I'm stuffed

I started the day by deciding that I needed to do a bit of cleaning up after the builders.  I may regret my efforts as they haven't finished yet and will be back soon to continue making a mess.  However, there is a small balcony to the side of the house which has a small drain outlet at one end.  Not so long ago, that drain got blocked by builders rubble, the monsoon rain flooded the balcony and water poured into the house, flooding the floor with several inches of water.  The monsoon has slowed right down but there is still the odd downpour and I decided to avoid the risk of a repetition of the flood and cleared the rubbish off the balcony and cleaned the mortar off the windows, shutters and grilles.  I got filthy and sweaty and wore out my broom.  I also cleaned out the fridge which was starting to look a bit fluffy around the seal and found a cabbage rotting inside a bag at the back.  I made a passing cow very happy when I chucked her the cabbage.

Mike called me mid-morning and asked if I wanted to go into town.  I jumped at the opportunity as I'd had enough of cleaning for one day.  We both had shopping lists of things we wanted to get for our houses to try to turn them into something a bit more like homes.  It is very sad when we think about how excited we are by our purchases.  I was thrilled to find that there is a shop in Koraput that sells proper full-size sheets.  Most of the sheets here seem to be more like drapes, not big enough to tuck in at the ends and sides so they get all wrinkled up underneath while you are in bed.  Not so comfy.  Just look at what I managed to buy today:

Aren't they lovely?  A little different to the plain white or cream sheets I have on my bed at home but they are big enough to stretch across the whole bed and tuck in at the sides!

 My next exciting find was a plate rack so that I can get the washing up off the worktop and somewhere on the floor out of the way.  We are blessed with a worktop that drains away from the sink so when I leave washing-up on the side the water runs off to the side and sits in a puddle in the corner.  Even more exciting than that was a new broom to replace the one that I've worn out on the builders rubble.  I cannot find a Western style broom with a decent brush-head and long handle, all that I have found here so far are bunches of twigs or seed heads or rushes.  I've found the rush most effective, the seed heads just leave seeds behind, the twigs miss half the dirt and send bits flying everywhere but the rush ones are OK.  Look at this:

My lovely new broom

Sadly I ended up having to buy 2 of these brooms as the first one disappeared from the pole straps on the side of my rucksack - possibly stolen by a passing cow who took a fancy to it.  Fortunately these things only cost 7 rupees each and they are fully biodegradable so I just made the vendor very happy to have sold 2 to me in one day.

The best find of the day though was the egg-boxes.  Someone asked me after my last blog posting about how easy it is to get eggs here.  They are easy to find, less easy to carry home as they are put into bags to bring back.  But today we found egg boxes - wonderful!

So Koraput really does have egg boxes

Mike was also very pleased to find  the egg boxes and proceeded to make use of it when he bought more eggs.  It was a toss up whether this was his best purchase of the day or the nails he bought.  Don't we live exciting lives here in Koraput?

We finished the morning by a very nice and very large lunch at a hotel in town, courtesy of Mike.  We chose tandoori chicken and chicken biryani to share.  All the chicken's we'd seen here in Koraput have been pretty small and weedy so we decided to go for a whole chicken for us to share.  Bad idea, there was more meat there than I'd normally eat in a week.  I was pretty full as we staggered back up the hill home with our loot.

On my return I had a shower and washed my clothes and new sheets.  While pegging them out on the line, my neighbours called out to me and asked me to come into their house to talk to them.  This was the first time I'd managed to say more than a brief namaskar to them.  Today I was introduced to them all and was made very welcome in their home.  Bhaskar is a linguist who speaks around 15 languages, he's offered to help me learn Oriya with the assistance of his niece who also lives there along with her daughter and various other family members.  I ended up staying there for about 4 hours and they insisted that I ate dinner.  More chicken masala, with egg noodles, rice and dhal.  Now I am so stuffed I can hardly move.   I couldn't refuse the offer of a meal as it would have been considered very rude and bad manners, eating is a very important part of the culture here and it's not good to leave food on your plate.  People are always asking me if I have eaten, did I cook it and what have I eaten.  I guess the concern and interest is triggered by the malnutrition and starvation that is all too common here.  I won't need to eat again for another week!