Last day at work and incredibly bored

Cathy--bikes are motorbikes..sorry.

It is officially monsoon season. It rained yesterday on and off, and it was raining at 5, which meant hellish traffic getting back up to McLeod and also several death scares. After work we went with Tenkyi, her cousin, and like 18 of her cousin's friends to Hotel Tibet, my least favorite restaurant here. The food was pretty good. Then we walked her cousin's friends back down to Ghangyi, which was also marked by several death scares. Me and Dickyi went to the Jungle Hut, which is this cool restaurant by Last Chance that is on a cliff's edge. Really good pakoras. Unfortunately we were harrassed by Punjabi tourists, who wanted to take our "snap" and subsequently got into a physical fight in the restaurant. It was kind of scary, since we were the only other people in the restaurant, but kind of interesting. We got home at 10 but it felt like 3 am. I had to do some work on my report, so I settled down with it in bed and fell asleep in like two minutes. We set the alarm for 6:15 because we wanted to go for Koras this morning before work. at 6:15, it was absolutely pouring so we went back to bed.

When it rains here, there's no way to describe how gross it makes me feel. Everything feels damp. The clothes you hung don't dry properly, your skin always feels moist, everything is just wet, wet, wet and sticky. Shudder.

This morning I finished my report and handed it in. I hope it is not a piece of crap, which I kind of feel like it is. I got permission to go to the library so I went and poked around the reading rooms and the museum. In the museum, there was a group of girls from Tulane. Tourists always look at me twice because I look Tibetan but I dress Western and if I'm with Dickyi or other Tibetans they're even more confused. These girls cracked me up. They kind of poked around the museum a little bit, not really looking at anything in particular, and then stood in a huddle talking about how long their mothers took in labor with them and childbirth in general. Unusual. At lunch I met up with Tenam and he took me to go see his office, which he shares with this white lady who is working here temporarily. They're both contract workers for the library. Tenam just finished proofreading this long book about I don't even know what. I was annoyed to have to go back to work because I obviously have nothing to do, but I have to wait for my letter from the director.

Today we're going to go buy a painting of a mandala for my dad and then who knows, maybe Dharamcode. Tomorrow we will leave EARLY for bir, chandigar, and now we're going to this one other place where Dickyi's grandad live and khewang is from. Sunday we'll leave for Delhi and then back to NY.