Quill-a-polly-om
It seems that in all of our adventures, we have failed to paint a picture of where we're living! The hut that is in the previously posted photo has a thatched roof (yes, we can stand up inside), a bedroom, living room, and bathroom. We have electricity that works 75% of the time (we're having a good week), a mosquito net, and (cold) running water. These days we are both very thankful to have a Western-style toilet and access to toilet paper at the grocery.We live in a gated Auroville community called Aspiration; there about 50 people here and a handful of those are guests also. The rest are permanent residents and families from India, Israel, France, Siberia, Japan.... The residents take turns preparing meals for the community and we all eat together in a central building within the commune. Lunch and dinner typically consist of white rice with spicy vegetable sauce, side dishes with okra or yams and rice, and raw vegetable salads. There are pompadoms too, if we're lucky.
Aspiration is down the road from Auroville proper and more or less within the Tamil village of Kuillapallayam. Around the corner is the Auroville grocery store and the village well.
Kuillapallayam is more prosperous than many of the villages we saw from the train -those shantys are made of garbage and many people don't have homes at all. The houses here are mud and thatch (like ours) and are very close together. They are usually just one room with a tinnai (porch) and most do not have electricity; the village shares a common source of running water.
The post office reminds me of something from a movie about the Alamo: a mud plastered building covered in the remants of old flyers and posters; the single room has a concrete floor, one window and a desk. They weigh the letters with a manual scale and little counterweights. The postmaster hands us stamps from a tatty old book and gives us a gray, squishy bag of goo. We have to stick our fingers in it and spread the glue onto the stamps ourselves, which is very traumatic for Travis.
The paved road is not far, leading to Auroville in one direction and to the beach in the other. There's always lots of traffic, especially at rush our, when school girls on bicycles have to battle it out with the goats, dogs, geese, oxen, rickshaws and motorbikes. The street is lined with restaurants, handicraft boutiques, woodworking shops, and open stalls selling clothing, candy and drinks, fruit, and phone/internet services.
Yesterday was a festival for a Hindu god, so everything was decorated for the puja. The taxis had big palm leaves and flower garlands on their hoods and there were colorful paper streamers everywhere. It is also common practice to draw pretty patterns on the ground or concrete at the entrance to homes or businesses. They are outlined in white rice powder and sometimes colored with bright pinks, yellows, oranges and greens.
Coincidentally, yesterday also seems to have marked the beginning of the monsoon. It has been raining in varying degrees for nearly 24 hours. I think I'm going to get used to being very wet and muddy!
posted by Lauren and Travis @ 1:16 PM
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