Holidays have taken a somewhat prominent role on my blog. I feel that I should give Easter the same treatment as Thanksgiving and Christmas, despite it being completely and totally uneventful. If you’re wondering what I did on my Easter Sunday, well – you’re reading it.
It has been quite like any other Sunday. As usual, I’m pretty exhausted from the work week – recall that it is 6 days long – so I slept in this morning after an evening of watching movies and decorating eggs.
My limited search for Easter Egg dye yielded no results, which led me to think of some natural things from around the house that I could use. Lauren’s friend Sabrina went to art school, and I remembered her telling me that turmeric could be used for dying clothing. I thought that maybe other bright-colored spices (like chili) could be used for dying things as well. I was wrong. My test eggs (one each in a turmeric/chili and water mixture) turned out shades of brown, and really just looked like dirty eggs.
I moved on to a different strategy; painting them with acrylic paint. Hopefully the egg shells don’t absorb anything. This method worked out quite well, and I made it through about 6 eggs before I lost interest/ran out of ideas for patterns.
For breakfast this morning, I of course had hard boiled eggs and toast. Then I set off to read and have a cup of coffee at the local coffee shop. As is typical when I am feeling like I am missing out on something (in this case family), I decided to splurge, and bought a chocolate chip muffin to go with my iced coffee. After reading, I did a crossword puzzle – thanks grandma for sending that book out here – and actually finished the whole thing. Okay, okay, the crossword was an easy level (maybe not even a Monday in the New York Times), but it still felt good.
Next, I set off to do a little window shopping at this new mall that popped up not far from my house. As an aside, malls in India are virtually identical to malls in the U.S. It’s kind of surreal. Then, I grabbed some food-court Chinese food – again eerily like its counterpart in the U.S. – and did my weekly grocery shopping.
On the way back to my apartment I stopped at my favorite juice stall. I had a fresh orange juice and spent a few minutes talking with the manager. Despite being Christian, he had to go to work (he works 7 days a week). Many of the AIF Fellows have commented on how a lot of their most meaningful relationships in India are with people that they buy things from. I would say that the same applies for me. In fact, I intentionally and unnecessarily spread my shopping out among different vendors, just so that I can talk with more of people. (I buy Cokes from one vendor, cookies from another, vegetables from another, etc.) So I guess in a way I stopped at the juice man equally because I was thirsty, and because it was Easter and it is nice to see your friends on holidays and wish them well.
After the juice man, I came home and put the paint back to use, only this time on paper. It feels nice to exercise the creative side of my brain, plus it gave me something to do before calling my family later this evening.
I always miss my family when I am away from them, but the feeling is certainly stronger on holidays, their birthdays, etc. It wont be easy leaving India in a few months, but it will certainly be utterly amazing to be with my family, hopefully this time for an extended period.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment