When Indians want to say you look pretty or that they like
something they will often use the word “super”.
“Oh you look so super!”
“Your new saree is super!”
“Your earrings are super!”
“This food is super!”
EVERYTHING is super.
Ironically I hadn’t learned this when I nicknamed that nice
man at the chainlink fence colony “Superstar”. I guess I’m more naturally
Indian then I realize. SUPER!
Despite all the things that are super about this experience,
one not so super thing happened yesterday—err more yesternight actually. We
have had some rainstorms lately but nothing that has been a big deal. I was up
at 2:00 AM the other night (if I get up in the night it is usually always at
2:00 AM-that's not really super either) and there was a storm a brewing. It was
crazy because I saw a lot of lightening but heard no thunder-or any other noise
for that matter. It was pretty eerie, but I just did my thing and went back to
bed. Apparently at 2:30 all hell broke loose outside-but I literally slept
right through it, every last part of it. Good thing a quick evacuation wasn’t
necessary huh? This superstorm caused a lot of flooding on campus as well as
the death of our WIFI tower. It blew off the roof of the school and landed in
bent but somewhat together pieces in the school yard. Regardless of how viable
or fixable it appeared, it quiet literally bit the dust and now ceases to exist.
NOT SUPER. And it isn’t just not super
because I am an American who doesn’t want to do without, it is not super out of
necessity. A good chunk of my job entails communicating between the US office
and the Indian Office via the internet. So yeah. This really is not super.
We were all trying to be positive and talk about how even
though the storm killed our WIFI tower, it did cool our temperatures for the
day. If I am completely honest it was still crazy hot, but it wasn’t as bad as
before the storm. Then came dinner and the plague of bugs. Turns out the bugs
enjoy the cooler temperature just as much as we do so they were EVERYWHERE. It
was one of the funniest dinners I have even attended because we were literally
being dive bombed by all kinds of different winged things. There were random
shrieks of terror followed by frantic hand waving and hitting happening all
over the place. Note to self: it may be better to skip dinner then deal with
the plethora of dive bombing bugs. When
my roomies and I got back to our room there were bugs all over. Apparently
there was a small crack in one of the windows and we have a light right above
that window--so from 7:30 until 10 or 10:30 we were massacring bugs. These
picture do not do it justice because we were had already cleaned up most of
them, but it gives you a little bit of an idea. Nasty huh.
