Friday, October 31, 2008

Amongst the Unwashed

I wrote this several days ago, before several new plagues were upon us. Tania got some flu-like demon virus, and Kamran's parisitic skin plague (which may or may not be scabies) spread. Dad was in charge of running the family while Mom slept, so I've been moving cribs hither and dither to juggle babies, smearing ointment over crying babies, and trying to keep people from waking Tania up. I will update things later today after getting this posted and spending some me time today. Tania is feeling better and took the kids to her Aunt's to give me the day off. This post is only 3-4 days old but seems ancient.
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The last week featured a bunch of rough patches and strained, poor parenting from yours truly. The boys were sick for three days after immunizations and Maya was having issues that, unfortunately, could have been avoided if I had my wits. A couple nights back, we were in bed sometime after 9 PM, she was watching her DVD player, basically refusing to sleep, and being louder than I wanted her to be. After refusing to quiet down, I took her DVD player, turned it off, looked up, and got smacked in the face. There was yelling, fear, and crying. I can only say “we don’t hit in this family, ever” using the velvet vocal tones of a psychologist so many times before it gets ugly. Luckily, this was a turning point. I made a conscious refusal not to be in those sorts of confrontations anymore, and she’s made an unconscious decision not to make her Dad a terrifying, crazy, screaming freak. I put her back on her old, regular bedtime schedule of dinner, bath, story, sleep, and we have resumed our father-daughter love fest. She remains my favorite person, and I feel for her situation. She misses everything familiar to her and chafes against the new restraints.

Today, I am in a café called “Cuppa Coffee Club.” Last week, Pial and I went on a quest to find me a place to work while Maya is in school. Originally, that was supposed to be the American Club, a private, walled compound where Americans can lounge amongst the bougainvillea and drink liquor or coffee, swim, play tennis, and basketball, watch armed forces TV and generally act like bourgeois colonialists. All the place is missing is a lawn jockey and a vending machine that craps bibles and cans of mint julep. Last time we were here, I wanted to see the UM-Notre Dame game, so we went and joined. Unfortunately, they had a rule that a current member had to sponsor you in order to join. So, Tania and I went around begging people on the grounds, beseeching those to respect all that is holy: a need to eat pizza that tastes like pizza and celebrate the greatest college football rivalry of all time. Having been members, we thought joining would be simple; we could refer ourselves. However, they changed the rules, such that you now have to be sponsored by a member of the American diplomatic corp. Thus, we would have to go beg at the Embassy.

My feeling about this? F*** you. The only thing worse than an exclusive club is an exclusive club that won’t let you join. I can only guess that someone got in last time who didn’t believe in creationism, and one of the Bush appointees got pissed and made sure that if you didn’t graduate from Bob Jones University with a major in xenophobia that you wouldn’t get in. To make it worse, the apostate American Club member was probably a naturalized American, brown of skin, and fluent in Bengali. Heathen.

I can do without Starbucks coffee and the $80 membership fee. I’ll Empire-build elsewhere.

So, Pial and I went out and he took me to this place, a fancy café with an altogether different technique to keep out the riff-raff: they charge US prices for drinks. They’re doing a damn good job, too. The first time we came in, there were about four people here, most Westerners. The last two times, I’ve been the only customer. It’s been me and their staff of like five guys. Service, as you might expect is great. No one speaks much English, but they’re anxious and ready to misinterpret my every need. There’s air conditioning, internet, power plugs for laptops, fancy furniture, pleasant photography, and peace if not quiet. The only drawback is that someone here likes Euro-style dance club music, piped in via satellite. I’m much happier giving these guys my money, although it’s too bad Maya won’t get to go swimming while here.

There are now two Bengali couples in here. I just killed two mosquitos, both with an ugly splat of blood. (It is at this point that I must tell you how much I enjoyed life before Dengue Fever.) Now one of the guys is walking around with a bug zapper that looks exactly like a children’s tennis racquet. He swings it through the air, and I’m guessing anything that passes through dies a horrible death. I must have one, and I must wield it at lab meetings.

As for the adoption, it goes very well. I have a dream, a delicious dream, that tastes of tryptophan and involves a couch and the Lions losing to whomever. Our scheduled flight from here leaves on Nov 24th, and I plan, hope, and pray (inshallah) to be on that flight.

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