predator vs prey.

Every so often it happens that we become stir crazy..this is not too common of an occurance, but it does happen. As was the case this past weekend.
To celebrate our cabin fever we decided to rejoice in a true hill billy/hick fashion.. by shooting crap.

Except here, our access to guns is quite limited so we had to settle for the next best thing: sling shots. Figuring that sling shots would be easy to come by, given the fact that every guard at school carries one, we set out the night before planning to speed into the bazaar, pick up the necessary weapons and be home within an hour. This did not happen. Nan and I spent hours walking from shop to shop asking for a slingshot..but due to the language barrier, we had to mime the action: Nan playing the role of the human and me the monkey.

After striking out far too many times and being told to check the shop four stores down just one too many times, we were ready to admit defeat. sulking off to one final shope, I decided, well, what do I have to lose and asked a tailor wearing the thickest glasses I have ever seen, if he might by chance have sling shot access. and oh did we strike gold.
we also had the good fortune to run across a few very creepy dolls and prizes; which, contrary to popular belief, we did not mangle ourselves..

The epic morning begins and this is what I see after first stumbling out of bed.
no, it had not snowed the night before..

(for those of you who are slow to understand, it is mold)

Upon confronting Nan about how disgusting this is and how I cannot begin to fathom how we live breathing in such appalling fumes, she responds with 'oh yea, I saw that last week'

WHAT!
Who knows how long that basket has been festering in the corner of our bookshelf, and we (mainly Nan) could have taken preventative measures for the sake of our health, but that would have made far too much sense. I think that two solidly thick inches of petrified mold can easily be added to the reasons why we will never be real grown ups.
Since this discovery I have noticed a new flemy sound each time I exhale. My subconscious is beginning to mess with my consciousness, resulting in a constant allergic reaction to everything and particularly labored breathing at all times.
But that is neither her nor there. Back to the story.

Nan and I spent an amiable Saturday morning alternating between putting absurd pictures of our friends on plastic bottles of various sizes, practicing and mastering our sling shot aims, completing a strenuous course of wrist stretches, and unloading household items, namely clothes, from large plastic bags (if monsoon decides to pick back up, we definitely are SOL)

disclaimer: practice doesn't always make perfect.

Realizing that drinking and slingshooting is potentially dangerous, we established many zones, rules, as well as the right to confiscate. Fortunately, we did not have to enforce any of the like. In fact, as far as I know, there were no major injuries, just a few hurt feelings about skill level and lack thereof...


The party was a sure SHOT at a ROCKing time, that is for sure. While our porch has now become a gravel path filled inch by inch with small rocks and we have make shift scarecrows of our friends hanging from the clothesline, it was well worth it...perhaps we can leave the 'decorations' up in honor of halloween?.
Consequently, this morning, when I was walking up to school and had my normal run in with the savage beasts I did not cower away and back down the mountain as usual, instead, I pulled out my sling shot with pride, took aim, and by the time I had pulled with rubber back, the monkeys had vanished. Instant confidence.
I wonder if this is how all hillbilly's feel about their shooting skills.....?

amalgamation.

Here I am standing next to the water filter waiting for my nalogene to be filled (what I like to call 'making water') and I can hear Nan upstairs filling the bucket, also known as our laundry machine. It is times like these when I become, for one quick minute, aware of how many things I think are normal when in regards to the 'real' world (America) they are absolutely absurd.

It seems this monsoon season our house has been host to wildlife after wildlife (not including the mold growing on the walls). The most recent installment has been mice. As in numerous. At first I was sure I was simply hallucinating again, seeing little black blurbs running around the periamter of the room testing my geometric ability of shapes. When Nan finally mentioned that she thought she had seen a mouse, I became a bit more certain it had to be the truth..either that or we both were going a bit insane..
One night I went into the kitchen to make a cup of tea. I turned the light on and saw the devil eating our precious cheese on the floor. This solved it; yes, mice were a definite problem. And what did I do? In true Emily Shriver fashion, I pretended it never happend.
Flash forward two weeks. The house begins to smell a bit and occasional squeaks are heard from behind the fridge. One night Saroj tells me that she tried for an hour to catch the mouse so that she could "beat it" and take care of the problem but that it was just too fast for her so we needed to go and buy poision.
Now this just seemed too cruel so instead we set up one rocking watery death trap, using the laundry bucket, our infamous ax, a few sheets of paper and bits of quiche, positive that no one in their right mind, mice included, would be able to resist the temptation of quality quiche.

night one: no luck
night two: again, no luck..we begin to forget about the trap even though in order to leave the house we have to step over it
night three: don't bother to check
night four: have an extreme night out, continue the party back at our house, moving the trap to the corner to avoid knocking over.
morning five: hungover and cleaning up the living room I discover not one but two VERY dead mice in the bucket. meaning they had definitely been in the bucket the night before and who knows how long before that.
(note: this is the bucket that nan is using to do her laundry in this very moment...)
Our house is not only host to mice, we also have a large collection of dust everywhere. After bribing a fellow English teacher to let us use his vacuum cleaner, with the agreement that I pick it up and return it, I went on a full out cleaning RAMPAGE. Nothing got in my way and aside from the frequent power outages and uncooperative short cord, I was able to feel pretty satisfied with my work.
Then it came time to return it.
Adam lives UP the mountain from me and the path there is not a nice paved walkway; it is makeshift stairs carved into dirt. This was a bit of a problem. Think of the movie 'Once' and the scene when Marketa rolls her vacuum down the street to be fixed, looking charming and collected all the while.. in fact it is almost quixotic.
This was not the case here.
With the help of my neighbors we laboriously lugged the awkwardly shaped beast of a machine up the hundreds of steps, traversed through a recent land slide, narrowly steered our way through Indian traffic, fended off the wildlife and reached the destination completely dripping in sweat. But oh was it worth it.
I recently had my first opportunity to experience professional development Indian style. Four other members of the English department and I headed down to Dehradun for a "grammar without tears" 6 hour session. This was quite an interesting experience to say the least...being the only white people in the place we definitely got our fair share of attention and a lot of candy. One of the activities was to write a poem structured in about the level of a fourth grader. While everyone else wrote about how wonderful and academically stimulating their schools are, I wrote about Harry Potter and was asked to share. While my poem was a complete piece of crap and ridiculously pathetic, it received enthused applause and a Kitkat.. I don't think I need to say anymore..

(just to clarify: the white girl is with me)

Last week Woodstock had its annual Cross Country day which translates to every single student is required to run and if they do it in an almost impossible time, they receive points for their house. Yes, houses, like in Harry Potter (sorry for the double reference) except rather than being named after heroic figures, our houses are named after birds: Merlins, Eagles, and Condors. While it was not the ideal way for me to spend an afternoon, it was quite amusing to watch majority of the students struggle their way through the race, motivated by the dinner of junk food (tuck) they would be able to indulge in upon completion.

Sometimes the race doubled as an obstacle course..

Students re-consuming all the calories just burned

Brown ferns are the sign that monsoon is close to an end. Every morning Nan and I fool ourselves into thinking we see these and that surely, tomorrow will be the last day of monsoon. We have been fooled over and over again, but today the sun came out for four straight hours. I took full advantage of the opportunity and brought out all of my nastiest mold ridden items to try and dry them even the tiniest bit. Hopefully this soon becomes a daily occurrence.

Note: I apologize for the lack of consistency or any underlying theme in this blog, this is what happens when I try to write after drinking.

quandary quelled.

A few weeks ago during tea break i accidentally found myself in a conversation about a recent email sent out from the hanifl outdoor center about the "wilderness first aid course" which would be available the first weekend of September. Living in Mussoorie, I often find myself faced with various opportunities for weekends and from time to time it becomes instinctual to pass them by. I am a bit ashamed to admit that I was peer pressured into this occasion, figuring that well, I had nothing better to do with my weekend.
Come last Friday, i was geared up and ready to go...sort of. I had a few doubts about spending 20 hours of my weekend in class, it is highly probable that I could have compiled a list of at least 36 things I could have found to do with my time one of which involves a rigorous training schedule with my wrist rocket and monkey targets. Regardless, I sucked up my apprehension and went to the first night, figuring I always could not show up the next morning if it was that horrible of a time.
I had never paid attention to the fact that when it comes to first aid, my extent of knowledge (not including babysitter's first aid when I was 12) is limited to lifeguarding, dealing with drunks who have injured themselves or passed out, and putting bandaids over wounds. In fact, when I really start to think about it, I only become utterly confused as to why anyone ever lets me do dangerous things with students...especially treks in the himalaya...
Up until now, if I ever was to find myself in a life threatening situation, be it me or a stranger, I would have absolutely NO idea what to do. It is likely that my first instinct would be to either a. cry in the corner or b. run in circles breathing hard. Or maybe I would drop into savasana (corpse) pose as shown below:
Needless to say, the education provided was one that I was more than grateful to gather. I now feel quite confident; well at least competent, in my outdoor survival skills and it is invigorating to realize that I will be able to aid in times of probable chaos. The course was taught through the Wilderness Medical Institute of the National Outdoor Leadership School and our teachers definitely knew what they were talking about. The curriculum seemed to span all over the board, everything from what to do in a lightening storm to properly popping back in dislocations, what to do in case you are camping with idiots who hit you in the head with rocks, how to splint a broken bone with just a few bandannas and sticks, methods for overcoming hypothermia and I could go on for days. It was one of the most informative, jam packed and entertaining weekends I have had in quite a while.




Long story short: I passed the class and am now certified in the arts of both CPR and Wilderness First Aid along with 24 of my fellow staff members.