6 Haveli

6 Haveli or Haveli 6, your choice, is my address here on campus. It sounds pretty upper-class, if you ask me. Any address with numbers under 10 strikes me that way, like "Air Force One." And there are lots of important things going on here. For example, I've been keeping an eye on a crow's nest outside my window, and I think something important is happening today. Look. See how big the baby crows are? And notice the presence of a second adult crow. Wait - do father crows eat the babies? Or is that some other species? Maybe it's an aunt visiting. Oh, you can't see anything? Let's try a closer view:
Now do you see the nest? OK, it's a bit difficult to see through the branches, but it's really there. I'm getting teary-eyed just thinking about the babies leaving the nest. Now I'll just have to watch the kids leaving Korean school on Saturdays instead (note background). I saw one kid trudging up the steps dutifully this AM and asked him where he was going, and he told me, resignedly and yet not in a complaining tone, "korean school." I have yet to hear a Korean student complain in class, though they DO speak in Korean to each other. Here's what I assume they're saying:

"Wow, another great lesson."
"Isn't that Ms. Guerin amazing?"
"I can't wait to do the homework!"

On Friday I told some Korean students in one class, two boys who skipped phy ed one day to do their homework for my class (way to go, kids!) and, of course, got in trouble and implicated me in the whole scheme, that I had learned Korean and could understand everything they were saying. Without a moment's pause to wonder how on earth that could be true, they said, "Do you understand bad words?" That kind of shot my theory about the above dialogue. Now I imagine those uncomplaining students, respectfully bowing to me even, saying the following to each other:

"What the hell? Homework again?"
"That f#$@ing b#%@^%!"
"I don't care what my mother says! No way am I going to bow to her again."
"You'd better, because otherwise it's double hours of Korean school homework for disrespecting a teacher."
"Damn!"
(In English): "Oh yes, Ms. . . . (no one here can pronounce my name, apparently, at this international school). Thank you, Ms. . . . . .. (bowing).

OK, that's way off topic. This blog post is supposed to be about my domestic life.
This week my apartment was painted and the furniture upholstered. It turns out that all of the subtle variations in paint colors turned out to look . . . .blue. Everything is blue except the living room walls. The furniture is shades of blue, too, just in case the walls weren't enough. And the curtains that came with the apartment are also (guess this one) blue.
Here's the before picture (on the right): This is cheating a bit, though, because there's a borrowed rug there that I didn't actually buy.





But here's the new look:

There IS a difference, isn't there? And it's better, isn't it? ISN'T IT? The important thing, though, is that my housekeeper thinks the new look is "beautiful," which hopefully means that she will feel happy and inspired to make even more lassis to put into the refrigerator. Okay, continuing the tour, let's move to the kitchen. I have entered the age of technology here - high-tech, with a new microwave (so finally I can eat my meals warm, since I've been too lazy to actually take out a pan and heat them up) - and low-tech, with the pressure cooker that seems to be an essential for Indian cooks (to cook chickpeas and other beans).
Whoa, a little blurry there. I get trembly when I'm too close to food, I guess. Also in the kitchen, speaking of low tech, is the broom that Indian housekeepers here seem to prefer to the kinds of brooms we see as "modern:"
Yes, it's a bunch of straw tied to a stick, but all I can say is that the new broom I bought sits, lonely, next to the refrigerator while this beauty gets all of the attention.
Continuing the kitchen tour, here are a couple of pictures of the inside of my refrigerator (and by the way, I DARE any reader to take such revealing photos of his or her own frig innards).
Here is the drawer-ful of organic vegetables that I paid approximately $10 for - at least I feel like I'm throwing money away to a good cause. How many of you can identify more than two vegetables in this picture? Um, there are a couple of green peppers, one long thing that looks like squash, and a bunch of small tuberous things that my housekeeper (whom I will henceforth call Triza, since that's her name - she's not really "mine") tells me are "not potatoes but like potatoes." Whatever.
So here's the contents of my refrigerator door. Those four bottles of beer and 5 eggs (out of the original 6) were in my refrigerator (in my first apartment) when I arrived on July 21st. How long do eggs last, anyway? And the beer? You can see that I'm a heavy drinker. Alternatively, you can see that I never have anyone over.
But I do drink little juice boxes like the one here, on my way to work in the morning as I struggle to drink more liquid than my sweat glands are producing from the run an hour earlier.
Let's head out to the patio now, as we conclude this much-anticipated tour of the redecorated apartment, my home.
Here are more of my bird friends. I have my crow's nest friends outside the back window, and the pigeons on the front balcony. I think they're talking to me in this picture. Or maybe to each other. In fact, maybe they're speaking in Korean . . . .