would create quite the scene at school if it weren’t for my women neighbours.

Our neighbour's swing! The best swing in the whole village

The family living in the other half of the duplex is also very kind.  They have the best swing in the whole village and let us use it freely.  And the sights we see from the front porch! In a given twenty minutes, a herd of cows will pass by, a couple goats will attempt to walk up our stairs and into our house, two chukras will almost collide because our street isn’t wide enough for both to pass and no drive concedes to the other, and between thirty and fifty villagers will stop to say hello.

A couple days after we moved in, we were busy organizing and decorating, when a familiar melody began getting closer and louder to us.  My first thought was, “An ice cream truck! This really is the best house ever!”  I grabbed a few rupees and ran out to the porch, excited for a cold scoop of mango chocolate chip ice cream.  When the truck reached our house, it stopped.  There was a big cow painted on the brightly coloured truck.  The driver got out and sat on the edge of our porch.  I peered towards the back of the truck and realized it was open.  Inside, there was not a hint of ice cream.  Rather, it was a cow painted pink.  And instead of a tail, there was a dangling and lightly swinging fifth leg. My mouth hung open in awe of this 5-legged animal.  Priya came outside and explained that when a deformed animal is born, it’s a sign from the Hindu gods and the owner will showcase it and accept donations, which will bring the donor good luck.  So,, when I snapped out of my daze, I dropped my five rupees in the man’s basket and went back inside with a picture of extremely strange cow forever etched in my brain.

With our house, we received the best cook in the village.  Since we are quite busy with work, and because cooking is a lengthy process, we decided to hire someone to prepare a couple of our daily meals.  Thanks to our friend Vilmalbhai, we found Auntie, the best recommended chef in Kadod.  She can prepare almost anything you ask for, including....chicken!  She calls us her American children and basically force-feeds us at each meal because she’s so worried we aren’t eating enough.

Me in my first official Indian sari

After a week, our house began to show its true colours.  One night, the power went out as it often does.  It usually comes back within fifteen or twenty minutes, but this time it seemed to last much longer.  After an hour of sitting in the dark, sweating, we went out on the porch to catch a breeze.  We expected our neighbours to be outside, too, but instead no one was out, and every house was lit up.  It turned out that only we had lost power.  We talked to our next door neighbours and immediately all the husbands in our area rushed over to examine the situation and fix the problem.  Within a half hour, thanks to our gracious neighbours our electricity came back. Back inside, Priya went to shower and a few seconds later, she screamed.  I ran outside (our shower is in the back of our house) to see what happened and she explained that when she touched the wall in the shower, she was shocked.  While our neighbours fixed our electricity, they may have mixed wires and it resulted in an electrical current throughout our house.  Any part of our wall that contained metal was sensitive.   It took two days to solve the excess electricity running through our house.   And now our outlets and switches are a little mismatched.

Other than the power problem, speaking of, it just went out again, our house is great.  We always have visitors and friends stopping by to chat or play cards or listen to music.  When it rains, the house gets dark and cool and we can cozy up on the couch and read a book. I am looking forward to practicing my cooking and preparing some Indian feasts for our new friends and neighbours.